Hiroshi Sugimoto: Life Sparks

Hiroshi Sugimoto is in a philosophical frame of mind. “Why do we only have life, organic forms, on the planet Earth? The most believable theory now is we have the presence of water and also a big energy hit – maybe a meteorite hit the water and that made the first stage of organic forms. So what is interesting here [in the Lightning Fields series] is taking energy and bunging it into the water and seeing it start to make organic shapes. I keep studying it but I can’t come up with some kind of answer as to…why we are here [laughs]. That’s for the Nobel Prize!”

Not an artist to shy away from the big questions then. Hiroshi Sugimoto, one of the world’s greatest living photographers – famous, amongst many other things, for his impeccable seascapes, his time delay images of entire films, his diorama photography blurring the lines between model and life – has granted us some time before the public launch of his exhibition in the Scottish National Galleries’ Modern 2 (or, the Gallery Formerly Known As The Dean). The show brings together two of his most recent series of work, his Lightning Fields and his Photogenic Drawings, both of which it turns out owe rather a lot to 19th century aristo and father of photography Henry Fox Talbot.

“This is totally inspired by Henry Fox Talbot. Modern photography, the negative positive method, the method that people can make a duplicate from the negative, that’s his invention. Modern photography comes from Fox Talbot.”

The Lightning Fields reflect something of a tribute to his work or perhaps a continuation thereof. There is a sense that Sugimoto sees himself as a kindred spirit of Fox Talbot's, his successor perhaps. He is quick to emphasise the fact that his predecessor was not just a photographer: “He was a scientist, an archaeologist, botanist, philosopher. He had a 19th century noble gentleman’s lifestyle.” Amongst these many studies, Fox Talbot was looking into electricity. “I was so inspired by his other studies of electricity. So I decided to take [them] over. The study of electricity, static electricity, and the study of photography. From the same roots. The same person, the same spirit. So it’s finally joined together here."

The Lightning Fields are vast, monochrome prints, white flashes and forks and curls of light playing across black fields of void, their shapes ever different from one print to the next, their textures varying between organic curlicues like fern fronds and straight, clear lightning bolts flashing across the surface. To make them, Sugimoto used a Van De Graaff generator, sparking onto film through water that was variably salinated and heated to create different effects. “I spark onto the film then cut sections from it to make these images. Not touching – putting the wand close then the spark jumps, with a big bang. If I was to enlarge a small section there would be more scenes like this. There are so many layers, layers after layers. You cannot design it, you never know where it will land. I have no idea why it happens like this.”

Astonishingly, it is the salted water that is closest to primordial sea water that has produced the most organic shapes on the prints. “These [the organic forms] happen in the salted water. I do not let the spark touch the air, I bring it into the salted fresh water. As I just dip it into the salted water the water swells into the film and makes the sparks swell.

“This is creating life under the water. I’m a photographer, but at the same time I’m a scientist, studying this imagery. There must be some connection with what I am doing and the study of biologists, scientists. There may be much hidden information, secret information to be found in this work. I don’t have a proper explanation for why these images are showing up in the salted water. My idea of life formation in the ancient sea, the primordial sea; I recreated the primordial sea salt content and then I tested it in this film. And the sparks were amazingly strong. So this is just my very poetic idea in a way to be tested; but can it be scientifically explained? Maybe.”

Sugimoto is using the opportunity of the exhibition to invite scientists along for a chat and see if they can make sense of his discoveries. Who knows, maybe that Nobel Prize will be just round the corner.

The other side of the exhibition, the Photogenic Drawings, are Sugimoto’s prints of Fox Talbot’s original negatives, some of the first and possibly, in the case of one shot of the rooftop of Lacock Abbey, the first photographic images. “The first recorded vision by camera. At the time it wouldn’t be a camera, it would be camera obscura.

“Nobody’s ever seen these images before. [They are] the images from the very original negatives – I thought it was time to try again. After 170-80 years… It’s time to do it, before the images have faded away. They won’t last maybe 50 years more, 20 years more. Many of them are already faded, many are lost.”

Sugimoto’s printing of the images, at this time, seems to be both an act of preservation, guarding the history of his own medium, and a sort of last word on the initial phase of photography. As technology develops, so too does the nature of the art form, and it seems that Sugimoto is one of the last of the old school photographers, the traditionalists who deal in impeccable realism rather than digital fantasy.

“Ah yes, technology, digital photography, now it has been introduced, it begins a new stage in the history of photography. It is like a phase two of photography now. Photography used to be evidence of the presence of the fact so even the police adopted it. But now digital photography has become like painting – you can just make up your own images. There is no more credibility, so the court house and police do not to take it as evidence. After only 170 years, the credibility of photography is over. So the nature of it has been changed. I am not against digital photography, but the first era is over. That history is over.”

Sugimoto tried to get access to the negatives in the collections of MOMA and the Getty Museum but to no avail. “To test it I couldn’t get these negatives from the museum so I decided to buy a group of negatives for myself, from a private collector, as the first stage. It cost many million dollars, a whole year’s pure profit to get them.”

And the ones in the museums? “They will be printed. After making these I was able to present them to the museums and say, ‘This is the result. It can be done very safely.’ It’s not harming the original image, it is important for the history of photography to keep the record. And they were convinced, and they let me use their negatives.”

Of course they did – he offers an unquestionably convincing argument. The fruits of Hiroshi Sugimoto's labours can be seen in the Modern 2 on Belford Road until the end of September. Both series offer extraordinary explorations and documents of science and history, and perhaps, who knows, even the origins of life.