Miss Atomic Bomb

The height of America's obsession with all things atomic was marked by the crowning of Miss Atomic Bomb; the men stationed at the nuclear testing sites in Las Vegas would often travel into the sparkling city to spend time relaxing with show girls at casinos, and began electing their favourites as icons for the nuclear tests. The winning lady would be crowned with a mushroom cloud, and would even wear one as a costume. The clouds were icons themselves, being both broadcast on television and sold as a tourist attraction in Las Vegas.

In retrospect, the idea of crowning anyone in honour of something so destructive seems garish and in bad taste, but atomic design and obsession pervaded every aspect of American culture at the time. I used the images of various Miss Atomic Bombs to experiment with how the meaning of such images can be distorted and repurposed.

Collage: tourists look on as a nuclear blast goes off, but with the glamorous feet of a show girl superimposed on the photo it suggests her towering form is the main attraction.

Edit: by moving her arms, the girl looks less like she is laughing in jubilation and more like she is recoiling in fear.

Edit: replacing the show girl with the bomb she is essentially representing takes away the kitschy cuteness of the image, and the new position of the arms is more threatening than welcoming.

Edit: I used techniques I had experimented with earlier to make the show girl look damaged, as if directly affected by a blast herself.

Edit: I replaced the clean looking mushroom cloud with an image of victims of the nuclear bomb drop in Hiiroshima. It is likely that the people who elected Miss Atomic Bomb did not connect her in any way to the destruction she essentially represented.

Edit: while working with these pictures, it struck me that most if not all of the men and women in them would be dead today, and the crowning of Miss Atomic Bomb took on a haunting new level.