SOMEWHERE ANSWERS

SOMEWHERE ANSWERS is an experimental documentary and multi-channel video installation in production that follows the movement of radioactive material from the West Valley Demonstration Project (WVDP), a nuclear waste remediation site south of Buffalo, NY, to disposal facilities across the United States, and specifically the EnergySolutions facility in Clive, Utah. The WVDP was a nuclear fuel reprocessing center from the mid-20th-century Atoms for Peace/Operation Candor era, and remains an active landscape of contamination and cleanup today.

Frontier narrative

The project draws on the scenery and writing of the Red Dead Redemption (RDR) video game franchise to explore environmental damage and reckless gestures of atonement as an ever-looping cyclical American frontier narrative. The project is also influenced by visits to the Love Canal remediation site in Niagara Falls during 2009.

Production plan

The plan is to bicycle 80 miles round-trip from Buffalo to West Valley, recording footage of the trip and the remediation site, capture drone footage of the West Valley site, and combine it with footage of disposal sites in Utah.

Slowed-down and zoomed sequences inspired by RDR’s “Dead Eye” targeting mechanic leverage real-time analog video processing.

Outcomes

The project will culminate in the publishing of a zine and a public screening conveying the multiple geographies, themes, and timelines embedded in the work.