Radiant Exposures—Facts Run on Light Beams These Days

The 16mm film Radiant Exposures—Facts Run on Light Beams These Days (the latter part of the title quotes from Donna Haraway) returns to Rosa Barba's long-standing motifs of the desert and the exploration of modern archives as a manifestation of the human desire for progress. As in previous films, Radiant Exposures—Facts Run on Light Beams These Days appears to represent a place outside of time and space—ethereal, timeless and unearthly.

The predominant motif of the film is the human-made landscape with large expanses of rectangular panels reflecting the sunlight. These reflective panels are in fact concentrating sunlight, creating and collecting energy. The presence of the sun is made palpable by the shimmering light and the blurring of the imagery.

Four minutes into the film, a cascade of text appears in front of the landscape image yet only remains visible for a brief moment, too brief to read it in its entirety. The text combines fragments from a poem by Robert Creely (1926-2005) and lyrics by the musician and poet Sun Ra (1914-1993).

The title Radiant Exposures refers to the threshold between creation and destruction where everything exists. For example, the exposure must be controlled to create an analogue image—if you let too much light into the camera, the images are lost. This balance also applies to our existence and the future of the planet, for both radiance and exposure suggest threat in times of climate crisis. At the same time, the title refers to the beauty and timelessness of the cosmos, which echoes Barba's continued research into the intersection of film and astronomy.