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Exposed: Radiation\u2019s Imperfect Traces<\/strong><\/span><\/p> Post by\u00a0Ruby de Vos (ICOG, University of Groningen)<\/p> 27.11.2018<\/p> At a first glance, Lingering Radiation<\/em> (2008), made by the American artist elin O\u2019Hara slavick<\/a>, looks like a black and white photograph of exploding fireworks. The image shows a black background with brightly illuminated sparks clustered in petal-like shapes towards the top and the sides of the image. Yet, as the title of the work suggests, these are no fireworks \u2013 although the work is the indirect product of an explosion \u2013 nor is this really a photograph.<\/p>\",\r\n \"align\": \"bottom\",\r\n \"row\": 0,\r\n \"col\": 2,\r\n \"colspan\": 7,\r\n \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n \"offsety\": 0,\r\n \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n \"yvel\": 0,\r\n \"push\": 2\r\n },\r\n {\r\n \"type\": \"img\",\r\n \"attid\": 164,\r\n \"sizes\": {\r\n \"_1280\": \"http:\/\/sublimeimperfections.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/XRay_LingeringRadiation-1280x1677.jpg\",\r\n \"_1024\": \"http:\/\/sublimeimperfections.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/XRay_LingeringRadiation-1024x1341.jpg\",\r\n \"_768\": \"http:\/\/sublimeimperfections.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/XRay_LingeringRadiation-768x1006.jpg\",\r\n \"_512\": \"http:\/\/sublimeimperfections.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/XRay_LingeringRadiation-512x671.jpg\",\r\n \"_265\": \"http:\/\/sublimeimperfections.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/XRay_LingeringRadiation-265x347.jpg\",\r\n \"full\": \"http:\/\/sublimeimperfections.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/XRay_LingeringRadiation.jpg\"\r\n },\r\n \"cont\": \"http:\/\/sublimeimperfections.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/XRay_LingeringRadiation-1280x1677.jpg\",\r\n \"align\": \"bottom\",\r\n \"row\": 1,\r\n \"col\": 2,\r\n \"colspan\": 7,\r\n \"ar\": 1.3100436681222707,\r\n \"alt\": \"\",\r\n \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n \"offsety\": 0,\r\n \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n \"yvel\": 0,\r\n \"push\": 2,\r\n \"caption\": \" Lingering Radiation<\/i> (2008), elin O\u2019Hara slavick. Autoradiograph, contact print of x-ray exposed from A-bombed tree stump fragment. Image courtesy of the artist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\"\r\n },\r\n {\r\n \"type\": \"text\",\r\n \"cont\": \" Instead, Lingering Radiation<\/i> is an autoradiograph: a contact print produced by putting radioactive material directly onto x-ray film. The radiation released from the material exposes the object on the film when it is developed. This connection between radiation and photography goes way back: notably, scientist Henri Becquerel initially discovered uranium\u2019s radiation by placing a piece of the material onto a photographic plate, the outline of which he found transferred onto the film after developing it. <\/span><\/p> More recently, several artists such as Julian Charri\u00e8re<\/span><\/a><\/strong> or Shimpei Takeda<\/span><\/a><\/strong> have experimented with radioactive material in their work, exploring the multiple and intersecting meanings of photography, exposure, time, and light within the contexts of local nuclear issues. Their works is a bit like an autoradiograph as well: film is exposed to radioactive material (soil, in the case of both Charri\u00e8re and Takeda), so as to capture the traces of radiation left behind. The final result alludes to the peculiar temporality of radioactivity, and especially its longevity, as they push the supposed past into the present.<\/span><\/p> The radiation captured in Lingering Radiation <\/i>stems from fragments of a tree that used to grow in Hiroshima. The pieces were put on film by O\u2019Hara slavick, as part of the work she produced during her stay at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum (HPMM). This museum was built to commemorate the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945 by the United States \u2013 the original source of the radiation on the tree. <\/span><\/p> The fragments of the tree are preserved in the HPMM archives, together with 90.000 other objects. The dazzling burn the fragments left on Lingering Radiation<\/i> seems simultaneously elegant and brutal, foregrounding the sharp contrast between the irrevocable, stark violence of the atomic bomb, and the gentle, intimate gesture implied in the tree fragment\u2019s presence within the archive. The pieces were brought to the HPMM to be kept simply because they were touched by the bomb \u2013 a touch that, as the work attests, remains felt until this day. That we cannot recognize any particular shapes within the radiation imprinted on the film seems only right. The bright colour but unrecognisable form of the tree fragments emphasizes radiation\u2019s ambiguous tendency to illuminate and deform simultaneously.<\/span><\/p> Yet the abstractness of the work leaves also some room for uncertainty: are these traces really produced by the radiation on the fragments? Although it is possible to produce more focused and bright autoradiographs (see for example those made by Masamichi Kagaya<\/span><\/a><\/strong> or the archive work of Susanne Kriemann<\/span><\/a><\/strong>), O\u2019Hara slavick has explained<\/span><\/a><\/strong> that she did not know what the outcome would be when she placed fragments out of the archives onto x-ray film and whether the radiation would be caught on the material at all. It is a process of which the outcome is uncertain and beyond the artist\u2019s control. Lingering Radiation <\/i>was the only one out of six autoradiographs that rendered visible more than just very light traces of radiation, and it is not impossible that something went wrong in the process<\/span>. Knowing this, the petals suddenly also suggest fingerprints, hinting at the film\u2019s potential contact with a body existing in a world with increasing levels background radiation.<\/span><\/p>