Come and Electrocute David Blaine with Us This Saturday

Starting this Friday, October 5th, the magician David Blaine will run a one million-volt charge of electricity through his body for three days, with you and I able to press the buttons that hit him with a shock. Meaning, if enough people do it, he'll have that electricity flowing through him pretty much continuously for the whole weekend.

I know that's not really magic – it's more just a casual courtship with horrendous first-degree burns and/or death – but, thinking about it, I haven't seen Blaine pull out any card tricks for a good 10 years now. Ever since he started burying himself alive and encasing himself in boxes of ice and glass, he's become more the introverted, spacy David Copperfield of the performance art world than a straight-out magician. But the good thing about that is that he's a performance artist who actually does stuff you want to watch, rather than standing in front a strobe light, hurling faeces and vodka at himself.

The whole event is powered by Ultrabook, with Intel setting up interactive screens around the globe so that members of the public can pitch up and help electrocute Blaine while he stands thousands of miles away on a metal pedestal near New York's Meatpacking District. The London electrocution site is at Ely's Yard in the Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane this Saturday from 7PM 'til 12AM and it's free. Power hour – i.e. the time where you can actually electrocute David – is from 9 - 10PM. I, for one, can't think of any better way of spending my weekend than remotely electrocuting a stranger, can you?

Follow the countdown on Intel's website and keep yourself updated on the event at the Ultrabook Facebook page or with #ELECTRIFIED on Twitter.