by The Otolith Group, 2012, 64'
| CAMERA: Sebastian Mayer | EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Foundation of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona, MACBA | |
| EDITING: Simon Arazi | ||
| ORIGINAL MMUSIC AND MIX: Tyler Friedman | CO-PRODUCERS Blood Mountain Foundation, Budapest, Project 88, Mumbai, Zavod Projekt Atol / Con il supporto del Ministero della Cultura, Repubblica di Slovenia | |
| SOUND DESIGN: The Otolith Group, Simon Arazi and Tyler Friedman | ||
| COMMISSIONED BY: documenta 13 | JAPAN PRODUCTION: 2DK | |
| PRODUCER: The Otolith Group | MR. ATOM: Marko Peljhan |
Presented at Lo schermo dell'arte 2012Presented at dOCUMENTA 13, The Radiant is a flux of images, electric sound, words, music, noises, silences. Starting with the tragic events that rocked Japan in March 2011, the film follows a circular path that crosses different dimensions of time. The primary narration, centered around the Fukushima disaster, is interspliced with multi-source and archival materials, including film, video and performance segments which, according to the collective’s consolidated creative methodology, present themselves autonomously and in connection with each other, opening onto a plurality of specular discourses. Directors and producers, the Otolith Group also curated the sound, which acts plastically on the images and the spectator’s perception.
According to the authors, “The Radiant invokes the historical promise of nuclear energy and summons the future threat of radiation that converge upon the benighted present. Under these conditions, the illuminated cities and evacuated villages of Japan can be understood as a laboratory for the global nuclear regime that exposes its citizens to the necropolitics of radiation”.
In this perspective, the film places itself within the context of a project on global nuclear energy politics begun by the group in 2012 during a residency and a public program at the Blood Mountain Foundation in Budapest.
The Otolith Group
The Otolith Group is an award-winning artist-led collective and organization, founded by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun in 2002, that integrates film- and video-making, artists’ writing, workshops, exhibition curation, publication and developing public platforms for the close readings of the image in contemporary society.
Solo exhibitions include Thoughtform at Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2011). Their work has been presented at the Bienal de Sao Paulo (2010) and Manifesta 8 (2010). In 2010, The Otolith Group was nominated for the Turner Prize.
Selected Filmography
2003 Otolith I; 2007 Otolith II; 2009 Otolith III; 2010 Hydra Decapita; 2012 I See Infinite Distance Between Any Point and Another
otolithgroup.org