Transformator bij een electriciteitscentrale op onbekende locatie in de Verenigde Staten 1936

This photograph by Wouter Cool, whose dates are 1877 to 1947, shows a transformer at an electricity plant in the USA. The photograph is bisected: on the left side a red line drawing of a simple angular shape, and on the right is a black and white photo of the hulking machinery. I feel for Cool, wrestling with these visual languages. He might have been thinking about how to depict the unseen energy flowing through the structure, reducing it to a diagram of pure geometry. The geometric shapes contrast the industrial forms, but in a way also mirror the idea of hidden power, the essence of the machine, its transformation of energy depicted as a transformation of form. I wonder if he thought about what it felt like to be near these giant structures. Or, if he just thought it would look cool in a photo, a collision of the real and the abstract. Either way, this image makes me think about the work of other artists, maybe Bernd and Hilla Becher who also photographed industrial structures. Artists are always influencing and responding to each other.