In Atomic Time, sculptor, photographer and conceptual artist Jim
Sanborn has combined his longstanding interests in invisible natural
forces and secrecy, pairing together two separate but related projects:
a series of photographs called Atomic Time and images of his latest
work, the room-sized installation Critical Assembly. Inspired by the
Manhattan Project, the first nuclear weapons program at the Los Alamos
Scientific Laboratory, Critical Assembly is a representation of what
was once a secret site of government-sponsored research. The
installation includes actual examples of electronic instruments,
hardware, furniture, tools and materials from the Los Alamos Laboratory
of the 1940s, 50s and 60s, which Sanborn acquired from retirees living
in New Mexico who worked on the Project. The photographs in the Atomic
Series are distinguished by an intense cobalt blue-like color, similar
to the true color of radioactivity. Half of the series is of abstract
images made by exposing sheet film to actual pieces of uranium ore; the
other represents an assortment of radium-dial alarm clocks made between
1920 and 1950, acquired from regions around the Trinity Site in New
Mexico, where the first atomic bomb exploded.
