A photo essay on a 19th century scientific discovery, this series by David Goldes combines drawing and photography for their conceptual and documentary features. Like in a criminal investigation, Goldes first reconstructs the facts. Using 19th century archives detailing various electrical experiments, the photographer meticulously reproduces the installations, transforming wires into helixes, abstract geometric compositions or a crown sparking at each point. For some, he adds a candle, as we see today in classical painting, sitting in a cup with curved edges.
The experiments are fascinating. The electricity irradiates a folded black sheet, the current bursts like a firework or lightning, the electrical centrifugal force becomes a spiral or an helix, a pencil ignites a drawing like a stylus on a record. Each composition seems like it comes from another time, or one of the physics books of our childhood, but their aesthetic is decidedly contemporary and the lighting is precise. Goldes documents the past, making this anachronism palpable through photography.
The second challenge was finding a way to record the visual evidence of an invisible phenomenon: electrical current. In this sense, his work is both strictly documentary and a deep reflection of the limitations of photography—how to make it work in non-photographic conditions? The solution was to draw lines in graphite, a conductive material, interrupt the line at several places, and turn on the juice. Sparks were emitted at every circuit break. All that remained was to carefully capture the phenomenon on film, print it and add it to the case file to understand the facts.
