Art Practice Spring 2005

Prof. Ricardo Dominguez

rrdominguez@ucsd.edu

cell: 1-619-322-7571

Course Meeting Time: Wed 6:00 p.m 8:50pm

Room: VAF 366

Office Hours: Wed 3 - 4 pm & by appt.

Room: VAF408

b.a.n.g (bits, atoms, neurons and genes):

Micro_Gestures at the Edge of Invisibility

An On/Off Line Exhibition

June 6^th, 2005

Of Art Works by UCSD MFA

Think small, think really small and then think even smaller and you will almost hit the little b.a.n.g (bit, atoms, neurons and genes) at the core of micro_gestures at the edge of invisibility. We are now caught in the rush of the incredible shrinking technology of nano-particles that can be found in cosmetics, baby lotions, sunscreen, fabrics, paints and inkjet paper. We now control the vertical and horizontal of structures far smaller than ever before. The nano-world derives from nanometer, a billionth of a meter, or about one 25-millionth of an inch. That is far smaller than the world of everyday objects described by Newton's laws of motion, but bigger than an atom or a simple molecule, particles ruled by quantum mechanics. We are all surrounded by little b.a.n.g¹s that are rapidly transforming us and world at the edge of invisablity.

This new level of micro-materiality made of b.a.n.g¹s (bits, atoms, neurons and genes) is allowing art to reframe older questions of the fragmentary, the miniature, the unseen and of what art can make visible. During the last century art became a space for the intense magnification of what was falling outside the frame of the eye, outside the optic drive - the process of immaterialization. From Manet to the conceptualist artists have consistently abducted the scientific needle of the real to transform, shift and disturb the molecular gaze. Contemporary artists are now creating micromedia, biomedia and nanomedia work that reflects a concern with the contemporary scale of technoscience and its possible aesthetic manifestations.

*b.a.n.g* will be an On/Off line space for MFA artists in the Visual Arts Department at UCSD to explore and present works at the edge of invisibility, at the edge of the digital and biological, at the edge of micro-robotics and nano-art, from in-virtu to in-vivo works and back.

All MFA artists in the Visual Arts Department are invited to participate in developing work for the exhibition. A special seminar on Micro_Gestures (VIS 202) during Spring Quarter 2005 will be offered for those artists who would enjoy working on the project as part of a group dialogue. Tamas Banovich from Postmasters in New York City will also be participating in developing the exhibition.

NEW SIDELOADS

Cut and Past Genes

http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ucsd/cutandpastegenes.pdf

b.a.n.g Blog

http://www.terroristic.org/bang

http://www.terroristic.org/bang/archives/2005/05/index.html

Stem Cell Break Dance

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,67266,00.html?tw=rss.TOP

Renewed Bio-terrorism Charges Possible Again

Against CAE

http://www.caedefensefund.org

Nano_Products News

http://www.smalltimes.com

Green Gangs vs Green Cash Gangs

http://www.forbes.com/technology/sciences/2005/04/06/cz_jw_0406soapbox_inl.html

Nano radio yak yak

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2005/04/03.html

Funny TinyRobo's

http://www.kami-robo.com/en/garelly/garelly_top.html

World’s most sensitive scales weigh a zeptogram

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7208

Early HTMLconceptualism on NANO

Nanostate

http://www.nanostate.org/protvol1.htm

Ibiology Patent Engine - Diane Ludin

http://dev.ibiology.net/

http://dev.ibiology.net/spanish/

Recommended Text:

There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom (1959) by Feynman, Richard P

http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html

Why the future doesn't need us (2000) by Joy, Bill

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html

Bionanotechnology - Goodsell, David S.

http://www.scripps.edu/mb/goodsell/

Nanoculture - Hayles, Katherine N. (edited)

http://nano.arts.ucla.edu/book_nano.php

Wetware - Doyle, Richard

Viroid Life - Pearson, Keith Ansell

Telephone Book - Ronnell, Avital

Techgnosis - Davis, Erick

Technoromanticism - Coyne, Richard

On Line Text:

Engines of Creation

http://www.foresight.org/EOC/index.html

Flesh Machine Critical Art Ensemble

http://www.critical-art.net/books/flesh/index.html

nano-fest destiny 3.0 (Ricardo Dominguez)

http://www.intelligentagent.com/archive/Vol3_No1_bio_dominguez.html

ETC group -

http://www.etcgroup.org/search.asp?theme=11

Construction and diagrams

Micro/nano Robots

http://www.me.cmu.edu/faculty1/sitti/24779/links_2004.html

Comparison of macroscopic and microscopic components

http://www.imm.org/PNAS.html#anchor780535

Class Created (Blog) to be built and used by class.

WEEKLY COURSE SCHEDULE:

WEEK ONE:

03/30 Introduction to Course

Assignment #1 "how small can you go?"

Try to find the smallest component/element that you have been using to make your most recent work hanging out in your studio that is not digital code.

Create a frame for it as microscope.

WEEK TWO:

04/06

Assignment #2 "bio-me/me "

Use some of your blood, mucus, excrement, semen etc., as paint on the smallest canvas possible.

Make a series of them as many as you can manufacture.

WEEK THREE:

04/13 Dr. David S. Goodsell author of ³Bionanotechnology: Lessons from Nature² Presentation.

Assignment #3 "viroids"

Make a ³viroid¹ using the smallest possible computer component and

a biobased element to build a sculpture.

WEEK FOUR:

04/20

Assignment #4 "para(sites) se(xx/y y)"

Use your favorite parasite(s) and make a porno f/slick with it_them by melding

them with a net.porn site of your choice.

WEEK FIVE: Jordan Crandall presentation on "Blast and Suspension Projects"

04/27 Assignment #5 "nano_text"

Construct a text based intervention by inscribing a statement

on the smallest element you can manipulate.

WEEK SIX:

05/04 NO CLASS

Assignment #6 ³Selfware²

Start development your final project for ³contaiment/ contagion.²

WEEK SEVEN:

05/11 - Presentation by Dr. Tracy Johnston on her work in the area of "Junk DNA"

Assignment #7 "Containment"

Design a the protocols for ³containment² for a net.site/box for distribution of

projects. To be designed by all of us to some degree or other.

WEEK EIGHT:

05/18 - Tamas Banovich from Postmasters in Town.

Assignment #8 "Containment for Selfware 2"

Continue to development your final project for ³contaiment/ contagion.²

WEEK NINE:

05/25

Assignment #9 "Selfware 3"

Have core elements complete for your art work¹s ³double helix² it material/digital

components

WEEK TEN:

Assignment #9 ³Selfware 4²

06/01 Final presentation of your b.a.n.g project to the class (drop_load into the

container and upload its digi_double.

FINALS WEEK -

INJECT b.a.n.g into the system: blog out and projects in container.

Have a party and hang out with our little ones.