The Radiant, 2012

Constructed from historical footage and recordings made in 2011, the film focuses on the historical promises associated with the advent of nuclear energy and the real danger of radioactive rain. The Otolith Group has incorporated images of the illuminated cities of Japan and the evacuated towns in the months immediately after the disaster. In a very animistic region where tribute is paid to local gods linked to elements like the sea, rain or soil, it has come to be believed that radiation brings a second level of invisibility to these deities, which cannot be captured by camera. Hence, there is a sequence in the film where a camera is disassembled. Meanwhile, the film incorporates a sound counter that detects those points of highest radiation. Even though a camera cannot ‘capture’ radiation, this counter can read the points where radiation is at its highest, such as in run-off or stagnant water. Since radiation – unlike an earthquake – has no visual presence, the sound descriptions are very useful. The Radiant incorporates sensorial approaches that are different from visual ones so that this invisible and dangerous threat can be accessed.

As the filmmakers themselves tell us: “The Radiant has to do with unspoken forms of power and identification with energy that atomic power gives. The entire project of nuclear power is a Promethean endeavour in which science and technology gain control over fundamental processes of chain reactions for supposedly the good of humanity. The last person to attribute this kind of Promethean dimension to nuclear power was the philosopher Günther Anders, Hannah Arendt’s first husband, who in the 1950s wrote The Antiquatedness of the Human Species. The Radiant are those people who feel themselves to be all-powerful because of their identification with the power of the nuclear. The Radiant is Japan itself, and within that, Tokyo, the City of Light that you see early on in the film in an overhead shot from the 52nd floor of the Mori Tower. Tokyo is something like the evil twin of Fukushima, way up there on the north-east – a provincial, local, old-fashioned town that Tokyo people are somewhat dismissive of.”