Technology Now: Ele Carpenter and Susan Schuppli discuss Nuclear Culture

Curator Ele Carpenter is in conversation with artist and writer Susan Schuppli discussing their shared interest in nuclear technology and culture. 

Over the last four years, Susan Schuppli has created a new series of works as part of the Nuclear Culture project curated by Ele Carpenter. The pair discuss Schuppli's new film Trace Evidence: A Nuclear Trilogy presented as part of the Perpetual Uncertainty exhibition at Bildmuseet, Umea, Sweden (2 October 2016 - 16 April 2017). In their discussion the pair draw on ideas of nuclear materiality as discussed in The Nuclear Culture Source Book, published by Black Dog Publishing in partnership with Bildmuseet  and Arts Catalyst.

The Nuclear Culture Source Book, edited by Ele Carpenter, brings together contemporary art practices investigating the nuclear anthropocene, nuclear sites and materiality, along with important questions of radiological inheritance, nuclear modernity and the philosophical concept of radiation as a hyperobject. The book features over 60 artists pages with contributions from: Gabrielle Hecht, Eiko Honda, Timothy Morton, Peter C van Wyck, Susan Schuppli, Jahnavi Phalkey, Victor Gama, Noi Sawaragi.

Ele Carpenter is a curator. Her Nuclear Culture curatorial research project is a partnership between The Arts Catalyst and Goldsmiths, University of London, where she is Senior Lecturer in MFA Curating and convenor of the Nuclear Culture Research Group. The Nuclear Culture Project involves field trips, commissioning new work and curating exhibitions, film screenings and roundtable discussions including: Perpetual Uncertainty Bildmuseet, Sweden (Oct 2016 – April 2017); Material Nuclear Culture KARST Gallery, Plymouth (June-Aug 2016); Actinium, S-Air, Sapporo (2014). Published essays include: ‘Shifting the Nuclear Imaginary: art and the flight from nuclear modernity’ In: Cold War Legacies, eds J. Beck, R. Bishop, Edinburgh University Press (2016); 'The Smoke of Nuclear Modernity drifts through the Anthropocene', In: Power in the Land, ed H. Grove-White, 2016.

Susan Schuppli is an artist and Senior Lecturer and Deputy Director of the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. Her practice examines media artefacts that emerge out of sites of contemporary conflict and state violence to ask questions about the ways in which media enable or limit the possibility of transformative politics. Her forthcoming book, Material Witness will be published by MIT Press.