“Atomic Explosion Stopped at Millionths of A Second”: Media Microtemporalities and Time Synchronisation

Authors

  • Antoine Prévost-Balga Goethe Universität Frankfurt Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2280-9481/10328

Keywords:

High-Speed photography, Media Temporality, Micro-Processes, Synchronization

Abstract

From 1945 to the early 1960s, the US government undertook numerous atomic and hydrogen bomb tests. These full-scale explosions were recorded on film from various angles, and at different speeds. Indeed, it soon became required to obtain images of the very first milli-seconds of the expanding phase of the atomic fireball. Ultrahigh-speed cameras able to produce such images were specifically developed for that purpose. This article explores the different “media-temporalities” that intersect in those images. I focus on the “micro-processes happening on a technical level that are very fast,” and more specifically the ones that go into the “Rapatronic camera” designed by Harold Edgerton (head of the US national defense contractor company EG&G) to record the atomic fireball early formation. The scientific slow-motion films and high-speed photographic images operate at the junction of the micro-scale temporality of the atomic explosions’ early phases, and the macro-scale temporality of the political and ecological implications of these explosions. I argue that these films are the objects and inscriptions of micro-temporalities, macro-history and geological times.

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Published

2020-07-30

How to Cite

Prévost-Balga, A. (2020). “Atomic Explosion Stopped at Millionths of A Second”: Media Microtemporalities and Time Synchronisation. Cinergie – Il Cinema E Le Altre Arti, 9(17), 173–182. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2280-9481/10328

Issue

Section

Miscellanea