Can 'The Scream' painting warn future generations of radioactive waste risks?

[kristopher]

Can 'The Scream' painting warn future generations of radioactive waste risks?


Norwegian painter Edvard Munch's "The Scream," which depicts a man covering his ears and opening his mouth against the backdrop of the red sky, is so impressive that those who see the work once will never forget it. The artist drew four pictures with the same composition.

Sotheby's has announced that it will auction off one of the works in May. Since the painting is so well known to the world, rumors that the successful bid will be over 6 billion yen should not be dismissed.

One of the four paintings was stolen from a museum in 2004. Even though it was subsequently recovered, how the work was stolen is shrouded in mystery.

"The Scream" reminds many people of "Into Eternity," a documentary film whose Japanese title is "Jumannen-go-no Anzen" (Safety 100,000 years later). The work depicts the Onkalo final disposal site for spent nuclear fuel from nuclear power plants, which is under construction on the island of Olkiluoto, Finland. It is a repository to be built in solid bedrock by digging an underground tunnel.

The biggest problem is that ...

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/perspectives/news/20120308p2a00m0na001000c.html

[TalkingDog]

1. Short answer: No.

If pictograms and visual symbols were consistently understandable across generations, what is transpiring in this Sumerian Pictogram would be instantly understandable to anyone who views it.



But it is not.

There are tribes in existence today whose understanding of and ability to see colors in the same way as westerners has been researched and documented as being very different.

Couldn't work

[kristopher]

4. I don't think that makes your case.

The pictogram you offer relies on a different sort of information content than The Scream. What is being sought is a symbol that is meaningful within a set of shared cultural experiences. The group that shares the set of experiences behind the pictogram is not universal.

However, some basic facial expressions are universally recognized. A 'smile' for example is a full set of facial settings that when seen together is recognized by everyone. Horror is another.

The problem arises when we try to distill the amalgam of inputs available in live communication into a stylistic abstract that conveys the same meaning. For example, I would imagine that under a certain set of cultural referents, the smiley face icon we are all so familiar with could represent cold shark-like aggression.

The question you are addressing is is, does The Scream capture enough characterists of our 'horror face' to convey that message universally. I'd argue that it is a comprehensive rendering that might well achieve that task.

What I'd then ask however, is how do you link the horror with the physical objects being warned against. That seems to me a much more difficult task.


I believe your statement about color might reflect a misunderstanding of the research you refer to. Dirrerent cultures draw the lines for the names of colors in different places on the spectrum, but we generally all see the same spectrum.

[TalkingDog]

5. Bahahaa! Seriously? What spectrum do color blind people (either partially or completely) see in?

And, what if, due to some genetic drift, more and more people become color blind? Or hell, what if, over the eons it would take for radiation to peter out, we all became completely blind?

Fail.

http://boingboing.net/2011/08/12/how-language-affects-color-perception.html
From the BBC: Do you see what I see? How language affects color perception.

"What I'd then ask however, is how do you link the horror with the physical objects being warned against. That seems to me a much more difficult task."

Here we are in complete agreement. But I assert that this statement actually proves my point.

While the image in The Scream may signal horror, what are we referring to as being horrific? Radiation poisoning is not necessarily dramatic. People can get small doses over long enough time and the end result is the same as a high dose over a short period of time.

So, you wander into an area, you see the pictogram. Okay, something is supposed to horrify you or scare you... what is that? The trees, the barrels, the 3 eyed fish, the concrete "building"... none of that looks particularly dangerous. You scout around. Nope. Nothing dangerous. Must be a big "prehistoric" painting.... those are everywhere. I'll bring my family here to settle down. 25 years later.... thyroid and other cancers start appearing. Kids are born deformed. Is anybody going to associate the big screaming guy with what is going on around them?

How do you show invisible waves that make you sick? How do you know that the Sumerian image I showed in my previous post isn't trying to do that? What are those wavy lines around the man sitting down? What do they represent?

It literally can't be done. Visual language is not written or oral language. It does not access or activate the same areas of the brain. It cannot be decoded in the same way as the Egyptian hieroglyphs (which are not pictograms, but phonetic symbols) were decoded by using the Rosetta Stone. It cannot be decoded and translated using commonalities across all written and oral language; because it is neither. It is an entirely different type of language.

And if you watch the clip at boingboing, you will see that learning a language actually changed and changes how we see. Culture constraints, mores and fashions also impact our visual perception.

And if oral language changes over time, then our perception of visual language will also change. That means that, while we can still understand Shakespeare, that's only a 250 year difference in language drift. At 10 thousand years, we might as well be trying to decipher ancient Japanese scrolls when we've only ever been exposed to modern Romance Languages.

And speaking of Ancient Japanese and danger warnings. This link proves my point exactly: You can put a warning in a place of danger. It does not guarantee that people will comprehend it or heed it even though it is written in their native language.

www.nytimes.com/2011/04/21/world/asia/21stones.html

Local scholars said only a handful of villages like Aneyoshi heeded these old warnings by keeping their houses safely on high ground. More commonly, the stones and other warnings were disregarded as coastal towns grew in the boom years after World War II. Even communities that had moved to high ground eventually relocated to the seaside to be nearer their boats and nets.

“As time passes, people inevitably forget, until another tsunami comes that kills 10,000 more people,”

Yes, some heeded the warnings, most did not.

[madokie]

2. One of my biggest concerns with using nuclear energy powered electrical power plants

Is how do we warn the future people. More than likely at some point in time we'll off ourselves for the most part and the survivors 100's, 1000's of years from now may not have a clue as to what radiation is or what it can do to the body. If I understand it correctly it can alter genes and if thats the case no telling what will be set in motion by our not well thought out use of nuclear energy.
Our problem is one of excesses more than anything or that is what has fueled where we find ourselves today with GW. If mans experiment with burning fossil fuels raises our temperature where no one or few survive the world will be able to rebound from that without any toxic waste laying around. After say 10,000 or so years this world we know today will not be recognizable so yes it is possible that some of this nuclear waste as it is stored today will be strewn about. How do we make that right in our heart of hearts to leave something like this to future generations. We have fossils depicting a world inhabited by completely different creatures so from that I can come to the conclusion that things have happened before that pretty much wiped out the living then same as probably will happen again. We owe it to the future inhabitants to not leave toxic waste laying around, something that more than likely they'll have no knowledge of the dangers it poses.
For a handful of dollars today some are willing to do exactly what I'm saying and it is wrong! IMHO

Maybe man won't destroy himself and if he does then that will be great but we'd better take a turn now pretty soon or we're screwn. We don't just have to use nuclear or fossil fuels, there is alternates. I'm willing to change the way I live to adapt to the
possibility of the less availability of electricity or fossil fuels as we make this transition to alternates and more efficiency.

[kristopher]

6. "For a handful of dollars today..."

"For a handful of dollars today some are willing to do exactly what I'm saying and it is wrong!"

+1000

[randr]

3. Reminds me not to trust Republicans

[kristopher]

7. They do love their nuclear and coal, don't they?

As long as they can keep centralized control over the energy in people's lives they are happy.