Notes on the Production of Nuclear Sublime

In this talk, I inquire: what are the epistemic implications of visual apparatus in the context of the oceanic nuclear project? What is the role of audiovisual media in the production of the U.S. Cold War episteme? I examine the initial phases of interaction between cinema’s military industrial complex––that is, the extensive participation of the audiovisual apparatus in the U.S. military operations–– and the discursive frame of the nuclear weapon production.

I do this by focusing on the first most (audio)visually documented event in history––Operation Crossroads, implemented in 1946, in the waters of the Marshall Islands––as the instigation of what I refer to as ‘the bomb archive,’ and on its subsequent inclusion in the U.S. experimental cinema canon, as exemplified by Bruce Conner’s 1976 film CROSSROADS.

I argue that documentation from the Operation Crossroads was central for the establishment of the nuclear sublime–a commonly used concept that describes the awe that allegedly overtakes the subjects who face the nuclear mushroom cloud.

I propose a decentering of the until-now dominant interpretation of the mushroom cloud as part and parcel of American nuclear modernity. I analyze how the notion of the American nuclear sublime, as a representation of the oceanic nuclear weapon explosions, gained dominance through its shifts in the audiovisual framework: in a self-referential manner transitioning from scientific capture, documentation process, news coverage, and exhibition in film and moving image art spaces.

Ilona Jurkonytė (she/her) is a film and media researcher, film curator, Arts & Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto. Previously, Ilona was a Vanier Scholar at Concordia University, where she defended her PhD in Film and Moving Image Program.

Ilona’s research interests span film and media studies and science and technology studies. Ilona’s work critically examines tensions between notions of the national and transnational in moving image production and circulation, as well as their geo- and hydro- political implications. She is particularly invested in analysis how film and media production and technology engage with the questions of social and environmental justice.

Ilona is currently preparing for publication a book, based on her doctoral research, entitled “From Temperature of the War to Descending Clouds: US Bomb Archive and the Marshall Islands.” The project reconceptualizes the relationship between nuclear media archives, militarization, and the environment.

Prior to her academic work Ilona held an active curatorial practice which continues to inform her research. She is particularly interested in the potentials of artists’ moving image and its participation in audiovisual cultures. 

Ilona was a Co-founder (2007), Managing Director (2007-2012) and Artistic Director (2007-2019) of the Kaunas International Film Festival (Lithuania), which was instrumental in rescuing Romuva, the oldest cinema theatre in Lithuania. 2012-2014, she worked as Film Program Curator at the Contemporary Art Centre Cinema (Vilnius, Lithuania).