In the Unseen Potential series, Shaw uses Kirlian photography to record a series of experiments that explore the hidden energies of plants with psychotropic properties. Discovered in 1939 by Russian inventor Semyon Kirlian (1898-1978), the technique is still used in fringe science and mystical practices. In complete darkness, Shaw places the plant directly on an unexposed piece of Polaroid land-film, situated on the copper plate surface of a Kirlian camera and ignites a high voltage charge through the film and into the plant. Kirlian photography is a contact-based process used to capture the phenomenon of electrical coronal discharges that naturally occur around objects – considered by some to be their aura. The empirical process employed here produces images that fit the cultural lexicon of “the psychedelic” itself.