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Louise Sudell - Electricity & Amor, 1999

The Museum of Installation continued its series of solo exhibitions, with a site-specific installation by the Spanish based artist Louise Sudell.

On the roof top of a skyscraper there is a man who is wearing a construction helmet that has a lightning
rod fixed to its top. I imagine that he's lovesick and that he is up there waiting to connect with a black
cloud that is coming towards him. Or more than likely, he is looking for love to come his way. So he is
hoping (In a light-hearted way) that he will receive a flash of lightning and get charged up with Electricy & Amor.

"Everyone present was walting for a passing thundercloud. It was an overcast May afternoon in 1752
and a big crowd had gathered in the streets of Marly, France. The King and his Court had even been
invited to see the spectacular event. They watched from a viewing stand that had been especially erected to protect them from the rain that was an inevitable part of the dramatic experiment with lightning.
The mass of faces were all looking up at the stormy sky and gazing at the strange sentry box that had
been constructed up on the roof of one of the highest buildings in town.
The whole event had been conceived by a visiting scientist called Benjamin Franklin, who was performing this experiment for the first time. With it he claimed he could prove that lightning was a form of natural electricity, and that an electrified cloud could be 'disarmed' of its power.
Out of the sentry box came a long pointed metal rod that extending about thirty feet into the air, terminating in a copper point. To avoid danger, Franklin had devised several forms of protecting his assistant from receiving a fatal electric shock. Inside the box Franklin's assistant stood on a glass platform for insulation and was sheltered from getting wet by the roof over his head. He held in his hand a peculiar instrument, it consisted of a wax handle affixed to a loop of metal, which was connected to the ground by a long tail of copper wire.
Everyone waited in suspense as a dark low cloud approached the box.
When it was floating overhead, Franklin's assistant bought the circular instrument up close to the tall
metal mast and suddenly a spark of brilliant light jumped across the gap. Seconds later he climbed
down the ladder from the rooftop unhurt by the electrical charge and was applauded by the crowd below.
It was a memorable moment, as it marked the invention of the lightning rod a device which diverts the
electricity in a storm cloud down to the ground. Now it protects every skyscraper or highrise object in
the world from getting struck down by lightning.
We almost forget that they are up there everywhere.”

Louise Sudell, 1999
External:
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