Link to presentation HERE

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Lightning Fields

Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Lightning Fields are a fascinating series of photography that hone in on the photographer’s key philosophies. Sugimoto is a photographer from Tokyo, whose primary inspirations are Surrealism and Dadaism. Sugimoto is particularly interested in the work of Marcel Duchamp, who pioneered the concept of the Readymade, a practice that questioned what art is by repurposing everyday objects into works of art. One of the main ideas of Sugimoto’s work is to harness the camera as a time machine and use it to materialize singular moments in time. In this series, he recreated scientific experiments in the darkroom. This series is Duchampian in a sort of way, as Sugimoto sought to experiment with lightning bolts and harness his own lightning, except by creating artificial examples of them in the dark room. He was not as daring as Benjamin Franklin. This reminds me of Duchamp’s rotated urinal which he claimed as a fountain, as Sugimoto claims these photograms to be harnessed lightning. Sugimoto utilized a Van De Graaff 400,000-volt generator to charge a ball which he then rolled along electrically sensitive photo paper. This created an array of shapes caused by electricity that resembled a lightning bolt; The beautiful thing about this series is that out of all the images he created, no two are alike. There is no order to them; they are all entirely unique. This makes the artwork itself even more valuable as one can’t print them in the same way that a photographer prints a negative. As Sugimoto’s work is non-linear the question becomes how does one organize them? The best way to answer this maybe is with shapes, as our group did. Beyond the lightning-esque shapes one can look at the abstract curves and edges and maybe organize using that. These patterns could potentially reflect the way in which Sugimoto experimented with different ball movements and techniques. Sugimoto does not the variety in shapes and also the similar groups of them; he likens a few to nature formations such as maps of rivers or mountains. Considering other potential connections, there is a famous land artwork by Walter De Maria titled The Lightning Field, which is on display in the desert of New Mexico. De Maria placed 400 stainless steel poles in a grid. The sculpture exists both to be walked through but also viewed over the passing of time, which is why Dia, the organization which maintains it, offers overnight stays at the exhibit. Though De Maria has an entirely different motivation for his work, it would seem highly unlikely that Sugimoto was not at least aware of the work.