ABSTRACT
This chapter presents Deep Field (Unclear Zine), a 2016 art-science work conducted at Mol and Dessel, two neighboring rural villages coexisting with sites researching geological nuclear-waste disposal in northern Belgium. Dave Griffiths produced a microfiche zine that probes and narrates the scientific testing and politics of decision-making surrounding controversial ONDRAF-NIRAS (Belgian National Agency for Radioactive Waste and Enriched Fissile Materials) projects: at cAt, a tumulus for encasing low-level waste, and HADES, a lab investigating the feasibility and safety case for geo-burial of high-level waste in Boom clay strata. Griffiths' fieldwork used qualitative and experiential methods such as ethnographic interviews with state scientists and independent monitoring groups, and photographic derive, to sense a wider Anthropogenic narrative of energy production, mineral extraction, and terrorist threat. Griffiths' findings were remixed through narrative responses by scientist-poet Sam Illingworth and DIY-comix artist Matt Girling, and archived as miniaturized microfilm. The zine attempts to translate the past, present, and future history of the repositories as folkloric sites of conflict, complexity, and unknowing, for the benefit of a far-future readership. The chapter discusses epistemological uncertainty around the survival and reception of crucial nuclear-security information in the face of inevitable material, linguistic and political ruination. We suggest that place markers, as monumental semiotic warnings to the future, along with digital archives, might also be augmented by decentralized analog fragments that promote ongoing memorialization of nuclear-heritage sites through intergenerational storytelling and rearchiving. The gesture of microfiche proposes an indeterminate, spectral archive for future citizens, that could be retranslated and reproduced many times through deep-time subject to a decision: to remember, or to delete?
