Weerstanden in een electriciteitscentrale op onbekende locatie in de Verenigde Staten 1936

Wouter Cool made this photograph, ‘Weerstanden in een electriciteitscentrale op onbekende locatie in de Verenigde Staten,’ sometime between the wars, we think. It is a tightly cropped image of what looks like electrical transformers, or some kind of techy resistance infrastructure. What was Cool thinking when he framed this shot? There's a fence in the way, which adds a layer of removal and separation between the viewer and the object. I think he was trying to show how these things – electricity, power – are both essential and also kept at a distance, as though they are dangerous. Or maybe it’s the other way around – as though *we* are dangerous, and need to be kept away from the sensitive power source! The photo is dark and the forms are geometric and repetitive, but there are also many small variations which suggest the human element in the manufacturing process, and how the hand can be seen even in the most mechanized of environments. It reminds me that technology doesn’t exist in some other realm, but is made by people, for people, even if we are kept at a distance from it.