The Power Station was commissioned by The Coachella Music and Arts Festival in 2013, the largest of its kind in the world. It marked the first absurdist, performance-based installation that the festival has commissioned since it began in 1999. The concept involved an elaborate electrical power station that was being run solely by giant hippopotamuses.
The structure itself spanned over 360 square feet with multiple smoke stacks that soared over 32 feet high and pumped clean, white steam into the desert sky. The power station was designed from the ground up to be a theatrical shadow box, with 1/4 of the retaining walls being constructed out of transparent materials to allow a voyeurs to gaze at the madness occurring within. The roof of the power station was lined with three, active tesla coils, each standing 4 feet tall, that sent actual arcs of lightning into the night sky at regular intervals. Three 7 foot tall Jacob's ladders, housed inside clear, acrylic columns below the awning, created high voltage arcs of electricity that traveled upwards along copper tubes into the awning above. An array of 10 foot satellite dishes panned the night sky along the perimeter of the structure along with the two largest, dueling tesla coils in the world.
