Temporary index (thomson-craighead.net/temporary_index.html) is an array of decorative digital counters marking global sites of entombed nuclear waste counting the seconds remaining before they become safe again for humans. Timeframes range from forty years to one million years. The work is projected into a gallery with a desk lamp and folder of information where visitors can sit and contemplate the material and projection in front of them.
Temporary Index is driven by a database hosted on UCL servers and developed in partnership with HUMlab, Umeå University in Sweden. It marks the beginning of new research considering human relationships with long time frames as we enter the Anthropocene geological era. It looks at ways of embedding very long-term information into collective human memory and extends research into finding new forms of documentary practice, while promoting transparency in nuclear industries. A permanent counter was commissioned in 2018 by the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency (NDA) to trace a specific package of waste as it is prepared for final deep geological disposal. The permanent counter is on display at Nucleus; the national nuclear archive in Wick, Scotland.
Temporary Index premiered in a solo exhibition Party Booby Trap at Carroll/Fletcher Gallery, London, 2016. It has been shown in the solo exhibition Wake me up when it’s over, Young Projects, Los Angeles (reviewed in Art Review by Jonathan T.D. Neil, April 2017) and group exhibitions; Material Nuclear Culture at Karst, Plymouth, 2016; Perpetual Uncertainty, Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden 2016/2017 (and touring: Z33, Hasselt, Belgium and Malmo Konstmuseum); and Anytime Now, TENT, Rotterdam (2018).

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/27814