Digital Art Installation at Piccadilly Circus Commemorates Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The Imperial War Museum commissioned a large-scale digital artwork titled 'I Saw The World End' by Es Devlin and Machiko Weston to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The installation, originally scheduled for Piccadilly Circus, was cancelled due to the Beirut explosion on August 4. It was to feature luminous lines projected on a large screen, conceptually dividing the atom, fiction and reality, racial divisions, and the divide between humanity and the planet. Devlin and Weston were to read two texts: Devlin in English tracing the origin of the atomic bomb inspired by H.G. Wells' science fiction and the Manhattan Project, and Weston in Japanese with simultaneous English translation, compiling testimonies of atomic apocalypse survivors. The audio-video installation was to be projected at Piccadilly Circus on August 6 at 8:10 AM and August 9 at 11:00 AM, corresponding to the exact times of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki explosions, and simultaneously on the Imperial War Museum website. The work is part of the Victory 75 program, which began on May 8 (Victory in Europe Day) and ends on August 15 (anniversary of the armistice with Japan). Other initiatives include 'Voices of War', audio testimonies from the museum's archives recorded in summer 1945, available on the IWM website. The museum's social media channels invite the public to share artistic reflections on the anniversary.