Loading Pit (2019)

In an anticlimactic minimalist staging, the camera stands still in a remote corner of the Utah desert, revealing an atomic bomb loading pit used for military practice, while a voice over reads parts of the unclassified user manual “How to built an Atomic Bomb Loading Pit” released to the public in June 1946. The sonic suspension imposed by the computerized slowness of the subjectless reader frames the deep time dimension of this arid dusty landscape in Wendover. We are led through details of the manual, which suggests forms to best-adapt to the terrain, climate, soil conditions in the pit area, to allow for the needed cleanliness and security precautions for Boeing B-29 atomic bomb loading.