Marina Abramović. Courtesy: the artist; photograph: Marco Aneli

Marina Abramović has revealed details of the new artworks she is preparing for her solo exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Arts in 2020. One piece involves partnering up with the arts and technology studio Factum Arte, to electrify the 71-year-old artist with one million volts so that she can snuff out a candle by pointing at it.

The artwork will draw on the processes of the 19th century Kirlian photographic technique, according to a report in the Times, in which high voltage can be used to make contact print photographs. ‘If you are charged up properly, the stream of electricity coming from your fingers will put out a candle a metre away from you,’ Factum Arte’s founder Adam Lowe told the London paper.

The performance artist is also planning a table of glass tears, and a glass fountain of herself: ‘out of everything – my nose, mouth, eyes, breasts, fingertips – comes blood,’ she told Bloomberg News.

Abramović’s Royal Academy exhibition will be the first time a woman has been recognized with a retrospective in the institution’s 250 years of existence.