The great Pablo Picasso once said: “Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life.” And although Picasso was a visionary who is often best remembered for his revolutionary Rose and Blue Periods and his avant-garde interpretation of the barbaric bombing of Guernica, he too would well have had difficulty imagining that a century later an artist would create a work of art with the use of an electromagnetic field.
In 2004, the British artist Richard Box planted 1301 fluorescent tubes vertically on a piece of land covering circa 3,600 m² and called his piece “Field”. The land was in close proximity to an electricity pylon which supported overhead power lines carrying 400,000 volts of electricity. The electromagnetic field discharged by the power lines caused the fluorescent tubes to glow in warm, gentle colours, which looked especially spectacular when seen in the dark.
Electromagnetic fields are all around us. If you live in an industrial country, there is really no way of getting away from them. Mobile phones, WLAN routers, cordless phones, radio and TV transmitters, microwave ovens – they all emit electromagnetic fields which you can normally neither see, hear, feel, taste nor smell. So how then can you know whether the dose that you are getting is good for you? Guidelines drawn up by the ICNIRP (International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection) clearly state that the thresholds for microwave radiation should not exceed 0.2 or 5 mW/cm², depending on the type of application.
So wouldn’t you want to know just how high the emissions are in your home, your flat, at your office or in your workplace? The BR15 microwave radiation meter from TROTEC makes invisible electromagnetic fields visible by transforming the measurements it takes into clear and concise readings on an easy-to-read, crisp display.
Of course we don’t claim to be in the same artistic league as Richard Box whose exposition is currently being shown as a documentary at the Uferhallen in the Kulturzentrum (Culture Centre) in Berlin-Wedding. The exhibition, which runs until October 10th, showcases a variety of exhibits with the conservation of nature and the environment as their central theme. Art becomes a medium that has a special influence on conscientious consumer behavior and a sustainable way of living.
But what we do think is that we have done a really good job of one of the things we do best: manufacturing and developing measuring equipment for industrial, commercial and private use.
TROTEC – the new name in measuring technology.
