The documentary Containment (dir. Peter Galison) is a 2017 PBS documentary advertised as “part graphic novel, part observational essay” and discusses both the ethical dilemmas of housing nuclear waste in the current day and in ensuring that the waste will not be dug up by future generations. In addition to discussing the modern-day repercussions of nuclear waste storage, Containment is a study of how historians of science and science theorists can try to predict the future and adjust present standards and protocols accordingly.
The committee assembled to create the warnings for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant engaged in a cross-disciplinary project to determine potential far-future scenarios and try to establish a system of warnings and physical protections that would prevent a breach of the hazardous material. Nuclear semiotics projects such as this one combine psychological and behavioral research with scientific and linguistic study to design warning systems that can be understood across languages.
Overall, despite being a somewhat bleak warning about the human cost of nuclear energy and weapons production, the film has a distinctly hopeful note. Galison and Moss emphasize the fact that nuclear semiotics researchers care deeply about the potential dangers posed to far future generations, as well as the human factor involved in struggling with these long-term ethical questions.
The nuclear waste warnings initially designed for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant featured in the documentary and have recently become an internet meme, with the most prevalent form being a copypasta excerpted from the 1993 Sandia report. This copypasta is usually referred to as “This Is Not A Place of Honor.” Other forms of long-term nuclear waste warnings, such as the distinctive pictographic warning images, also sometimes appear in conjunction with the memed phrases. The “hostile architecture” shown prominently in the documentary Containment and suggested by the Sandia report also occasionally appears in social media spheres as either part of the nuclear waste warning meme or as a horror visual. According to knowyourmeme.com, “This is Not a Place of Honor” was most popular in the late 2010s, particularly on tumblr and on twitter.
Interestingly, this is technically an effective short-term way of retaining the information in the societal context– demonstrated by the fact that while the documentary was being set up, several members of the class referenced the meme. Obviously this doesn’t work in the long term, given the overall impermanence of digital data and most online memes, but it does bear some similarity to the amusement park/mascot idea explored in Containment as a way to memetically retain information about dangerous areas and how to handle them.
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