ATOMIC LIGHT (SHADOW OPTICS)
by Akira Mizuta Lippit. University of Minnesota Press/248
pp./$19.95 (sb).
What is the common factor among x-ray machines, psychoanalysis, and
atomic radiation? According to Akira Mizuta Lippit, a professor of
cinema, comparative literature, and Japanese culture at the University
of Southern California, these inventions have broken through the
boundaries of interiority and exteriority, visibility and invisibility,
known and unknown. Humanity has continued striving to light up the
unknown darkness since Prometheus gave us fire. With x-ray machines and
psychoanalysis, we can see through the surfaces between interiority and
exteriority, envisioning the invisible body and mind. However, peeking
into Pandora's box is perilous--what if we see too much? The
invention of the atomic bomb allowed humans to realize we have had the
power to penetrate everything by unseen light and we could destroy the
witnesses such as at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Lippit suggests that when the darkness is completely eliminated by
light, like in Roger Corman's 1963 film X: The Man with the X-ray
Eyes, what is left is nothing but a luminous void--a trip across
obscurity and emptiness. However, cinema, which "has always been a
vision machine," can extract the seer from boundaries and open a
new universe at the same time. Interweaving the writings of Sigmund
Freud, foundational work on x-rays, and postwar Japanese and French
films, Lippit explores in depth the relation between atomic light and
shadow optics, and leads us to a new field of visual studies.
COPYRIGHT 2006 Visual Studies
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NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.