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xznmnxcnmnxcxczxxcczxcc (Shadow Optics)/ This page intentionally left blank 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 This page intentionally left blank 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

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Dreams, x-rays, atomic radiation, and "invisible men" are phenomena that are visual in nature but unseen. Atomic Light (Shadow Optics) reveals these hidden interiors of cultural life, the "avisual" as it has emerged in the writings of Jorge Luis Borges and Jacques Derrida, Tanizaki Jun'ichirô and S
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