The concept and material manifestations of energy are often considered elusive and invisible per se. In most historical, sociological, and anthropological studies, the idea prevails that processes of energy conversion and transmission have become more and more invisible to humans since the industrial revolution, although worldwide energy consumption has increased massively since the 19th century. This conclusion is based on the idea of a directly proportional relationship between physical visibility and public awareness: as one goes down, so does the other. This special issue takes a closer look at this premise. We assume that energy is never invisible per se, but is a product of human action engaging with the material preconditions of energy carriers. Three categories of practice and objects that render energetic processes (in)visible are crucial to the analyses in this issue: codifications, infrastructures, and representations. Four case studies, grouped around these categories, investigate the question of the visibility of energy and provide answers from different historical and geographical contexts. The articles render more tangible and concrete the often-referenced, yet blurry idea of energy visibility/invisibility, and thus integrate energy visibility into the history of science, the history of technology, and energy studies.

中文翻译：

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让权力可见：能源的编码、基础设施和表示

能量的概念和物质表现本身通常被认为是难以捉摸和不可见的。在大多数历史、社会学和人类学研究中，普遍认为能源转换和传输过程自工业革命以来对人类来说变得越来越不可见，尽管全球能源消耗自 19 世纪以来已大幅增加。这个结论是基于物理可见度和公众意识之间的直接比例关系的想法：随着一个人的下降，另一个人也会下降。本期特刊对这一前提进行了深入探讨。我们假设能量本身从来都不是不可见的，而是人类行为与能量载体的物质前提相结合的产物。使能量过程（不）可见的三类实践和对象对于本期的分析至关重要：编码、基础设施和表示。围绕这些类别分组的四个案例研究调查了能源的可见性问题，并提供了来自不同历史和地理背景的答案。这些文章使经常引用但模糊的能源可见性/不可见性概念更加具体和具体，从而将能源可见性融入科学史、技术史和能源研究。