PROJECT STATEMENT

Transmutations is a media arts research and production residency and exhibition project using autoradiography, uranotype photography, 35mm motion picture film and digital video, to investigate how images condition material practices and how matter conditions both imaging and imagination.

In 2020, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds to midnight. This shift represents the closest point humankind has come to the brink of self-imposed destruction since 1953. It illustrates a new reality of heightened nuclear tensions and more broadly, a deeper realization that human-material practices move toward self-annihilation.

I am interested in how the unique photographic capacities of radioactive materials, combined with associations of the geopolitical history in which they are entangled, can illuminate the agency of matter as a matter of urgency in our changing geopolitical reality – a reality informed by decisions at macro and micro scales, from armament policy to everyday domestic practices and our interaction with matter. To explore this, my project has two components: a hybrid black and white 35mm / HD video expanded documentary film and an ultra-large format photographic series of hand coated alternative photochemical prints.

My approach is to mix digital video and analogue film formats in a hybrid exploration that draws out textural qualities and material implications of each. Over the years 2018-2019, I traveled to Moab, Utah, on the traditional territory of the Pueblo, Ute and Navajo peoples, and to Uranium City, Saskatchewan, in the traditional territories of Black Lake and Fond du Lac Denesuline First Nations (Treaty 8) and Port Radium in the traditional territories of the Sahtu Dene, to film and photograph the Mi Vida, Gunnar, Eldorado and other important uranium mines of the mid twentieth century

In each of these locations, I documented guided exploration of mine interiors (where possible) and surrounding areas, ambient sounds, the sound of Geiger counters registering their environment, and the commentary of specialist guides. These recordings were accompanied by audio recordings of local residents sharing knowledge and experience of the impact of mining practices on their land, communities and lives.

Radiation cannot be perceived by our own senses. Photography is the only way it becomes visible. Upon placing the radioactive uranium ore directly on film, the ionizing radiation exposes it as if it were visible light – the fundamental ingredient in photographic image creation. The resulting images, autoradiograms, record the radiation as an aura through and around the mineral matrix.  Using historically significant samples of uranium ore extracted from these specific mines, I will print a series of autoradiograms using uranotype: hand coated images made with photosensitive uranium salts, so that the metal itself forms a permanent, radioactive image. 

Digital technology is saturated with narrative images – especially that of dematerialization: the myth of digital images as free-floating forms, disembodied entities that proliferate in the networked world. But all technologies of creation and circulation are embodied. Integral to these are vital minerals extracted from the Earth. Uranotypes become a vibrant index of the specimen photographed that no current digital technology can replicate with this form of embodied visualization. These images will form a visual reference for the soundscape and through the hybrid approach to the formal and conceptual charge of both analogue and digital materials and techniques.

“Transmutations” explores how imagery of both cultural imagination and material interaction can bring to light (literally and metaphorically) connections between materialities of the image and images of materiality. Exhibiting the work as an immersive experience, I hope to help audiences form an image of material vibrancy that speaks not only to the dangers of an intensifying nuclear arms race that seems beyond the experience of the general public, but also to the dangers of a cultural imaginary without images adequate to the task of conveying the force of matter in all human-material practices. 

TEAM & SUPPORT

Jesse Andrewartha

Jesse Andrewartha is a Canadian filmmaker, photographer and visual effects artist specializing in historical & obscure darkroom techniques using analogue ultra large format & motion picture film. Jesse’s work uses the photographic image to examine the collision between humankind and the physical world, the connection of the viewer to this struggle and domains that extend beyond our senses.

Jesse holds a Bachelor of Science (Hons)(Photography) from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (1997) and has screened and shown work in group contexts at festivals such as Capture Photography Festival and The Vancouver Art Gallery. He is recipient of a 2018 Explore & Create grant from the Canada Council of the Arts for “Transmutations” and a member of the Atomic Photographer’s Guild, an international group dedicated to making visible all facets of the nuclear age.

Current CV - Jesse Andrewartha

Matthew J. D’Avella

No stranger to hostile environments, Matthew has travelled the world as a cinematographer for the BBC Natural History Unit, Discovery Channel, Discovery Science Canada, numerous independent films and documentaries and as a naturalist and a film guide for Jean-Michel Cousteau. He has co-authored several scientific papers on larval fish. His work is featured at several natural history museums including the Australia Museum, Natural History Museum of North Carolina, and the Smithsonian.

For “Transmutations”, Matthew managed behind-the-scenes cinematography & photography, field sound and lighting. Matthew’s enthusiasm and excitement for the project constantly pushed the work to its full potential and his contribution was invaluable.

Marcos Fajardo - Producer

Marcos is the founder of Madrid and London-based Solid Angle, now part of Autodesk, Inc., where he led the R&D team working on the Arnold path-tracing rendering software. Previously he was a visiting software architect and researcher at Sony Pictures Imageworks, at USC Institute for Creative Technologies under the supervision of Dr. Paul Debevec, and at various CGI and animation studios around the world. He studied Computer Science at the University of Malaga, Spain. In 2017 he received an Academy Scientific and Engineering Award for the design and implementation of the Arnold renderer. His favorite sushi is engawa.

Kickstarter Backers

This project would not have been possible without the financial support of my backers on Kickstarter! I’d like to thank each of the following backers for their patience, generosity and time in donating to “Transmutations”:

Barry Andrewartha

Fiona Howarth Tsang

Derek Erwin

Roy Berkowitz

David Wargowski

Adam Martinez

Fiona Dewhirst-Daniel

Ross Mackenzie

Cam Thompson

Russell Clark

Guest

Marco Bossow

Jem Noble

I’d also like to thank the following individuals, businesses & institutions for their generosity and assistance:

Kevin & Evette Shumway

Cameco Corporation

Uranium City Bulk Fuel

Kodak Alaris

Anaisa Visser

Saskatchewan Research Council

Sharon Cisneros / Mineralogical Research Company

Ironworks

Suzanne Friesen

Kellen Jackson

Devon Cooke / Documentary Sound Guy