Sunspot, 2023
The International premiere of Sunspot was held at CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, on March 17 & 19th 2024.
Sunspot (2023) shows two lives and two observatories, one in Los Angeles, one in Tokyo. Using archival imagery, the film tells the tale of two sunspot observers both making drawings of the same sun on the day the Hiroshima bomb killed 100,000 people on August 6th, 1945. The film reflects on the forms and uses of light, from the light reflecting in a mirror to look at the sun and into space, the white hollow light of the bomb, and the light shone through the old film footage to create the image we see now. The huge wildfire that threatened Los Angeles’ Mount Wilson Observatory becomes a mirror of the huge clouds and destruction from the atomic bomb.
Footage from The Huntington Library Archive in California shows Joseph Hiscox at work at Mount Wilson Observatory. He made solar observation drawings, while many of his colleagues would have been developing the atomic bombs that would eventually be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Meanwhile animated archival photographs from the National Astronomical Observatory Archives in Tokyo, shows Yukiaki Tanaka, who worked in the solar physics division at the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory. A skilled artist, deaf from a young age, he was hired to make solar observations. He worked daily throughout the war in the camouflaged Observation Dome, oblivious to the destruction surrounding him, at risk from the bombing and deadly fires that overtook the city.
Stills from: Sunspot, David Blandy, 2023
Sunspot was commissioned by John Hansard Gallery & Supported by Arts Council England
Director: David Blandy
Producer: Claire Barrett
Running Time: 13min 28 sec
Country of production: United Kingdom
Year of Production: 2023
Languages: English & Japanese
Status: International Premiere
Editor & Soundtrack: David Blandy
English voice-over: Zannah Hodson
Japanese translation: Chikara Asano
Japanese voice-over: Miho Pokropek
Credits: Archive footage courtesy of The Huntington Library, California. Preserved and made available online by California Revealed. (California Revealed is supported by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services)
Sunspot drawing courtesy of Mt. Wilson Observatory. operated by UCLA, with funding from NASA, ONR and NSF, under agreement with the Mt. Wilson Institute
Found footage: HPWREN, Los Angeles, USA & Youtube news: KTLA 5
Archival photography & sunspot drawing: Courtesy of National Astronomical Observatory of Japan Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan. With thanks to Tomoya Iju, Solar Science Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
David Blandy - Atomic Light, John Hansard Gallery
11 February - 6 May 2023
Sunspot was part of Atomic Light, David Blandy’s most ambitious solo project to date and expanded on his Artist Residency at Towner Gallery, Eastbourne in 2022. Featuring four newly commissioned films, it builds upon his continued interest in history, the legacy of empire and the climate crisis.
The tales interconnect through the story of Blandy’s grandfather, a British soldier interred in Singapore as a Japanese prisoner of war, who believed that the horrific atomic bombing of Hiroshima saved his life. The Edge of Forever and Empire of the Swamp were shot on location and feature the landscapes of the UK and Singapore. Archival footage is used in Sunspot, where two Observatories both detect the same sun on the day an atomic sun was made on earth; the Hiroshima bomb that killed 100,000 people. Similarly, in Soil, Sinew & Bone a history of war and a history of agriculture are mirrored, the fertile earth of phosphates and nitrates reflected into weapons of war.
Atomic Light was co-commissioned by John Hansard Gallery and Towner Eastbourne, with support from Arts Council England, Screen Archive South East and Elephant Trust.
Atomic Light - David Blandy, An artist book, published by John Hansard Gallery, 2023
Available through the gallery bookshop or order through Cornerhouse Publications here.
