Atomic light

220 Pages·2005·13.32 MB·English

by  Akira Mizuta Lippit

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(Shadow Optics)/
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Atomic Light
(Shadow Optics)
Akira Mizuta Lip pit
University of Minnesota Press • Minneapolis • London
Copyright 2005 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lippit, Akira Mizuta.
Atomic light (shadow optics) / Akira Mizuta Lippit.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8166-4610-4 (he : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8166-4611-2 (pb : alk. paper)
1. Vision. I. Title.
B846.L57 2005
121'.35—dc22 2005020224
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.
12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
indivisible
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
0. Universes 1
"Hoichi the Earless"—blindness and invisibility—exscription—atomic
destruction and phantom visuality—catastrophic light, Japanese visual
culture—Jorge Luis Borges, "The Library of Babel" (1941)—the universal
Library and secret archive—traces of the uninscribed and uninscribable—
"the true story of your death"—atomism—the shadow archive—Jacques
Derrida, Archive Fever (1995)—heterogeneity and psychoanalysis—a
universe of the unarchivable
1. The Shadow Archive (A Secret Light) 13
"The secret is the very ash of the archive"—Sigmund Freud, Moses and
Monotheism (1934-39) — "into the light"—"the shadow of the god" —
secrecy and pseudonymy—Tani/aki Jun'ichiro, In Praise of Shadows
(1933-34)—illumination and the archive—"the glow of grime"—
radiation descends from above and assails the body like a fever—cinders
and atomic writing—pellicular surfaces—X-rays and cinema, profound
superficiality—secret visuality—avisuality—cinefaction
2. Modes of Avisuality: Psychoanalysis-X-ray-Cinema 35
"The dream of Irma's injection"—the secret of dreams and the secret
dream—formlessness and interiority—"the very invisibility of the
invisible within the visible"—Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen—Berthe's hand,
X-rays—inside out—skiagraphy—penetrating light and the Visible
Human Project—destructive visuality—anniversaries, apocalypse—
x sign—the dream of cinema—an exemplary design
3. Cinema Surface Design 61
"The psychology of movement"—early cinema, making visible the
invisible—Auguste and Louis Lumiere, the surface of the screen—
imaginary depth—"unseen energy swallowing space"—screens and
displaced collisions—"phantom rides"—invisible thresholds between life
and death—"the metaphysical surface" (Gilles Deleuze)—James
Williamson, The Big Swallow (circa 1901)—total visibility—the outer
surface of consciousness—the phantasm
zAn Atomic Trace 81
"Eyes melted out of sheer ecstasy"—colorlessness—the wrathful light of
atoms—invisible men—optical density and diffusion—allegories of
atomic radiation—invisibility and transparency—H. G. Wells (1897) and
James Whale (1933), The Invisible Man—"a black cavity"—racelessness—
unimaginable destruction, catastrophic light—photographic sculptures—
face and surface, facelessness—Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (1952)—IM,
"hypervisibility"—"outside history"—atomic and anatomic—phonic
atomism—the spaceless image
asfxascr/pf/on/Antigraphy 105
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, "a blending of some sort"—painting and the
universal image—Tanizaki's Japanese skin, which radiates darkness—
"a bright shadow"—a dark writing—atomic, atopic—Ibuse Masuji,
Black Rain (1965)—liquid atomic ash—interiorized world—emulsion,
"an immiscible mixture"—Marguerite Duras and Alain Resnais, Hiroshima
man amour (1959), cinders and rain—an atomic trope, writing on skin—
Mizoguchi Kenji, Ugetsu (1953), the searing surface—impressions—
"eyes destined to weep"—Kobayashi Masaki, Kwaidan (1964), the invisible
body—disturbance of the senses—demontage—catastrophic synthesis—
antigraphy—Teshigahara Hiroshi, Woman in the Dunes (1964)—identity
papers—a liquid desert—8:15 a.m.—water from sand—a smooth
archive
6. Phantom Cures: Obscurity and Emptiness 133
Psychic visuality and displaced interiority—Kore-eda Hirokazu, Maborosi
(1995)—"a beautiful light"—memory and dream, the acousmatic voice—
passages and lines—a shadow optics—Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Cure (1997) —
"x"—"I myself am empty"—memories returned from the outside—
Roger Gorman, X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963)—atomic vision—
photographing emptiness—mesmerism—interiority constituted by the
lack of interiority—circumcision, secret cuts—the cure/to cure—dark
worlds—"sightless vision," a vision machine at the end of cinema—
universe
Notes 159
Index 195
Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to Lisa Cartwright, Laura U. Marks, and Vivian
Sobchack, who read this book carefully and offered detailed criticisms.
Each made invaluable suggestions that vastly improved the book. Miya

Lippit and Albert Liu read the book line by line—they are its coauthors.
I would like to thank Dudley Andrew, Cade Bursell, Michael Fried, Anne
Friedberg, Hosokawa Shuhei, Peggy Kamuf, Karatani Kojin, Jean-Claude
Lebensztejn, Richard Macksey, Fred Moten, Bill Nichols, Michael Renov,
Trinh T. Minh-ha, Herve Vanel, Catherine Waldby, and Linda Williams,
who read the book or parts of it at different stages and offered criticism,
references, and lines of inquiry. Catherine Waldby suggested the phrase
"catastrophic light," which I have used here. Each has left a singular exscrip-
tion on this book.
Jacques Derrida supported me from an early point in my development,
and I am grateful for the kindness he extended to me. Those of us who had
the good fortune to work with him will miss his brilliance, generosity, and
humor.
In Japan, Iwamoto Kenji and Ukai Satoshi were especially helpful in
supervising and critiquing sections of this work. Donald Richie suggested
novel directions for me to pursue. Research in Japan was made possible by
grants from the Japan Foundation, the Northeast Asia Council of the Associ-
ation for Asian Studies, San Francisco State University, and the University
of California, Irvine, Humanities Center. I am grateful for their support.
Various portions of this book were delivered as lectures at the Center
ix