David Blaine to be 'Electrified' Friday

Performance artist and magician David Blaine begins his latest stunt Friday, in which he plans to spend 72 hours atop a 20-foot-high platform without sleep or food, while about 1 million volts of electricity shoot continuously around him.

"It has taken me four years to develop a performance idea that excites and challenges me," Blaine said in a statement Tuesday "My goal is to create a visual image that everyone will always remember, one that makes people curious and mystified."

Blaine, 39, whose past stunts include being encased in a block of ice in Times Square for nearly 64 hours and being suspended in Plexiglas for 44 days in London, will perform "Electrified" Friday through Monday evening at Pier 54 near West 13th Street in Manhattan.

Wearing an elaborate version of a Faraday suit -- an outfit of conducting metal, such as some electrical linemen wear -- Blaine will stand amid seven Tesla coils as they fire electricity that will pass through the suit without touching him.

"He has a conducting suit, [and] all the current is going through the suit, nothing through his body," Massachusetts Institute of Technology physics professor John Belcher told the science website Life's Little Mysteries. "There is no danger in this that I see. I would do it, and I am 69 years old and risk-averse. I just would have to take a nap."

The stunt will be streamed live at youtube.com/electrified.