Electrifying Art.

The image above was taken by Matt Hoffman, who is a fantastic photographer, surfer, and great friend of mine. He snapped this epic lightening bolt in Montana – one of the most beautiful states in America (and least populated). Good thing he didn’t get hit, since you know that guys are 5x more likely to get struck by lightning than women (who knows why).

I love how science can be ‘electrifyingly‘ beautiful. I wanted to share with you all a great video which demonstrates how 15,000 volts (aka similar to a bolt of lightning) can turn a piece of wood, into a beautiful masterpiece.

The video was made by a 23- year-old sculpture major in New York City’s Pratt Institute. She spent 10 hours getting the footage of electrifying wood in an old metal shop in Brooklyn. Melanie Hoff is the student who created this video as her senior thesis project – how cool is that?!

The pattern you see burned into the wood is called “Lichtenberg figure” – which is the branching of electric discharges on the surface/interior of a material.