Studio Brief 04 Nuclear Power Research Why We Treat It With Suspicion OUGD403

The symbols connoting Nuclear power have become synonymous with deadly danger. They have been created with this in mind, the angular shapes relating to atomic structures we do not understand and the black and yellow colouring tying into old instincts for danger, as shown below.

The symbol above is almost like the skeleton of the first, as if the poisonousness of nuclear radiation has eroded and mutated the symbol creating a vicious high contrast version. This is not specific to nuclear threats but is rather the symbol for a biohazard, therefore very closely related to nuclear activity.

But where has this fear of nuclear power come from? Of course it is dangerous but how do we know this? Throughout history there have been occasions which brought this fact to the publics attention. The most famous of which is Chernobyl.

During the soviet occupation of the Ukraine the nuclear reactor in chernobyl suffered a melt down and showered the land for several miles around with highly reactive material. Ever since, this area has remained abandoned, a chilling testament to the danger of nuclear power.

In the area surrounding the plant the abandoned and decaying buildings have been decorated by graffiti, chilling in their social commentary and relation to context. This is a way that people have kept the horror of what happened there fresh in peoples minds and is a clear reason people dislike nuclear power, no matter how "clean" it is.

To my mind one of the reasons nuclear power has always had negative connotations is the treat the technology posses in the form of a weapon. During the cold war there was a constant threat, especially to the Americas, of a nuclear bomb. An image that is synonymous with this threat is shown below.

The fact that the best defense children had against these weapons were rickety wooden desks is horrible and testament to the fact that we were playing with technologies we could not (and possible still don't) fully understand or control. Desks in this situation would have been completely useless yet they are still hopelessly crouched, hiding and weak.