And while its pictorial mediation allows us to remain at a safe and objective distance from the hazard, the sudden distortion of the documentary’s sound and images, and the Geiger-like interference of radiation, inaugurates a sense of dread that what we are witnessing on film is in fact the unholy representation of the real: an amorphous and evil contagion that continues to release its lethal discharges into the present and future yet to come. Shevchenko’s film, Chernobyl: Chronicle of Difficult Weeks, provides us with an intimate view into the space of disaster. This is why the events of the first weeks will be black and white, the colors of disaster.” Our camera was loaded with black-and-white film. On that April night the first men passed here – without protection or stop-watches, aware of the danger, as soldiers performing a great feat. “This shot was taken when we were allowed a 30-second glimpse from the armoured troop-carrier. This is how radiation looks,” Shevchenko narrates over the film. What we are witness to, in this fleeting energetic event, is the radiological conversion of a somewhat pedestrian account of the disaster into the most dangerous film in the world. Sparking and crackling, they conjure a pyrotechnics of ghostly defects that are the consequence of decaying radioactive particles moving through the exterior casing of Shevchenko’s 35mm Konvas camera to activate the emulsive properties of the film. Upon projection, small flares of light momentarily ignite the surface of the film. Thinking initially that the film stock used had been defective, Shevchenko eventually realised that what he had captured on film was the image and sound of radioactivity itself. When Shevchenko’s 35mm footage was later developed, he noticed that a portion of the film was heavily pockmarked and carried extraneous static interference and noise. His assignment was to document the cleanup operations being carried out by Ukrainian workers and volunteers, most of whom would eventually succumb to the extraordinarily high levels of radiation they were exposed to while trying to contain the disaster.
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