Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

The Billboard Campaign: The Los Alamos Study Group and the Nuclear Public Sphere

The Billboard Campaign: The Los Alamos Study Group and the Nuclear Public Sphere 17(3): 487–96 Copyright © 2005 by Duke University Press Figure 1 short, the most active nuclear weapons program on the planet is in the United States, and much of that nuclear infrastructure is located in New Mexico. For New Mexicans committed to disarmament and peace activism, the dilemma of the post–Cold War period has thus been how to engage this resurgent U.S. nuclear project in a way that breaks the structures of silencing and patronage that keep America’s investments in weapons of mass destruction from public view. Beginning in 1998, visitors to New Mexico could encounter one of the most direct and imaginative efforts to engage New Mexico’s nuclear economy simply by driving out of the Albuquerque International Airport. Positioned on the main exit route from the airport, a large billboard confronted motorists with an image of a rainbow-enhanced desert and the words (see fig. 1): “Welcome to New Mexico: America’s Nuclear Weapons Colony.” Seeking to defamiliarize the desert landscape through shock, the billboard both evokes and inverts the familiar portrait of New Mexico as the “Land of Enchantment,” a zone of pristine nature and exotic culture. A Web site address on the billboard—www.lasg.org—serves as both a signature http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Public Culture Duke University Press

The Billboard Campaign: The Los Alamos Study Group and the Nuclear Public Sphere

Masco, Joseph; Masco, Joseph
Public Culture , Volume 17 (3) – Oct 1, 2005
Download PDF
12 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/duke-university-press/the-billboard-campaign-the-los-alamos-study-group-and-the-nuclear-20OwuFT4ez

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 2005 by Duke University Press
ISSN
0899-2363
eISSN
1527-8018
DOI
10.1215/08992363-17-3-487
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

17(3): 487–96 Copyright © 2005 by Duke University Press Figure 1 short, the most active nuclear weapons program on the planet is in the United States, and much of that nuclear infrastructure is located in New Mexico. For New Mexicans committed to disarmament and peace activism, the dilemma of the post–Cold War period has thus been how to engage this resurgent U.S. nuclear project in a way that breaks the structures of silencing and patronage that keep America’s investments in weapons of mass destruction from public view. Beginning in 1998, visitors to New Mexico could encounter one of the most direct and imaginative efforts to engage New Mexico’s nuclear economy simply by driving out of the Albuquerque International Airport. Positioned on the main exit route from the airport, a large billboard confronted motorists with an image of a rainbow-enhanced desert and the words (see fig. 1): “Welcome to New Mexico: America’s Nuclear Weapons Colony.” Seeking to defamiliarize the desert landscape through shock, the billboard both evokes and inverts the familiar portrait of New Mexico as the “Land of Enchantment,” a zone of pristine nature and exotic culture. A Web site address on the billboard—www.lasg.org—serves as both a signature

Journal

Public Culture – Duke University Press

Published: Oct 1, 2005

There are no references for this article.