The Forever Problem

Spikes Bursting Through Grid, view 1 (concept and art by Michael Brill).

I think the essence of thinking about communication challenges is stepping outside one’s own skin, embracing the illusion that one can see something from someone else’s point of view and adopting their mindset and values. I believe it is the creative person’s role to be flexible by accommodating the audience’s point of view.

But what if we know next to nothing about the audience? Can such an audience be communicated with at all?

This is the challenge of marking a WIPP (Waste Isolation Pilot Plant) site, a project also called the “10,000 year test” or the “forever problem.” This is an effort to warn future human beings about the presence of intensely toxic nuclear waste — very likely the most enduring human creation.

The site in question is near Las Vegas, set nearly half a mile underground, within caves designed to collapse within 1,000 years to seal the pollution in place. The waste will remain will remain toxic for 250 times that long.

Landscape of Thorns (concept by Michael Brill and art by Safdar Abidi).

The concept of communicating to people 10,000 in the future fascinates me – and not just because I’m envisioning it next to the ruins of Las Vegas.  Are we speaking to Flintstones or the Jetsons? The challenges are many. How do we create something that can last that long, that can be understood and believed and that people won’t want to steal or to explore?

I’m thinking of the Egyptian tombs and the curses their makers intended to surround them, and how violators were threatened with judgment in this life and the next. I suspect scary “keep out” burial faces are common to many cultures (and museums), and are probably more interesting than dreadful to many. A big lesson we can learn from them is: don’t be interesting, beautiful, crafted, or valuable. Don’t make something people will want to explore, study, or steal.

I’m struck by the thoughtfulness of the project concept, the physical design, and the use of communications without use of language or symbol.  To me, the solutions they present address a fundamental human condition in a way that paradoxically makes them akin great art.  However these sites are marked, I hope the WIPP project is successful.

To read more about this project, click here

Figure 4.3-15. Forbidding Blocks, view 2 (concept by Michael Brill and art by Safdar Abidi).