Science, Ethics, Public Health, and Social Conditions
*particle group*
Exhibition: January 14 – February 4, 2009
Opening: January 14, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Location: C(N)SI, Lobby
Sharon Daniel
Exhibition: January 29 – February 27, 2009
Opening: January 29, 5:00 – 7:00 pm
Location: C(N)SI, Lobby
Beatriz Da Costa
Exhibition: February 27 – March 20, 2009
Opening: February 27, 5:00 – 7:00 pm
Location: C(N)SI, Room 5419
*particle group*, Particles of Interest: Tales from the Matter Market (2006 -)
*Particles of Interest* is an interactive installation of poetic meditations from around the world that allows visitors to encounter the global chorus on nanotechnology, culture, and property. The installation creates a *sonic-simulation* of particle data scanning gestures.
Nanotechnology involves the manipulation of materials and the creation of structures and systems that exist at the scale of atoms and molecules. A nanometer (nm) is one billionth of a meter. By way of comparison, a DNA molecule is roughly 2.5 nm, a red blood cell 7,000 nm and a human hair cell a whopping 80,000 nm wide. The existing body of toxicological literature indicates that nanoparticles have a greater risk of toxicity than larger particles.
The *particle sniffer* prototype by the Particle Development Team is a sniff-scan technology that captures nano-scale elements, such as nanoparticles of carbon 60, titanium dioxide and zinc oxide that have clustered on or beneath the skin of individuals who have unknowingly been using nano-based particle products ranging from transparent suntan lotions, a large number skin care products, and a wide variety of makeup products to some types of fabrics. The *Particle Sniffer* sonic-simulation installation is based on a nano-sized surface acoustic wave chip, which works by measuring disturbances in sound waves as they pass across micro-quartz crystals. This “dog on a chip” sensor is coated with a thin layer of cloned antibody proteins that bond to specific particles, such as carbon 60. The sound waves passing through that sensor can then be compared with an uncoated control crystal: differences in the waves mean the chip has picked up trace amounts of the target particles. Each time an individual passes through the installation and a particle is captured, the installation alerts the individual to the level of trans-patented particle traces that have been found on him or her; and to the toxicity tales of others that have had nano-clusters found on them or in them.
Bio: *particle group* is a collective consisting of Principal Investigators Ricardo Dominguez and Diane Ludin, as well as Principal Researchers Nina Waisman (Interactive Sound Installation design) and poet Amy Sara Carroll, with a number of other collaborators participating temporarily (since 2006). The collective draws from sonification, poetry, and the hard and social sciences to develop installations that are critically engaged with the politics and poetics of nano-science and its market. Their aim with the installation Particles of Interest is to shed light on both the lack of regulation of nanoparticles in consumer goods and the emergence of the nano-sublime. The group combines digital technology, investigative research, and multimedia formats into works that forge a subversive relationship with the newest frontiers of nano-science. The *particle group* exhibited at ISEA 2006, House of World Cultures, Berlin; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA, 2007; Oi Futuro (Brazil) and Gallery@CALIT2 in 2008. The *particle group* is funded by Calit2 and the UCSD Division of Arts and Humanities.
Exhibition: January 14 – February 4, 2009
Opening: January 14, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Location: C(N)SI, Lobby
Beatriz da Costa, Invisible Earthlings (2009)
Invisible Earthlings is an investigation into the possibilities of relating between humans and members of the lived non-human worlds that we are least likely to recognize as social actors within urban environments: microbes. Microbes, partially defined by their small size and the fact that they are commonly not visible to the human eye, quite literally escape our view and thereby our awareness of their existence. Although most people have some vague notion about the importance of microbes in our ecosystems, microbes commonly only receive our attention when they are perceived to cause problems—"problems" in this case defined as either harmful to human, plant, and animal health, or our material goods. But what type of activities are the numerous relatives of these so-called "harmful microbes" performing while we are walking by, stepping right on top of them, or busily shopping for "mold resistant" building materials? What types of organisms are present, what types were present once but are no longer, and why? Where did they come from, what do we know about them, what type of roles have and are they performing in different historical and geographical settings?.
Bio: Beatriz da Costa is an interdisciplinary artist and researcher who works at the intersection of contemporary art, science, engineering and politics. Her work takes the form of public participatory interventions, locative media, conceptual tool building and critical writing. da Costa has also made frequent use of wetware in her projects and has recently become interested in the potential of interspecies co-production in the pursuit of resistant practices. da Costa is a former collaborator of Critical Art Ensemble and co-founder of Preemptive Media, an art, activism and technology group. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including the Andy Warhol Museum, the Zentrum für Kunst und Medien in Germany, and the Natural History Museum in London. Recent media coverage includes the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Reuters and the New Scientist. da Costa is Associate Professor in the Arts, Computation, Engineering graduate program at the University of California, Irvine. http://www.beatrizdacosta.net.
Exhibition: February 27 – March 20, 2009
Opening: February 27, 5:00 – 7:00 pm
Location: C(N)SI, Room 5419
Sharon Daniel, Public Secrets
There are secrets that are kept from the public and there are ‘public secrets,’ secrets that the public chooses to keep from itself—"don't ask, don't tell." The trick to the public secret is in knowing what not to know. This is the most powerful form of social knowledge. Such shared secrets sustain social and political institutions. The injustices of the war on drugs, the criminal justice system, and the Prison Industrial Complex are public secrets. Public Secrets provides an interactive interface to an audio archive of hundreds of statements made by current and former prisoners, which unmask the secret injustices of the war on drugs, the criminal justice system, and the prison industrial complex. Visitors navigate a multi-vocal narrative that links individual testimony and public evidence, social theory, and personal statements, in an effort to engage the public in a critical dialogue about crime and punishment.
Sharon Daniel, Bloodsugar
Blood Sugar is a "new media documentary" that examines the social and political construction of poverty, alienation, and addiction in American society through the eyes of those who live it. Blood Sugar provides an interactive interface to an audio archive of conversations with 24 current and former injection drug users recorded at the HIV Education and Prevention Program of Alameda County and in California state prisons. Since addicts must fear encounters with regimes of enforcement, they are afraid to be seen—but they do want to be heard. Theirs are the most important voices in the discourse around addiction, public health, poverty and belonging in America. Through the stories of those most affected by addiction, Blood Sugar challenges us to address question such as, what is the social and political status of the addicted? Is the addict considered fully human, diseased, possessed or wholly "other" and thus rendered ideologically appropriate to her status as less than human?
Bio: Sharon Daniel is an artist whose research involves the use and development of information and communications technologies for social inclusion. Daniel engages in the production of “new media documentaries”—building online archives and interfaces that make the stories of technologically disenfranchised communities available across social, cultural, and economic boundaries. Daniel's work has been exhibited internationally at museums and festivals including Transmediale 08, the ISEA/ZeroOne festival, the Dutch Electronic Arts Festival, Ars Electronica, the Lincoln Center Festival, the Corcoran Biennial and the University of Paris I, as well as on the Internet. Her essays have been published in books and professional journals, such as Database Aesthetics (Minnesota University Press, 2007), the Sarai Reader, and Leonardo. Daniel is a Professor of Film and Digital Media and Chair of the Digital Arts and New Media MFA program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she teaches classes in digital media theory and practice.
Exhibition: January 29 – February 27, 2009
Opening: January 29, 5:00 – 7:00 pm
Location: C(N)SI, Lobby