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Larry and Debby Kline
"Unplugged"
in Orion, September/October
2004
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UNPLUGGED
Artists Larry and Debby Kline find themselves "easily agitated" when working
beneath powerlines. Their project, The Electric Fields of California, entails
installing a series of freestanding, unelectrified outdoor fluorescent light
bulbs along portions of California's power grid from the Mexican border to
Sacramento. The Gunk Foundation and the Potrero Nuevo Fund provided partial
funding for the outdoor light sculptures, which are meant to call public
attention to the hidden dangers of electro-magnetic fields (EMFs). The bulbs,
whose plasma is excited by the ambient EMFs emanating from high-voltage lines,
light up without a direct electrical connection. With electrical lines crackling
overhead, the ambiance of thirty to one hundred atmospherically lit bulbs
is aesthetically intriguing-and a little creepy.
At one project site in a vineyard just east of Los Angeles, the grapevines
vibrate. If electromagnetic fields are powerful enough to shake vines and
their wooden supports, how widespread are their impacts, and do they affect
us? "It seems logical that as humans are essentially electrical beings, exposure
to strong EMFs could have a physiological effect," said Larry Kline.
A study conducted in 1991 by the National Research Council (NRC) found no
discernable public-health effects from exposure to EMFs transmitted by high-voltage
electrical lines. Later, a NRC review of epidemiological studies concluded
that children living in homes with high magnetic fields have a 150 percent
greater risk of developing leukemia. "In Sacramento, we saw
small structures located so close to the towers that we assumed they were
maintenance facilities-unfortunately, they were homes," said Debby Kline.
The Electric Fields of California's final installation will be located on
Tubbs Island near Highway 37 through 2004.
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