How a Gainesville-based scientist started a business during the COVID-19 pandemic
May 18, 2022 | Video story by Hope Dean
When night falls, Chris DiScenza burns.
He strolls out onto his small front porch, wooden panels creaking beneath his feet. The small space is half greenroom, half science experiment. His porch steps overflow with plants that are spiky, spotted; waxy and lean, thin and floppy. Shoved between the pots are tins of baking soda and threads of green garden wire. And if you shuffle sideways between a shelf and a table, you’ll find the porch’s crown jewel tucked against the wall: a Franceformer, or neon sign transformer.
DiScenza has tested the same experiment hundreds of times by now, but no two attempts ever yield the same result. Yet, despite the different outcomes, the same principle always applies. It’s what he finds most exciting.
The Franceformer is a small black box that sucks 120 volts of electricity from the wall and transforms it into 15,000 volts. The power surges out of two clamps like the ends of a jumper cable. DiScenza carefully inserts nails between the clamps’ teeth, sets the nails on a flat piece of wood and turns on the Franceformer.
Then he watches.
The electricity scorches into the wood with sparks that smell like a newly lit campfire. Whorls of smoke pour from the canvas as the electricity crawls through, forming jagged lines out of jagged lines out of jagged lines, like roots of a tree or veins in a hand: Lichtenberg figures.
This is what DiScenza calls burning — and for him, this science is also art.
During the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in 2020, DiScenza started Turbulent Cascade, a Gainesville-based business where he sells goods decorated with burnt Lichtenberg figures.
DiScenza sees beauty in science. He’s taught math and physics everywhere from Tucson, Arizona, to Gainesville, Florida, and pioneered community science outreach in cross-country tours. And now, just like his Franceformer transforms electricity, he transforms his knowledge into earrings, decorative knives, plants mounted on wood, and more.
Hope Dean is Atrium's co-Editor in Chief and Web Editor. She has written for several news outlets, including Fresh Take Florida and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In her free time she enjoys reading, running and making too many Spotify playlists.