White Sands

Mixed Media and Electronics

Dimensions Variable

White Sands is the site of the Trinity nuclear test. The first nuclear explosion occurred in the majestic Jornada del Muerto Desert at 5:29am on July 16, 1945. Known as the Trinity Site this first explosion led to the first use of an atomic bomb over Nagasaki, Japan in August 1945. White Sands is located in Southern New Mexico near Alamo Gordo, I first visited in the winter of 1991 and had subsequent visits after. One late night as I was touring with my band we stopped to catch some sleep and see the sun rise above the sands. The colors were extraordinary, the air was crisp and cold and I was overtaken by the incredible beauty that lay before me. There were no words for that particular moment only to note that many years after the explosion the place still felt charged with energy, the mountains were electric and the sands stirred up static. This was a site that changed the world.

Ralph Carlisle Smith, watching the Trinity test from Compania Hill, wrote:

I was staring straight ahead with my open left eye covered by a welder’s glass and my right eye remaining open and uncovered. Suddenly, my right eye was blinded by a light which appeared instantaneously all about without any build up of intensity. My left eye could see the ball of fire start up like a tremendous bubble or nob-like mushroom. I dropped the glass from my left eye almost immediately and watched the light climb upward. The light intensity fell rapidly, hence did not blind my left eye but it was still amazingly bright. It turned yellow, then red, and then beautiful purple. At first it had a translucent character, but shortly turned to a tinted or colored white smoke appearance. The ball of fire seemed to rise in something of toadstool effect. Later the column proceeded as a cylinder of white smoke; it seemed to move ponderously. A hole was punched through the clouds, but two fog rings appeared well above the white smoke column. There was a spontaneous cheer from the observers. Dr. von Neumann said, “that was at least 5,000 tons and probably a lot more.”