The Farm

"At its best in the dark, *Electrum* provides Gibbs and his guests with the ultimate late night entertainment, usually after dinner and much merriment. The sound of the machine in action is comparable with the roar of a freight train as its motor spins and energy is created, and when the lightning spurts from the top of the ball with even louder cracks, the natural reaction on seeing it is to cheer and then to laugh with delight that anyone would be crazy enough to build such a thing. The smell of burning ozone lingers, as well as the relief that no one has perished in the lightning’s cleansing fire. Eric Orr put it well when he said that in action the artwork touched man’s ‘reptilian brain centre’.[18](private://read/01jrsfvkjy84rkprtbz9amfvj8/#rw-num-note-477365-869846975-18) A couple of months before *Electrum*’s installation, I chanced across a gang of local labourers who were digging a trench across The Farm for the industrial strength cable that was required to power the work. It could have powered a decent-sized factory. One of them looked up at me, flashing a toothless grin: ‘This guy is one mad son of a bitch!’"

"The beauty is that whatever is left is mine to spend as I like. That has freed me up to do the crazy things I do. And spending millions on sculptures on some paddocks in the Kaipara is aberrant behaviour from an economic point of view, the money is written off and gone, like buying an ice-cream, there’s no way I could recoup it by selling The Farm. That seems to upset some of my contemporaries, but to me it is the essence of freedom."

"I didn’t want to spend my days working for my children, carefully accumulating and preserving every penny to pass on a legacy. And I don’t believe in children and grandchildren being super rich. It creates nothing but a burden and is particularly bad for young men. A large part of the satisfaction in my life is that I’ve been able to kid myself that I made my own dough. To inherit a vast sum robs a man of that satisfaction. So I settled on my children a more modest sum years ago, which they can use to help their lives or do whatever they like. They’ll also inherit The Farm, which will be here for a long time. They’ve become partners in the exercise."