What does it mean to live in a post-atomic world? Photography and
contemporary art offer a provocative lens through which to comprehend
the by-products of the atomic age, from weapons proliferation, nuclear
disaster, and aerial surveillance to toxic waste disposal and climate
change. Confronting cultural fallout from the dawn of the nuclear age,
Through Post-Atomic Eyes addresses the myriad iterations of nuclear
threat and their visual legacy in the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries. Whether in the iconic black-and-white photograph of a
mushroom cloud rising over Nagasaki in 1945 or in the steady stream of
real-time video documenting the 2011 meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear power plant, atomic culture - and our understanding of it - is
inextricably constructed by the visual. This book takes the image as its
starting point to address the visual inheritance of atomic anxieties;
the intersection of photography, nuclear industries, and military
technocultures; and the complex temporality of nuclear technologies.
Contemporary artists contribute lens-based works that explore the
consequences of the nuclear, and its afterlives, in the Anthropocene.
Revealing, through both art and prose, startling new connections between
the ongoing threat of nuclear catastrophe and current global crises,
Through Post-Atomic Eyes is a richly illustrated examination of how
photography shapes and is shaped by nuclear culture.
