'Traumatomic' Encounters. Trauma through Radioactivity in Photofilmic 'Experimental Documents' of Chernobyl

Abstract

Nuclear trauma has always resisted verbal and visual portrayal, calling for various alternative, form-breaking methods. This article discusses three artistic works which I consider “experimental documents” because of their various photographic and filmic practices of intimately approaching the radioactive contamination still present in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The site-related projects of Alice Miceli (Chernobyl Project, 2006–2010), Lina Selander (Lenin’s Lamp Glows in the Peasant’s Hut, 2011), and Daniel McIntyre (Lion series, 2011–2014) go beyond the journalistic representations of the area and directly engage with the material traces, embodiment and objectification of immaterial radioactivity, devoting key role to the artist’s bodily and sensorial presence in the traumatic landscape. I examine these works of art in a conceptual context that assumes a structural similarity between radioactive radiation and trauma due to their uncontrollable and retrospective nature, their specific aspects of embodiment, and their manifestation through various emotional and physical symptoms. According to my observation, although the artists initially aim to investigate and document the immateriality of toxic radiation through the mediums of photography and film, they not only reveal the original, hyperobjective nature of nuclear trauma, but also touch on its affective qualities. I will argue that these three works, despite their differences, are based on “traumatomic encounters” with the radiation-contaminated sites and have in common the perception of Chernobyl as a “traumascape” (Tumarkin), which is saturated with an invisible, radioactive, and at the same time affective “atmosphere” (BĂśhme).