
Lingering Radiation, autoradiograph, silver gelatin contact print of x-ray
exposed by the radiation in a fragment of an A-Bombed tree from the Hiroshima Peace
Memorial Museum Archive, 12x15, 2008
exposed by the radiation in a fragment of an A-Bombed tree from the Hiroshima Peace
Memorial Museum Archive, 12x15, 2008
ELIN O’HARA SLAVICK
Lingering Radiation was made by placing a fragment of
an A-Bombed Tree on x-ray film in light-tight condition for 10 days in the basement of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in 2008, developing the x-ray film, and then making a silver gelatin contact print of the x-ray. The fragment is one of 90,000 artifacts
housed in the Peace Museum’s archive. Although I attempted to make 10 autoradiographs in this manner, Lingering
Radiation is the only one that registered any radiation.
The history of the atomic age is intertwined with that of photography. Uranium's radioactivity was discovered through a photograph. In 1896, physicist Henri Becquerel placed uranium on a photographic plate to expose it to the sun. Because it was a cloudy day, he put the experiment in a drawer. The next day he developed the plate. To his amazement he saw the outline of the uranium on the plate that had never been exposed to light. He correctly concluded that uranium was spontaneously emitting a new kind of penetrating radiation and published a paper, "On the invisible rays emitted by phosphorescent bodies."1
After
Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukushima develops the relationship between radiation,
aftermath, exposure, nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, and the visual
language of photography. Working with the staff at the Peace Museum, I utilized
autoradiography (capturing radioactive emissions from objects on x-ray film), cyanotypes (natural sun exposures on cotton paper impregnated with cyanide
salts), rubbings of A-bombed surfaces and subsequent photographic contact
prints from the rubbings, and traditional photography to document places and
objects that survived the atomic bombing. The lingering radiation in a fragment
of an
A-Bombed tree appears on the x-ray film much like Becquerel’s uranium on
photographic plates. The Japanese finally knew they has been attacked by an
atomic bomb when they discovered that the x-ray film stored in the hospital’s
vault was completely exposed by the bomb’s penetrating radiation.
The process and problem of exposure is central to my project.
Countless people were exposed to the radiation of the atomic bomb. I expose
already exposed A-bombed objects on x-ray film, but it is the radiation within
them that causes the exposure. The exposure of A-bombed artifacts to the sun on
cyanotype paper render the traumatic objects as white shadows,
atomic traces. Akira Mizuta Lippit writes, "At Hiroshima, and then Nagasaki, a blinding flash vaporized
entire bodies, leaving behind only shadowtraces. The initial destruction was followed by waves of invisible
radiation, which infiltrated the survivors' bodies imperceptibly. What began as
a spectacular attack ended as a form of violent invisibility…The 'shadows,' as
they were called, are actually photograms, images formed by the direct exposure
of objects on photographic surfaces. Photographic sculptures. True photographs,
more photographic than photographic images."2
1 Becquerel,
“Sur les
radiations émises par phosphorescence,” 501
2 Lippit, Atomic Light (Shadow Optics), 86 and 94.
Niels Bohr 4, 2-channel audio installation, 7:58 loop, 2016