There WAS Lightning

Posted by DCA Theater on June 10, 2009 in Other, The Energy Show

H. Peter Steeves performed The Energy Show to a packed house on Friday night in the Claudia Cassidy Theater. Over 250 people came to watch as Steeves combined an engaging lecture with live music, dance and a demonstration of high-energy electrical equipment. The performance was organized into three acts:

Act One: Energy and Civilization
In Act One the lecture began with an analysis of the current ethical problems raised by our energy consumption, arguing that the solution can only be found by means of a radical overhaul in our general way of thinking about ourselves, our tools, and our relationship to both time and work.

Act Two: Energy and the Origin of Life
In Act Two the investigation turned to the role that is played by energy in the establishment of life itself. Here, various astrobiology questions wereraised, especially focusing on the way in which the second law of thermodynamics—the law that says, in general, things naturally move from order to chaos and never vice versa—seems to outlaw the creation of life from lifelessness yet might, in fact, be the key to explaining the meaning of life itself.

Act Three: Energy, Mass, and the Magic of Being
Finally, in Act Three, Steeves questioned what it means to say that one sort of energy can be converted into another. Theoretically, what is the nature of an equals sign in a scientific statement of a natural law; and pragmatically, what does it mean to say that energy is mass? Do we, inevitably, reach a point at which magic becomes reality, dark becomes light, and science becomes art?

The lecture was punctuated by surprising performance interludes including: a rendition of the Radiohead’s “Creep” sung by DePaul A Capella, an Indian Classical dance piece performed by Danielle Maryse Meijer, James Brown’s “Sex Machine” played by the Chicago funk band Kong Fuzi, a illusion act involving a disappearing woman, and ACTUAL lightning produced on stage by a Tesla coil.

This program was presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Science Chicago.

Snippets from The Energy Show: Part III

Posted by DCA Theater on May 29, 2009 in Other, The Energy Show

Snippets from The Energy Show (Friday, June 5 in the Claudia Cassidy Theater—Click here for reservations) submitted by H. Peter Steeves

Tesla with King Peter II of Yugoslavia in the Hotel New Yorker, July 15, 1942

Nikola Tesla was obsessed with power. More kilowatts. More and larger coils. More Earth to himself. Toward the end of his life, he announced that he had completed a Grand Unification Theory, a dynamic theory of gravity that would disprove Einstein and his faulty theory of relativity. Tesla’s theory would explain all of the mysteries of the universe. The scientific establishment never saw this theory before his death, but it was rumored by many to “exceed the boundaries of reason.”

In the aftermath of World War I, Tesla became focused on working on building a super-weapon that would put an end to all war. He called it his “Death Ray,” and it was to fire a narrow stream of atomic clusters of liquid mercury accelerated via high voltage, completely vaporizing anything in its path. Such a powerful weapon, he believed would raise the stakes of war so greatly that no nation would ever turn against another. Potential violence, he argued, would balance out to become kinetic peace.

His mental problems grew worse. He would live the rest of his life in hotel rooms, the numbers of which had to be evenly divisible by three. He was compelled to walk around each building three times before entering, and he began working on his experiments with light, his obsessive-compulsive mind fixated on the dual nature of light as both a particle and wave. Potential violence was kinetic peace. Here was There.

Teleportation and time-travel were real.

On June 5th at the Chicago Cultural Center, Nikola Tesla’s mad dreams will become a reality.

Snippets from The Energy Show: Part II

Posted by DCA Theater on May 18, 2009 in Other, The Energy Show

Snippets from The Energy Show (Friday, June 5 in the Claudia Cassidy Theater—Click here for reservations) submitted by H. Peter Steeves

Nikola Tesla in a multiple-exposure photo in 1899, as a Tesla coil discharged millions of volts.

Nikola Tesla was convinced that AC electricity was the path of the future. Thomas Edison had put all of his money into DC research. History would prove Tesla correct, but would, as well, all but forget him. After only a few years together as a precarious team, Tesla quit working for Edison, and Edison began spreading rumors that Tesla was insane, that his theories on electricity were dangerous, and that he was never to be trusted. The feud was public and malicious, and since Edison had millions of dollars backing him, it was his voice that the people heard.

Tesla began experimenting with what would later be called X-rays. He invented the radio before Marconi. He began building massive coils that generated electrical discharges like artificial lightning. These so-called Tesla coils frightened the public, with spidery arms of purple lightning reaching out with the promise of energy as well as the threat of electrocution He dreamt of finding a way to power the world without wires, to deliver electricity through the Earth, through the air itself.

In New York City, and around the world, Tesla was still asked to give lectures on his work from time to time, but he insisted that he be allowed to put on a show instead: to demonstrate his inventions, complete with music and fanfare and all of the trappings of showmanship. The audience members, expecting a dry lecture on the nature of energy, would often find themselves in the middle of a production number, soon to discover that bolts of lightning would be produced before them on stage as well.

Tesla invented radio controlled boats, robots, the spark plug, new fluorescent lights, and countless other devices; and in 1899, he moved off to the seclusion of the Rocky Mountains. There, in the high altitudes of Colorado, he lived alone and began building secret devices capable of generating millions of volts of electricity and massive lightning bolts more than 100 feet long. His mental illness kept him from being able to touch other human beings, but he claimed that in the mountains he was listening to radio transmissions from space—the precise mathematical clicking of alien messages his only company. Tesla’s reputation as a mad scientist grew.

Snippets from The Energy Show: Part I

Posted by DCA Theater on May 12, 2009 in Other, The Energy Show

Snippets from The Energy Show (Friday, June 5 in the Claudia Cassidy Theater—Click here for reservations) submitted by H. Peter Steeves

A young Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla was born in 1856 to Rev. Milutin Tesla, a priest in the Serbian Orthodox Church, and Duka Mandic, herself the daughter of a priest.  Groomed to take a position in the church, Nikola was, from the start, more interested in the mechanics of nature rather than faith.  His only brother, Dane, was killed in a horseback-riding accident when Nikola was five years old.  Already, the boy was seeing flashing lights before his eyes, followed by hallucinations.  The scotoma followed him everywhere: to school, at home, at his brother’s burial.  Later in life, the flashing lights would trigger both visions of electrical inventions and flashbacks to his childhood.  His brother was buried and unburied countless times in these hallucinations, the pain lived and re-lived.  In 1878, Tesla broke off all relations with his family and disappeared.  It was generally assumed that he had drowned and was dead.  After enrolling in school and suffering a nervous breakdown, he dropped out after only one semester, taking up jobs as an electrical engineer here and there in a world without much electricity.  It was on June 6, 1884 that Tesla arrived in New York City.  He carried with him a letter of recommendation written by Charles Batchelor, his former employer.  The letter was addressed to Thomas Edison, and Batchelor wrote, “I know two great men and you are one of them; the other is this young man.” Edison hired Tesla immediately, and the two soon became life-long enemies.