Radiation

(2019)

In 1896 the physicist Henri Becquerel inadvertently discovered radioactivity by placing photographic film nearby uranium, a radioactive substance. His intention was not to study radioactivity - it was not yet a scientifically known principle and he was not even aware it existed. However, while “failing” in another experiment, he observed that potassium uranyl sulfate (a uranium substance) left light marks on his developed film, even if the sealed film had not been directly exposed to it. It was thanks to photographic film, therefore, that radioactivity was discovered.

These images below are from one single film roll that was exposed to high-intensity radiation as my father received his final treatments for the Stage IV terminal cancer that had been slowly consuming him for years.

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Radioactivity is a dangerous process, generally very harmful to humans, but it has several positive uses. One of these is to help treat cancer patients - the radiation interferes with cancerous cells, slowing their relentless progression, a treatment known as radiation oncology treatment. Basically, by destroying some “malignant” parts of yourself, you can lengthen your life. It does, however, have its repercussions, on a very physical level

The color-negative film roll was exposed to the radiation unopened, still in its plastic case, as my father secured it above his chest during radiation therapy treatment, and only afterwards was it loaded into a medium format camera where I exposed these photographs later in that same day. Not knowing what the effects of radiation would be on the film, I shot the full 10 image sequence right away and had it developed first thing in the next day. Since it was an experimental process that I had never done, I didn’t know at all what would come out of it or if the exposure and development process would even produce any images on the photograms. I knew that film crystals are somehow sensitive to alpha radiation wavelengths, but had no idea how the radiation exposure would finally manifest itself on the film once developed. I was very surprised to see both the images and the mark of the radiation turn out together in the end.

My father, being a life-long physicist himself, was very much in support of this artistic experiment, and it was actually thanks to him that it was possible to do this, since he was the one who expertly convinced the nurses to let him randomly take a roll of film with him during the treatment procedure.

The photos are all taken around towns of Battle Ground and Brush Prairie, in rural Washington, 2019, which is where my father lived during his last few years before his death, in the company of my mother, brother and nephew. The very last photo on the roll, which I consider to be central to the entire In Other Words project, shows my father’s battered chest region, where both himself and the film roll concurrently received the incoming radiation, or, in other words, where both “mediums” were treated and visibly marked by it.