Communication at the end of the world: affective material performativity and the nuclear danger sign

Abstract

ABSTRACT As humanity fades into the shadows, the toxic detritus certain humans have wrought has no intention of giving up its potent affects. Recognizing that our waste lives beyond us, we have an ethical mandate to consider (at minimum) warning future species about dangerous matter created in the Anthropocene. Nuclear storage facilities (both planned and imagined) re-mark the nuclear danger sign, not with the concern of immediate danger, but as an object of hopeful immortality dedicated to saving future inhabitants of planet Earth (be they human or non-human). The challenge of the danger sign is two-fold: will it be understood; will it last? Inspired by these questions, this essay considers how communicative and performative endeavors radiate into deep time.