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Dominguez, Ricardo

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Digital access to this material is pending artist's approval. Materials may be viewed onsite at the Goldsen Archive, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Kroch Library, Cornell University.

The idea for *b.a.n.g* lab started in 1986 when I first read The Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology By K. Eric Drexler. When I became a member of the Critical Art Ensemble (1987 - 1995) nanotechnology became part of the what we called the "performative matrix" that would emerge during the 90's. The "performative matrix" was divided into 3 stages of analysis, critique and aesthetic intervention: stage one, Digital Capitalism; stage 2, Genetic Capitalism; stage 3, Particle Capitalism (nanotech driven economies) by the end of the 90's. Each stage called for a different type of aesthetic interventions. As a new media performance artist I focused on Electronic Civil Disobedience during the mid and late 90's with my group the Electronic Disturbance Theater and the Digital Zapatista movement; meanwhile the rest of Critical Art Ensemble pursued the development of biointervention art; by the end of the 90's I attempted to develop work around nanotechnology but was never able to find support for the work - specifically around the issue of nanotoxicology and the unregulated use of primitive nanocarbons and nanotubes in a wide number of mass market products - that was at the core of the performative intervention I was seeking to stage.

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    2006 Rockefeller New Media Foundation Proposal
    Dominguez, Ricardo (2009-05-04T18:24:52Z)
    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 a single atom, a simple molecule, or a quantum wave mechanics.- but control of that small world is just a head of us. We are all surrounded by little b.a.n.g's that are rapidly transforming the world around us and within us - particle by particle. *b.a.n.g* lab will be a 10 year performance on the theme of nanotechnology, the future of aesthetics and social intervention.