Suspended rows of copper plates surround an adapted power generator so that the whole room is transformed into an electrostatic field. Electrostatic phenomena can be experienced when, for instance, we rub synthetic cloth against a balloon and a charge is created by friction. This build-up can be discharged by bringing the surface into contact with a non-conductive surface, and is sometimes experienced as a mild “shock.” The air around Assaël’s Chizhevsky Lessons becomes tangibly charged and visitors are warned not to touch each other’s faces. The artist produced the work in cooperation with a physics research institute in Moscow and drew on the investigations of Alexander Chizhevsky who studied the impact of electrostatic fields on the human psyche. Assaël, who was the Future Generation Art Prize 2012 Special Prize Winner, often uses obsolete scientific apparatus
 in her work to explore scientific and physical phenomena and their interaction with the human body.