Stone Shadow – Radio work (dur. 1h) – by Cinzia Nistico
premiered on Worm Radio in September 2025 and broadcasted on Radiophrenia Glasgow in September 2026
August 6th 2025 marks 80 years since the Hiroshima bombing. Stone Shadow wants to commemorate this atrocity with a surreal Elmo projector’s interview, which becomes a much serious remembrance.
The work is based on footage material (atomic bomb detonation, extracts from eye witness, reports on the effects of the bombing) elaborated in counterpoints and, distortions and multiple exposures by mean of hand-print processes and other hand-on-film techniques.
Concept:
The idea for Stone Shadow came when I saw pictures of the a human shadow etched in stone, as an effect of the atomic bombing on Hiroshima.
It is the shadow of a man, or a woman, sitting on the stairs of a bank, at the instant when the bomb detonated. The effect of the bomb created the imprinting of his/her shadow on the stone.
The dynamic with which the atomic bomb operates and destroys, somehow made me think of the analog film’s printing process. Optical sounds depends heavily on light exposure. Once the film is impressed it stays permanently.
All sounds on each section are printed on single film strips and there is no further or prior digital manipulation of the sound. The overlapping sound’s layers and distortions are the result of the multiple exposure and hand printing effects.
Something in the film process, resonates with the physical effect of the bombing and with the trauma that it left. The light and shadow effect necessary to produce optical sounds implies an incorporation of the hidden in the revealed, the existing and the non existing.
