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A Walk-in Tornado
09/18/2002
Listen in RealAudio 
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Invisible Whirlwinds - New Langton Arts, San Francisco, CA 1987.Ned Kahn.
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Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton for The Weather Notebook. Today, reporter Robin White meets
California artist, Ned Kahn, who built a tornado. Actually, he's built several.
For a long time artist Ned Kahn built exhibits at the Exploratorium Science Museum in
San Francisco. Paul Doherty works there too and he says Kahn's best known piece is
a model of a tornado done in mist.
Doherty: A little wisp of mist comes up out of the floor. And begins to swirl around..
until a tube of glowing mist rises up to the top of the box and you realize it's a tornado –
It's a white tornado - in a box!!
Like a real tornado the mist sculpture is hollow in the center. But this tornado's easily
destroyed by a draft or a child's hand. Ned Kahn sees it as a metaphor for the fragility
of nature but he knows that other people see tornadoes – even this one –
differently.
Kahn: I remember meeting a family from Kansas who told me about this tornado
destroying their house and even though I had known it intellectually – like hearing their
story - seeing it in their eyes they had a completely different take on tornadoes than I
did.
Kahn did a tornado eight stories high in Germany with a 200 horse power fan. It cost
ten million dollars to build and it took all the power available to the building but it still
only made a light breeze. Kahn says it just goes to show the power of nature.
At the Exploratorium the tornado has stopped and it takes girl power to get it going
again. Four girls climb into the box and run around until the tornado begins to form.
For the Weather Notebook, I'm Robin White.
Robin White plies the winds in San Francisco. The Weather Notebook is supported by
Subaru of America, and The National Science Foundation.
Today's Links
Ned Kahn's Site
http://nedkahn.com/
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