Hardtack I confronts the paradox of human progress by bringing two transformative inventions into dialogue: the window and the nuclear weapon. The window—associated with transparency, observation, and protection—stands in contrast to the nuclear weapon, the ultimate manifestation of technological overreach, latent threat, and irreversible destruction. Questioning within their interplay the collective responsibility and the ethical consequences of human invention.

At the core of the installation is a video projection cast through the window, showing original footage from underwater detonation test Wahoo as part of Operation Hardtack I, a series of thirty-five nuclear tests conducted in 1958 by the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency in the Marshall Islands. The archival material is presented within the installation in reverse, unfolding from explosion back toward ignition. This inversion decelerates the moment of catastrophe, transforming violent rupture into a hypnotic, almost contemplative visual rhythm, and invites reflection on causality and agency.

Suspended from the window frame is a padlock engraved with the words “vamos a la playa”, a reference to the 1983 pop song by Righeira. Within the context of the installation, the padlock symbolizes the potential of unlocking a repressed historical era—the Cold War’s atomic anxiety.

Through the convergence of architectural form, archival imagery, and cultural reference, Hardtack I exposes the fragile boundary between observation and complicity, and asks how societies continue to live with—and look through—the legacies of their most destructive creations.