Art Photography
#batteries #electricity #fruit #light
Back to Light: Artist Caleb Charland Uses Fruit Batteries to Illuminate Long-Exposure Photographs
Fruit Battery Solar System, 2014
Battery with Hanging Apples, 2013
Limes and Lemons, 2013
Electricity From a Ring of Apples, 2013
Vinegar Batteries with Glassware and Shelf, 2013
Grapefruit and Pomelo Battery, 2013
Apple Lamp, 2014
Apple Tree with Chandelier, Nettie Fox Farm, Newburgh, Maine 2013
Artist Caleb Charland (previously here and here) just unveiled several new images from his Back to Light series, where the artist uses nails inside fruit connected with copper wire to create functional batteries. Harnessed to a small lightbulb, the current is sufficient enough to provide illumination for long exposure photographs. Effectively, the organic batteries create enough voltage to light their own portrait. Charland says about Back to Light:
My current body of work, Back to Light, expands upon a classic grade school science project, the potato battery. By inserting a galvanized nail into one side of a potato and a copper wire in the other side a small electrical current is generated. The utter simplicity of this electrical phenomenon is endlessly fascinating for me. Many people have had the experience of drawing power from fruit in the classroom, and it never ceases to bring a smile to the face or a thought to the mind. This work speaks to a common curiosity we all have for how the world works as well as a global concern for the future of earth’s energy sources. […] My hope is that these photographs function as micro utopias by suggesting and illustrating the endless possibilities of alternative and sustainable energy production. The cycle that begins with the light of our closest star implanting organic materials with nutrients and energy, is re-routed in these images, Back to Light, illuminating earth once again.
Charland is currently focusing on his work full-time from a studio in Bangor, Maine, where he created another body of work titled Artifacts of Fire and Wax.
#batteries #electricity #fruit #light
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