Mutant Space

Mutant Space is a long-term, techno-scientifically critical, research-driven art project on nuclear mobility, radiation, geology, and archaeology created by Atif Akin. This show displays work in various media such as photographic images, charts, texts, data-driven, 3D and VR animations along with a piece of Uranium that generates motion graphics on a digital display. The exhibition consists of two parts that are produced in or about two chapters of Mutant Space, Metsamor, and Tepoto Sud morph Moruroa.

In the most recent chapter of Mutant Space, in Tepoto Sud morph Moruroa, Akin reflected on the creation of new mythologies analogical to radioactive deformations of code and matter resulting from the 193 nuclear tests that took place in this island archipelago. The project consisted of a computer-generated 3D rendering of the atolls Moruroa and Tepoto Sud in the Tuamotus archipelago continuously morphing into one another, the first of which was subjected to nuclear tests and the latter was visited by TBA21–Academy in 2016. The atmospheric and subterranean nuclear explosions on Moruroa left radioactive residue in water and on land, not only affecting the local population and numerous animal and plant species but presumably also being the cause of a crack below the lagoon of the atoll.

The ancient city of Metsamor in Armenia can be traced back to the Bronze Age, around the 3rd millennia BC, with evidence of continued development into the 17th century. Traces of war, devastation, destruction and new beginnings are uncovered in ongoing archaeological digs, which began in 1965. The Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant was designed in 1969 as a water-moderated nuclear reactor, commissioned and constructed by the USSR shortly before Chernobyl. Metsamor, with its endless historical and contemporary layers, lies between two sacred, volcanic mountains, Mount Aragats and Mount Ararat. It is said that Mount Ararat is the final landing place of Noah’s Ark, the vessel designed to save the human and animal species from divine retribution, humanity’s original catastrophe.