The Bomb

Video Installation

A multi-channel video installation conveying the contained chaos of nuclear weapons.

The bomb installation is a continuation of the ongoing project that began as a film and live performance. The film - created by author Eric Schlosser and filmmaker Smriti Keshari - debuted as a multi screen audiovisual experience at Tribeca Film Festival in 2016.

The original set design, staged by United Visual Artists, was inspired by the nuclear silos and infrastructure that has been constructed to keep this ‘invisible’ force of nuclear weapons hidden, protected, and ready to use at a moment’s notice.





The new edition takes on the form of an installation comprising 45 screens in a circular array. The viewer is confronted with a multi-screen edit of the film in a format suggestive of a nuclear control room or CCTV surveillance room. In (re)presenting the film in this way, the work aims to present another point of view of this quiet threat during a time when countries are openly expanding rather than reducing their nuclear arsenals.

The installation urges the viewer to confont the threat of nuclear weapons, often seen as one of the past, as one very much of the present. At the time of writing, the doomsday clock sits at 100 seconds to  midnight.


The Bomb created by: Smriti Keshari and Eric Schlosser
Based on the book Command and Control by Eric Schlosser
Original film: Smriti Keshari, Eric Schlosser and Kevin Ford
Soundtrack: The Acid
Film art direction: Stanley Donwood
Installation design (spatial concept + build): Ben Kreukniet
Multi-screen film edit / spatialisation: Ben Kreukniet
Technical and assembly lead: Adam Paikowsky
Video system design: Adam Paikowsky
Producer: Hazel Gibson