Event 3: In Focus: Electric!

I attended the exhibition In Focus: Electric! at the Getty Museum a couple of weeks ago. This photography event aims at showing the influence of the electric to human. Electricity benefits us in all kinds of aspects, but it also has downsides on our lives - people nowadays just take it for granted and depend on it too much. I can stand a few days without electricity, but definitely not an entire life! It is interesting to see how artists express these ideas through photographs.

Lights in some sense represent the progress of the world. From the birth of the light bulb to the widespread application of the lights in the streets and buildings. Artists like Alfred Stieglitz and Bureau uses their photos of streetlights in New York and Paris to demonstrate the benefits that electricity brought to our society, while American photographer Robert Adams shows the light pollution also brought along with them. (Since visitors are not allowed to take photos in the gallery I don't have the photo of Adams's work.)

A Night View of Broadway looking North from 45th Street, 1923. New York Edison Co. Photographic Bureau. 

The Glow of Night — New York, 1897. Alfred Stieglitz.

Electricity is also employed in many scientific experiments. Testing Synchronized Flash Powder is a photo took by George Watson in 1920. In the photo, two researchers jump into the air to test flash power. Other interesting photographs are those of Guillaume-Benjamin Duchenne's experiment with electric to trigger different facial expressions. This experiment reminds me of the topic "biotechnology and art" that we discussed in week 6. I am amazed at how electricity can control our expressions.

Testing Synchronized Flash Powder, 1920. George Watson.

Plate from the book The Mechanism of Human Physiognomy, 1876, Guillaume-Benjamin Duchenne.

"Great are the powers of electricity. . . . It makes millionaires. . . . It hides in the air. It creeps into every living thing. . . . Energy begets energy."(“Magnificent Power Celebration Banquet,” Buffalo Morning Express, January 1897). These artworks remind people about the huge change of the society that the technology brought to them, whether good or not. I recommend this exhibition since it demonstrates the complex relationship of human, art and technology and how this relationship promotes each other to better stages, just like what we discuss in this class. Also, the Getty Center has a lot more to explore the beautiful merge of the Two Cultures!

Sources & Photos:

"In Focus: Electric!" Getty Museum. Web. 1 June 2016. 

"The Glow of Night - New York." PhotoSeed Blog RSS. Web. 01 June 2016. 

"A Night View of Broadway Looking North from 45th Street (Getty Museum)." The J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles. Web. 01 June 2016.