TRINITY
What do we see?
How do we know?
What did J. Robert Oppenheimer see when looking at the explosion?
His triumph, a way out, shame, ecstasy…? Perhaps all at the same time….What‘s going on there?
There must be some ecstatic state which makes a human uncapable of realizing what he sees and what he knows and just see what he wants to see.
I looked at the shapes of the explosion and thought that it could also be a strange organism that was perhaps very tiny and innocent and vulnerable.... I thought it was a great metaphor to show what we humans are like at some point. From that time on my name was ENA OPPENHEIMER.
Trinity I
2012, Öl auf Holz
"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, »Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.« I suppose we all thought that, one way or another."
"It is perfectly obvious that the whole world is going to hell. The only possible chance that it might not is that we do not attempt to prevent it from doing so."
Julius Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967)
Trinity III
2012, Öl auf Holz
TRINITY is a series of paintings I did many years ago from 2009 - 2015 when I was at the early stages on my way into painting and art. It was inspired by photos of the first Milliseconds of the world's first Nuclear Bomb Test captured by Harold Edgerton on 16 July 1945 at 05:29:45 in the New Mexico desert.
TRINITY - the biggest weapon of mass destruction ever known to mankind until then which Julius Robert Oppenheimer, the Head of the Manhattan project ironically had named after a poem by the mystic John Donne....
HOLY SONNET XIV
Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand,
o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town,
to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me,
for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Source:
HOLY SONNETs, Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I. E. K. Chambers, ed. London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 165.
TRINITY II
2012, Öl auf Holz
Harold Edgerton captured the first billionths of a second of the world's first nuclear bomb test (Manhattan Project) on 16 July 1945 at 05:29:45 in the New Mexico desert from a distance of 7 miles (approx. 11.85 km). The bomb was detonated on a 30.5 metre high steel tower at the White Sands Missile Range in the US state of New Mexico and had a diameter of about 1.5 metres. Within the first millisecond, the explosion penetrated to the outside. The shock wave could be felt 160 kilometres away and the mushroom cloud typical of nuclear bombs reached 12 kilometres in height. The explosion left a crater 3 metres deep and 330 metres wide.
Harold Edgerton erfasste mit einer Hochgeschwindigkeitskamera am 16. Juli 1945 um 05:29:45 in der Wüste von New Mexico aus einer Entfernung von 7 Meilen (ca. 11,85 km) die ersten Milliardstelsekunden des ersten Atombombentests der Welt (Manhattan Project). Die Bombe wurde auf einem 30,5 Meter hohen stählernen Turm in der White Sands Missile Range im US-Bundesstaat New Mexico gezündet und hatte einen Durchmesser von ca 1,5m. Schon innerhalb der ersten Millisekunde drang die Explosion nach außen. Die Druckwelle war 160 Kilometer weit zu spüren und die atombombentypische Pilzwolke erreichte 12 Kilometer Höhe. Die Explosion hinterließ einen 3 Meter tiefen und 330 Meter breiten Krater.
