Subatomic Babies (1983)

Handling

Densely colorized images of a couple making love and a close-up of a child's face dissolve into a nuclear mushroom cloud at the beginning of Subatomic Babies, one of Gorewitz's most highly charged works. Through a dramatic use of image-processing and an ominous, intensified soundtrack, Gorewitz links sex, life and death in an apocalyptic resolution that he calls "ecstasy near the abyss." Human figures — a man shadowboxing, his fists jabbing against the screen — are virtually swallowed up in threatening maelstroms of form and color. Shot in Jamaica and the South Bronx, this work conflates images that resonate with sexual and political meaning, reflecting Gorewitz's concern for the children "born under the atom."