By day, Jacques Emery is a middle-aged electrician living in Martigny, Switzerland. By night, he descends into his basement, where a kind of magic happens. There amongst a sea of capacitors, resistors, diodes, and coils, he is transformed into something of a mad scientist, experimenting with the strange and beautiful power of electricity.
Photographer Olivier Lovey heard about Emery from a friend three years ago. When he expressed interest in the electrician's work, Emery excitedly gave him a tour of his laboratory, taking care to explain in great detail just how each machine functions. Emery spends hours there every day, sometimes toiling for months to build a single machine.
"I immediately saw that Jacques' universe was very photogenic, and after spending time with him, I came to realize that he was special, different from most people I knew," Lovey said.
Many of Emery's devices are reproductions of historical machines, including a Tesla coil and a Wimshurst influence machine. Others are completely original, like the so-called "circular multiplier prototype" that Lovey says “creates lightning.” It looks like a Jean Tinguely sculpture.
>"I like the idea that this is a common man with an extravagant desire to dominate lightning."
"He has this wild dream to master the uncontrollable, and I have great respect for it even if it's in vain," Lovey said. "I remember a machine he had made of magnets. He explained to me that he sometimes spent time trying to position the magnets in a certain order to approach perpetual motion. He knew it was impossible, but he kept a slight hope. I find it very poetic."
Lovey documented the electrician's hidden world of discovery and invention in his series Lightning Power. Emery provided the captions, where descriptions of well-known machines are mixed with more fanciful ones. “It was important to me that Jacques give me his own captions. I find it interesting that he invented some captions,” Lovey said. “I like the idea that real machines are mixed with imaginary machines."
While others might frame Emery as an eccentric, Lovey was determined not to portray him ironically. Instead, he chose to capture the lab in high-contrast black and white, giving it the feel of an old science fiction movie set. In this darkness, the inventions crackle with light, and every crowded corner is brimming with fascinating objects. Lovey casts Emery mostly in shadow and silhouette, creating a sense of mystery and grandeur.
"Although my series is a portrait of him, I preferred to show him as little as possible," he said. "I consider Jacques as a sort of Prometheus. I like the idea that this is a common man with an extravagant desire to dominate lightning."
