Orbis Lumen (ATOMSPHERE I)

"If we were to eliminate all the empty space within our atoms, the entire human population, comprising 8 billion individuals, could be contained within the volume of just one sugar cube."

ORBIS LUMEN shows a map of the Earth constructed from more than 40,000 white industrial sugar cubes and illuminated by the complete sequence of all nuclear explosions from 1945 to the present day. ORBIS LUMEN stages the most extreme power released by mankind, which irrevocably changed the atmosphere and ignited the epoch of the atomsphere with its application and supposed "mastery" of atomic power.

Using the cubes as three-dimensional pixels, ORBIS LUMEN emphasizes the intimate relationship between information, energy, resources and their resulting impact on society and nature.

In times of peace, sugar is being used as a food source and a potentially abundant regenerative source of energy (ethanol for machines). Energy may even become the primary product of sugar cane processing, rather than sugar itself. Nevertheless, in times of war, sugar is the first item to be rationed as a building block for making conventional explosives.

Common depictions of Earth which we see in news and navigation systems are based on the Mercator projection displaying distorted and incorrect proportions of Earth’s landmasses.

Buckminster Fuller's 1943 Dymaxion map is the only flat map of the entire surface of the Earth that reveals our planet as one continent in one ocean, without any obvious distortions of the relative shapes and sizes of the land areas, and without splitting any continents.

This anthropocentric map anticipated a new planetary environment, illustrating the possibility of a Russian nuclear missile approaching the United States via the North Pole - a subtle aspect absent from the commonly employed Mercator map.

ORBIS LUMEN highlights that what is often perceived as a "mastery" of nuclear power is, in reality, a repeated and deep-seated mistake, further exacerbated with each iteration. We continue to err, with some of these mistakes yielding practical insights, while others bring about alarming and destructive consequences. Many times, these errors encompass both aspects. ORBIS LUMEN provokes profound reactions and reflections on our technological advancements, their consequences and the impending threat of nuclear warfare and omnicide, the annihilation of all life forms, including humanity.

Welcome to the atomsphere!