Abridged has long considered that the grand (and often fraudulent) Western concepts of morality finally died with the invention (and use) of the atomic or nuclear bomb. The concept of innocence also died. Everyone is potentially guilty or at best acceptable levels of damaged collateral. Overwhelming horror and death is the aim. Of course various Governments, their military and supporters would claim that the threat of overwhelming death and horror have (ironically) kept the threat of overwhelming death and hooror at bay: Mutually Assured Destruction. Prime ministers are always eager to assure their public that they’d be ready to press the button if Britain was attacked, as if that would save us. We’d love to be a fly on the wall in the afterlife when the PM is trying to convince whatever deity exists that killing millions of ‘them’ in return for millions of ‘us’  being killed somehow makes him/her one of the good guys. The advent of the social media age has allowed us to see the horror that ‘ordinary’ bombs do but has inured us to it. We scroll past people burning alive on Twitter now with at best an impotent outrage or a resignation or indifference that would have appalled previous eras. Nuclear weapons allow us to say of atrocity is that it ‘could have been worse’. God knows what the reaction would be on Tik-Tok if a nuclear bomb was ever used again. The age created Barbenheimer for ***** sake.   

The Art Arcadia Residencies Programme is supported by the National Lottery through the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.