New Ideas CityHello Museum

The Peril the Wind Sings To: Making Electricity Visible

Cover Image:

Solar One, “Solar Off the Roof,” IDEAS CITY Festival, 2013. Photo: Solar One

Part of the street program

Subway cars. The billboards of Times Square. The feeling everyone gets when they flip the switch and the lights come on in the gloom of a dark winter day. These are just some of the pleasures modern, urban people get from electricity. Electricity is unusual in that it is both ubiquitous and mysterious: despite the fact that almost everyone uses it every day and has for their whole life, most people do not know very much about electricity or how it works. We depend on it, but like many invisible but present things, we mostly notice it when it’s not there.