Hiroshi Sugimoto is one of the most gifted photographers active today. In creating this series, Sugimoto referenced early experiments with electricity by such pioneers as Benjamin Franklin and William Fox Talbot. In 2009 the artist set up in his darkroom a 400,000-volt Van De Graaff generator which sent bolts of electricity through film onto a metal table while he manipulated the sparking bolts with metal kitchen utensils. The resulting images often resemble vascular systems and highly-energy cosmic events.

© Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, photos: Maurice Aeschimann, Geneva