(di)atomic garden

(di)atomic garden is an artwork in the form of a real-time, performative system. It explores moments of resonance between how radioactivity acts as a mutative force, combined with it's witting/unwitting relevance for the worlds ocean in both the historic context of nuclear contamination, as well as the ongoing reframing of the oceans through agri-industrial lensing. Here the atomic garden is tasked as a bridge between terrestrial and the oceanic as their borders are uneasily dissolved.

Radioactivity has a powerful, altering effect on genomic material. Here the work explores how two disparate datasets of images (historical agricultural crops and antarctic marine plankton) as colliding gene pools mutated through the virtual simulation of an atomic garden. The emission of charged particles by decaying uranium ore are sampled, and then used to drive a virtual re-enactment of the atomic garden. Each specimen planted in this virtual space is a careful translation of images into pseudo-genetic code and algorithmic encapsulation. This new, virtual form lends them vulnerable to mutation when irradiated by charged beams of radiation, leading them to be mutate and interact with each-other. The planted specimens that can be explored through the browser interface that acts as a safe window into this continuously growing, mutating and decaying virtual garden.

The project draws on the little-known history of atomic gardens – experimental fields developed after the Second World War to research “peaceful” applications of nuclear energy. By exposing crops to radioactive materials, researchers induced mutations that sometimes resulted in higher yields, new colours, or novel forms. Remarkably, some of these varieties still appear in contemporary seed catalogues. At the same time nuclear weapons testing, reactor accidents, and industrial activities introduced radioactive residues into the world’s oceans. As a result, many marine organisms—from plankton to fish—now live with chronic, low-level exposure. While the effects of high radiation doses are well studied, the long-term ecological consequences of low doses remain uncertain, particularly when combined with ocean warming and acidification. These unresolved questions form the conceptual backbone of (di)atomic garden.