A search on the webpage of the Art Institute of Chicago, a museum founded in 1879, gives us an example of a plastic world as diverse as the works of Georges Seurat, Gustave Caillebotte, Diego Rivera, Edward Hopper, Pablo Picasso, El Greco or Francis Bacon. Among some of the biggest names in artistic creation, the collection of more than 300,000 works of art at the Chicago, US-based institution paves the way for authors on a global scale less visible than those featured above. It is likely that the work of Martyl Suzanne Langsdorf is one such case. Born in st. Louis in 1917, the daughter of painter Aimé Schweig and photographer Martin Schweig, Martel developed an artistic career around painting and lithographs, taking part in related exhibitions, such as the New York World’s Fair, in 1939-1940. the Location of the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) reveals 18 works by Martel, using various media, including acrylics and indian ink. Landscapes and also intangibles such as human lattices make up Martyl’s paintings, in a period stretching from the 1950s to 2005. The piece that, however, wrested the work of the then young American artist from anonymity is displayed in AIC, by on the cover of a publication Born in the 1940s , and is still being published in digital form.
The June 1947 issue of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an information device created two years ago, that showed the world the first image of a doomsday clock. who has since become a metaphorical narrator of the threats hanging over humanity, born of Martell’s creative hand. This, in the name, revealed the weight of a title associated with the development of a project that would certainly change the future course of history.
In 1942, Martel married the American physicist Alexander Langsdorf Jr., who participated in the Manhattan Project, which during World War II led to the development of the first atomic bomb by the United States. Prompted by Alexander’s friend, scientist Hyman Goldsmith, co-founder of the Bulletin of the Atomic ScientistsMartyl introduced his visual version of the clock that would bring the hands closer to a hypothetical global catastrophe. On the cover of the publication, an orange background is used as a platform for the clock’s stop in its run just before midnight. On the way to the Apocalypse, Martell’s pass looked so appealing that the hand was overhauled at seven minutes to time. A sense of urgency prevailed over a world that had created a self-destructive form of nuclear potential. In 1949, the Soviet Union successfully tested its atomic bomb. The group of researchers who participated in the Manhattan Project realized the potential for destruction resulting from a direct conflict between the two superpowers.
annually, since 1947, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists He makes a public announcement of the march of hands towards disaster. A weighted warning based on nuclear risks, climate change and disruptive technologies, monitored since 1973 (the year of death of biophysicist Eugene Rabinowitz, until then responsible for the movement of the hands), by the Science and Security Council Bulletin. The body, which meets twice a year, relies on the contribution of the Board of Patrons, an entity that sits on more than a dozen Nobel laureates, among them David Baltimore (Nobel in Medicine in 1975), Paul Berg (Nobel in Chemistry in 1980) and Brian Schmidt (2011). Nobel Prize in Physics).
From 1947 onwards, the Dance of Pointers, or the Risks They Presented, saw them come back eight times and lead 17 times. If in 1991 the hand was placed at 17 minutes from midnight, in 2023 it stopped at just 90 seconds from the end. Since 2020, the Doomsday Clock has moved forward by 4 minutes and 30 seconds. In the year it was revealed to the world and to the present, the counterclockwise discrepancy is fixed at 5 minutes 30 seconds. In 2007, the sixty-year-old watch designed by Martyl Langsdorf was redesigned by American designer Michael Bierot, then a member of the Board of Directors of the Bulletin.
The importance of graphing how close we are to global catastrophe is not consensual. Steven Pinker, a Canadian cognitive psychologist, stated in an April 2018 interview with the newsletter’s editor, Lucien Crowder: ” [Relógio do Juízo Final] It does not track actual risk indicators. It seems to reflect how much report card He wants to scare people. It is not linked to objective threat indicators (…) The inclusion of threats arising from climate change, in 2007, is not an original risk indicator, as is nuclear war per se. It seems to me that it is more of a tool to generate fear.” Among the examples Pinker cited was the Cuban Missile Crisis, in October 1962, when the clock was not moving.
to me Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in your Location, “The Doomsday Clock is not a forecasting tool and we don’t predict the future. We study events that have already occurred and trends that exist. Our Science and Security Council keeps track of numbers and statistics – looking, for example, at the numbers and types of nuclear weapons in the world, parts per million of dioxide atmospheric carbon, ocean pH, and the percentage of sea level rise, it also takes into account the efforts of leaders and citizens to reduce its risks and the efforts of institutions to meet negotiated agreements.” The symbol that the culture assimilated as it gives is displayed in the message itself through its availability Online a Playlist With some songs inspired by the graphic representation created in 1947, among them Seven minutes do midnight1980 Song by Midnight Oil, W Two suns at sunsetby Pink Floyd. On the theme of 1983, taken from the album The last cut we listen: In my rearview mirror, the sun is going down / Sinking behind the bridges in the road / And I think of all the good things / We left unsolved.
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