The Bowels of the Earth

Would you take a dump in the arse end of the world?

Last month the Federal Minister for Energy and Resources, Martin Ferguson announced that he would fast track the decision to build a Commonwealth nuclear waste facility in the outback Northern Territory – reinforcing the previous government’s legislation to over–ride the wishes of the NT Government, and without proper consultation with the traditional owners or the residents of the proposed areas.

Three of the proposed sites, Hart’s Range, Mount Everard, and Fisher’s Ridge are located at defense base sites. The fourth, Muckaty Station was nominated by the Northern Land Council. The station is managed by a land trust comprised of a group of traditional owners. One of this group, the Ngapa family, have nominally agreed to the facility, but many others have not.

The Bowels of the Earth responds to this issue as a Troma inspired touchy feely exploration of the abject, the corporeal and the profane. Cheekily re–purposing LA artist Tim Hawkinson's lung as a giant arse hanging from the ceiling of Carriageworks, the work also incorporates the voices of Mitch (Harts Range), Barbara Shaw (Alice Springs) and Diane Stokes(Muckaty Station) who air their concerns about the dump, uranium mining and its effects on their traditional countries. You can listen to them speak here.

Gustavo Böke, Claire Conroy, Michaela Davies, Damian Martin & Sumugan Sivanesan.

Underbelly Festival 2008
Carriageworks, Sydney

Click on photos to enlarge

The poison leave it

"Irati Wanti

We are the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, the Senior Aboriginal Women from
Coober Pedy, South Australia

We are the Aboriginal women Yankunytjatjara, Antikarinya and Kokatha.
We know the country.
The poison the Government is talking about will poison the land.
We say "NO radioactive dump in our ngura - in our country."
Its strictly poison we don't want it."

...and they won!

http://www.iratiwanti.org/

http://discharges.org/h/0205/

Matchstick Men have a Green Gas Battle

Yucca Hazard Monument

"..Closure of the repository would be at least 50 years, and possibly up to 300 years, after the first waste is emplaced deep underground..."
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0115.shtml

Unravelling the Arse

Nuclear Waste Yucca Mountain

Yucca Mountain Repository is the proposed U.S. Department of Energy
deep geological repository storage facility for spent nuclear reactor
fuel and other radioactive waste. The repository is located in a
desert on federal land adjacent to the Nevada Test Site in Nye County,
Nevada, about 80 miles from the Las Vegas metropolitan area. The
repository lies within Yucca Mountain, a ridge line in the
south-central part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The ridge is composed
of volcanic material (mostly tuff) ejected from a now-extinct
caldera-forming supervolcano.

The idea of storing radioactive waste in Yucca Mountain is
controversial. Opponents argue that climate, erosion, earthquakes, and
other natural forces would make it an unstable and unsuitable place
for storage. The Department of Energy was to begin accepting spent
fuel at the Yucca Mountain Repository by January 31, 1998 but has yet
to do so because of a series of delays due to legal challenges,
allegations of fraudulent geologic analysis,[citation needed] concerns
over how to transport nuclear waste to the facility, and political
pressures resulting in underfunding of the construction. There is
currently no official date set for opening the facility.

Yucca Mountain – Wikipedia

"The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.."

On The Beach –1959 & 2000

In January 1964, the fallout from a nuclear war has obliterated life in the Northern Hemisphere and lethal clouds of irradiated dust are slowly making their way to the Southern Hemisphere, threatening the inhabitants of Australia. Dwight Towers, the captain of the American nuclear submarine U.S.S. Sawfish , which had been trolling the South Pacific during the conflict, contacts the Royal Australian Navy and is welcomed to their main harbor in Williamstown. Admiral Bridie assigns young Lt. Peter Holmes to liaison with Dwight and the Sawfish crew for a reconnaissance mission to track the deadly radiation circling the globe, which is predicted to reach Australia in five months.

http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title.jsp?stid=17688&category=Full%20Synopsis



As Australians begin reporting increasing signs of radiation illness, the government disperses the suicide pills. Some people turn to excessive partying while others listen with faint hope to religious messages as their end nears. Dwight asks his crew their wishes and they request to return to America to die at home.

From Russell Mulchay's 2000 Remake


When she arrived in Melbourne, Australia, Ava Gardner commented to the press: "We've come to make a movie about the end of the world and this looks like the place for it." The residents were unamused with her remark and Stanley Kramer had to do some quick damage control with Gardner's help.

Diorama