Blaine plans to stand in the middle of an artificial electric storm for 72 hours

Oct 3, 2012 13:49 GMT  ·  By

Illusionist David Blaine, often referred to as an “endurance artist,” embarked on a new dangerous stunt. On Tuesday, he climbed on a platform that hides a high-voltage Tesla coil. 

The demonstration he gave is just a preview for the new stunt he will be starting on Friday. The experiment is taking place in New York city, in a tent set up on a Manhattan pier. It is set to go on for what will probably be a terrifying 72 hours.

Blane will be wearing a 20-pound chain-mail suit during the making of his stunt, The Express Tribune reports. The illusionist will remain on the 20-foot-high platform without food or water during this time.

He will be standing during an artificial electric storm, with electric current flowing between two electrodes.

The artist explained that he was originally set on creating a giant plasma globe and lying in its center, but changed his mind when he found out that such an experiment would only have been possible in ideal conditions, in which an environment on airless vacuum could have been recreated.

He is now excited about the artificial storm idea.

“Being in the middle of a lightning storm, it feels so amazing, being in an environment you shouldn’t be in,” he said.

Blaine's suit was manufactured following the principles of a Faraday cage, from highly conductive materials that, according to Faraday's theories, will protect the object or, in this case, body, they enclose.

Exposure to the ozone and nitrous oxides released as byproducts of ionized air is the only risk Blaine is facing, his doctor explained. A ventilation system has been installed to protect him from said polluted air.

He will also be wearing noise-cancelling earphones, as the Tesla coil experiment is expected to get noisy, and a helmet to protect his eyes from ultraviolet radiation.