You might remember Greg McNevin’s previous light painting project called Immaterials a project that explored the invisible terrain of WiFi networks in urban spaces by light painting signal strength in long-exposure photographs. Greg’s most recent light painting work has taken the technology that he developed from Immaterials and adapted it to show the invisible killer that is radiation in two of the world’s most contaminated places, Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Greg created light paintings working along side Greenpeace by using a programmable LED light rod connected to a Geiger counter that would output an analog signal. The signal was then converted into a light display on the LED light strip via the onboard Ardunio controller.
-White light showed levels of radiation the governments viewed as acceptable for 8 hours of exposure.
-Orange light showed levels of radiation the governments suggested protective measures should be considered to prevent radiation exposure.
-Red light showed levels of radiation where protective measures we necessary.
Testing areas that the governments had “Decontaminated”, some areas 30 years after the disaster, Greg consistently recorded radiation levels elevated above the official acceptable guidelines. Greg says his lightmapping series isn’t a critique of governments’ decontamination efforts, rather it is a visible demonstration of long-term effects of Nuclear Disaters.
Read more about this project on Greg’s website HERE.
Greg says
For the record: Immaterials was a Timo Arnall project, I built upon the idea.