Elliot Anderson and Claude Schwob

Elliot Anderson is a new media artist whose work includes installation, digital photography and media sets for performance. He believes that technology should be free and queer.

Claude Schwob, a chemist who worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II, helped engineer the future. He was a gay in the military industrial complex with an eye for the boys. He was the bomb. He lived from 1926-1998. His archive box includes photographs of him in uniform with lovers and sex partners, boudoir shots he took of young men, model release forms, and his credentials of participation in Operation Apache, an A-Bomb test at Bikini Atoll.

From Claude’s archive

unsanitized (2009)

3-D video animation that combines public domain footage of bomb tests in New Mexico with original 3-D animation

Elliot, an electronic artist and former computer programmer, was matched with Claude Schwob because of their mutual affinity for slide rules. Two very elegant examples of this now archaic computing tool reside in one of Schwobís archive boxes. Elliot became intrigued by Schwobís seeming ability to navigate his role as scientist working on the high security Manhattan project with being gay, and in later life producing erotic stories and photographs of nude men complete with model releases.

“How do we penetrate open secrets? This is the question that stands out for me when I think about Claude and his work. He never married, he had relationships with men, he shot erotic photos and yet worked in the most secretive of military research – the Manhattan Project.”

- Elliot Anderson