Electrotechnology. A natural passion.

The final image in the 2008 series
Electrotechnology. A natural passion

Many of you are now familiar with the IEC’s corporate theme Electrotechnology. A natural passion. which has been used in much of the Commission's material since 2006, the year of the centenary.

This month is the final one in the present series of images developed by the Geneva artist Thierry Clauson. In his own passionate way, in wedding electrotechnology to nature, he was inspired by the idea that some of the world's greatest thinkers have stumbled on their inventions entirely by chance. Behind his depiction of electrotechnology was the example of Einstein who is said to have formed his theory of relativity while on a walk out in the countryside when he saw a column of smoke rising from a distant train on the far horizon.

The passion of inventors
Under the heading Human ingenuity, the IEC website offers the centenary series of videos where the passion of inventors is described in the following manner: "While the history of technology is often presented as the story of inventions, fundamentally it is really the story of people and the things they create because of their passion".

Nature transformed
This human element is being introduced into the 2009 series of images. One begins to see where it is that humans excel at transformation. Each month a new image will show a different facet of IEC’s work present in some of the major technical areas that affect our daily lives.

The continuity is taken up for the first month of the year. Like for December 2008, it is cold and highly suitable for those people living in the Western Hemisphere.

The 2009 series begins with the "fridge"
penguin portrayed as part of a global
thought pattern in a human world of
electrical devices

Attendees at the IEC General Meeting in São Paulo were given a preview of January 2009. It depicts the familiar "fridge" penguins. This time they are portrayed as a global thought pattern, drawn up as they are in an emanation that protrudes from the mind of a woman recollecting a series of domestic electrical devices.

The 2009 images are already available for downloading as desktop wallpaper themes. Laila Briquet, Coordinator of IEC websites, has provided two different sizes suitable for use on smaller and larger screens.