May 23, 2007: Richard Box's "Field"

[Undertoad]

xoB finds this item about a work of art consisting mainly of fluorescent light tubes around power lines.

Richard Box, artist-in-residence at Bristol University's physics department, got the idea for Field (2004) -- 1,301 fluorescent tubes powered only by the electric fields generated by low overhead powerlines -- after a conversation with a friend. "He was telling me he used to play with a fluorescent tube under the pylons by his house," says the artist. "He said it lit up like a light sabre." Box decided to see if he could fill a field with tubes lit by the waste energy emanating from powerlines. Box denies that he aimed to draw attention to the potential dangers of powerlines, "For me, it was just the amazement of taking something that's invisible and making it visible," he says.