2019
ABORNING NEW LIGHT
Looped video (scanned and sequenced c-print prints made with US nuclear testing footage, sunlight, and artist's breath), monitor, monitor mount
Looped 2min 43sec
Installation: Various
Aborning New Light (public projection)
2021
Public projection at Daniels and Fisher Tower in Denver as a public art project organized by Night Lights Denver: People’s Projector and the Center for Fine Art Photography.
Aborning New Light is a video installation from my larger New Light series. The visuals were mined from archives of nuclear testing on American soil. From the declassified nuclear testing film footage, the 1000s of film stills were printed onto transparencies, exposed onto light sensitive paper and finally, he rescanned the processed prints back into a single film (sometimes objects like Godzilla figurines or Enola Gay toys were placed on the darkroom paper during the exposure process). This new video, now with my own hand and process creating an artistic intervention, is also played in reverse, the explosions shrinking instead of expanding. Houses, school buses, and mannequins are reconstructed before our eyes while time counts down to a period before nuclear weapons and their extreme proliferation across the globe.
2021-2023
ABORNING NEW LIGHT
Looped video (scanned and sequenced c-print prints made with US nuclear testing footage, sunlight, and artist's breath), monitor, monitor mount
Looped 2min 43sec
Installation: Various
Aborning New Light (public projection)
2021
Public projection at Daniels and Fisher Tower in Denver as a public art project organized by Night Lights Denver: People’s Projector and the Center for Fine Art Photography.
Aborning New Light is a video installation from my larger New Light series. The visuals were mined from archives of nuclear testing on American soil. From the declassified nuclear testing film footage, the 1000s of film stills were printed onto transparencies, exposed onto light sensitive paper and finally, he rescanned the processed prints back into a single film (sometimes objects like Godzilla figurines or Enola Gay toys were placed on the darkroom paper during the exposure process). This new video, now with my own hand and process creating an artistic intervention, is also played in reverse, the explosions shrinking instead of expanding. Houses, school buses, and mannequins are reconstructed before our eyes while time counts down to a period before nuclear weapons and their extreme proliferation across the globe.
© 2023 by Kei Ito.
Created on Editor X.
Sungazing
2015 - Ongoing
108 of 8”x10” prints, Scroll: 12” x 150’ to 220’ depending on the edition
On August 6th 1945, at 8:15 AM, my grandfather witnessed a great tragedy that destroyed nearly everything in Hiroshima. He survived the bombing, yet he lost many of his family members from the explosion and radiation poisoning. As an activist and author, my grandfather fought against the use of nuclear weaponry throughout his life, until he too passed away from cancer when I was ten years old. I remember him saying that day in Hiroshima was like hundreds of suns lighting up the sky.
In order to express the connection between the sun and my family history, I have created 108 letter size prints and a 200 foot long scroll, made by exposing Type-C photographic paper to sunlight. The pattern on the prints/scroll corresponds to my breath. In a darkened room, I pulled the paper in front of a small aperture to expose it to the sun while inhaling, and paused when exhaling. I repeated this action until I breathed 108 times. 108 is a number with ritual significance in Japanese Buddhism; to mark the Japanese New Year, bells toll 108 times, ridding us of our evil passions and desires, and purifying our souls.
If the black parts of the print remind you of a shadow, it is the shadow of my breath, which is itself a registration of my life, a life I share with and owe to my grandfather. The mark of the atomic blast upon his life and upon his breath was passed on to me, and you can see it as the shadow of this print.