engineering

The Lightning Field

The Lightning Field is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Lightning Field rather than just read about it. In short: The Lightning Field (1977) is a land art work in Catron County, New Mexico, by sculptor Walter De Maria. It consists of 400 stainless steel poles with solid, pointed tips, arranged in a rectangular 1 mile × 1 kilometre grid array.

Key takeaways

The Lightning Field belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Lightning Field to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Lightning Field from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Lightning Field (1977) is a land art work in Catron County, New Mexico, by sculptor Walter De Maria. It consists of 400 stainless steel poles with solid, pointed tips, arranged in a rectangular 1 mile × 1 kilometre grid array. It is maintained by the Dia Art Foundation as one of 12 locations and sites they manage. While the work's title, form, and best-known photographs may suggest the installation attracts lightning strikes, in fact these happen rarely.

History The work was commissioned by Dia Art Foundation, which now maintains it. De Maria and his assistants Robert Fosdick and Helen Winkler traveled around California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Texas by truck for over five years before settling on this site for the large installation. It is 11.5 miles (18.5 km) east of the continental divide, at an elevation of 7,200 feet above sea level. Set in the middle of an empty plateau about 40 miles from the nearest town, the work consists of 400 stainless steel poles arranged in the form of a grid. The grid measures 1 mile by 1 kilometer, and the poles are set 220 feet apart from one another. Accounting for natural ground-surface variance to create an isocephaly effect, the appearance of a level plane, the two-inch diameter poles were constructed to vary in height from 15 feet to 26 feet 9 inches. Each steel rod is set in its own concrete footing, three feet deep and one foot in diameter, buried one foot beneath the surface. They are designed to survive winds of up to 110 miles (180 km) an hour. Support for maintaining and operating The Lightning Field is provided in part by an endowment established by Ray A. Graham III and Lannan Foundation, which awarded a challenge grant in 1996. Financial support for the permanent preservation of the undeveloped grasslands surrounding the installation has been provided by Dia's Board of Trustees, the State of New Mexico, De Maria's assistant Helen Winkler Fosdick, and Gucci. By 2012, the structure as a whole needed reinforcement. To raise the estimated $400,000 needed to preserve Lightning Field, Larry Gagosian, whose gallery represents De Maria, and Miuccia Prada collaborated to lead the restoration effort. Work on the Lightning Field was to begin in early 2013, and the sculpture was to be reopened in June.

Representation in other media A photograph of The Lightning Field was used as the cover image for Robert Hughes's 1997 book, American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America. The work featured prominently in the novel Blinded by the Light by Morgan Hunt. It may have influenced the imagery of author Cormac McCarthy's epilogue in his book Blood Meridian. It is the subject of "Poles Apart" (2011), a New Yorker article by Geoff Dyer. David Ulin discusses the work as a narrative which "unfolds not as a fixed encounter but rather as something that gets inside us in a more sequential way." It inspired composer John Mackey's piece which he entitled "The Lightning Field".

Visiting

Open for six months of the year, the installation can be visited only by making advance reservations that include an overnight stay in the accommodations at the site. The site is a long drive from a scheduled meeting place in Quemado to a log cabin in the area. The installation is intended to be viewed in isolation or with a very small group of people. A cabin on the site was restored to accommodate up to six people for this purpose. It has two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a common room. Camping at the site is not permitted.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Lightning Field

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Lightning Field claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Lightning Field before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Lightning Field ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Lightning Field

In research: The Lightning Field appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Lightning Field in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Lightning Field is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1977 sculptures, Buildings and structures in Catron County, New Mexico, Land art, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Lightning Field outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Lightning Field in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Lightning Field means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Lightning Field out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Lightning Field in simple terms?

Why does The Lightning Field matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Lightning Field?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Lightning Field.