From Larry C.: Brings to mind Joey Skaggs’ Metamorphosis: Cockroach Cure hoax.
Communicating with the future: a cockroach DNA archive of the New York Times
by M. Scott Brauer
dvafoto.com
Oct 30, 2009
One of my favorite things to think about is the difficulty of communicating with humans generations from now, or even tens of thousands of years from now. An example: The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management overseeing Yucca Mountain, the proposed Nevada site for disposal of nuclear waste, has been working with artists to develop a warning system that would alert future visitors to the area of the dangers buried in the mountain. From the website, “The monumental challenge is to address how warnings can be coherently conveyed for thousands of years into the future when human society and languages could change radically.” The purpose of the warning sign is “to deter intentional or inadvertent human intrusion or interference at the site and to effectively communicate over the course of the next 10,000 years that the integrity of the site must not be compromised in any way in order to prevent the release of the radiation contained within.” It”™s an interesting visual challenge that must not rely on our own cultural biases. Here”™s one artist”™s response to the challenge, though perhaps it”™s too reliant on the 20th century “Radioactive Danger“ symbol. Continue reading “Roaches: A Race Above”