Three Tales
Court Theatre
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The Hindenburg explosion is presented first, as the last gasp of the mechanistic mind-set that enabled the industrial revolution. Korot’s video shows the great steel skeleton on which the zeppelin’s skin was stretched; images of mechanics holding heavy tools form a repeated motif. And the sight of the burning, earthbound hulk inevitably suggests that great all-purpose symbol of extinction: a dinosaur in its death throes.
After Osama bin Laden’s media event of September 11, 2001, it might be argued that the 700 cameras at Bikini represented greater potential destructive power than the bombs they were immortalizing. But at the time and for the next five decades, nuclear fission constituted the latest in Armageddon. Korot’s images alternate among scenes of Bikini islanders being evacuated from their homes, U.S. military preparations, and Jenny Holzer-ish snatches of text from Genesis referring–effectively if heavy-handedly–to man’s dominion over the earth and God’s stricture against eating from the tree of knowledge. All the while we hear and see a slow countdown to the blast.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Richard Feldman.
