a Nano Step for Mankind

players: Deepak Srivastava (Nasa), Victoria Vesna (UCLA), Sarah Diamond (Banff Centre), and many others… in 2003

The following text was written in the context of the Carbon versus Silicon think tank, gathering artists and scientists at the Banff Centre in 2003. During the conference, I was impressed by the high scientific level of the participants, and I felt embarrassed by my position as an artist, hardly trying to get the big picture. I was just wondering about the legitimacy of most of the graphic representations of the nano world that was for me more interpretations and justifications of theories, as if one would be trying to persuade the audience of the credibility of a desirable fiction.
I decided to do a performance for my conference. The text of my power point presentation should be at the same time and the definition of an art project questioning the scientific and/or aesthetic issues of the emerging nanotechnologies.

Probably because of the complexity of its features, this project has never been done.

Arty-Fiction
Tractacus Nano-Sociologicus

The first step on the atom

Never extension of the body will have been such a reduction in scale.

To experience the limits (Philippe Sollers)

Infra-Realism
I use to call infra realism, realism of depths, realism applied to the model, physic, organic, behavioural more than a "photo realism" called
realism of the surface.

TRACTACUS
NANO-SOCIOLOGICUS (Tn-S)
Introduction to the nanoSociety (nS)

An easy piece of nanoThinking (nThk)

The nanoWorld (nW):
a World only known through representations

What happens if the Artist leads the representation?

What happens if the Artist leads the representation?

The actual Artist (aA) adds a symbolic dimension (sD)
to the representation (Rep)
of the human scale World (hsW)

Actual Art (aArt) can be define by the following formula:
aArt =(hsW)Rep x sD

The nanoWorld (nW) is at the same time
a Material (Mt) and a Workspace (WS)

The medium (nM) is the material (nW)
+ the Technology (the Tool : nT)
nM = nW + nT

The medium (nM) is the material (nW)
+ the Technology (the Tool : nT)
nM = nW + nT

Immersive approach:
the Artist (aA) gives an inner view of the nanoWorld

Fusion approach:
the nanoArtist (nA) is necessarily part of the nanoWorld

By existing nanoArtists contribute
to the definition (nThk) of Art (aArt and nArt)

By continually defining Art,
they contribute to increasing our anxiety
and our desire to take a break

In order to give an artistic interpretation
of the human size World (hsW)
the artist (aA = nanoGod : nG),
using the nanoWorld as a medium,
might build a complete society of characters
considered as natives (actually : immigrants, nImm).

The characters of the nanoWorld are effectors,
active immaterial entities.
They don’t need (deserve?) to be represented by avatars.
They exist by the representation they produce.

Actual inhabitants of the nanoWorld,
they acts like filters for the information
coming from the nanoWorld.

The Artist will take any kind of input
(frequency, heat, light, speed, energy, size…)
and convert it into human scale representation (hsRep): colours, shapes, sounds, and tactile objects…

The Scientist (nSc) will produce huge streams of numbers trying desperately to spot odd iterations.

The Trader (nTd) in charge of the stock exchange will reflect the level of energy
involved in exchanges at the nanoscale.

The Designer (nDs) and the architect (nArch)
will experiment new ways of organising
and shaping the nanoSpace (nSp)

Behaving like “intelligent” agents,
they will be able to evolve in their behaviour
in order to optimise their action and reach their goals
(esthetical, economical, scientific…)

As a community, we will see, like in Reality Shows
(Big Brother…) how our nanoActors (nAct) will behave, how they live together
and what kind of representation each of them will produce.

A fractal aesthetic where the nano metaphore is included in the human scale World it represents.

nArt = (hsW)rep x sD
hsW > nW > hsW
n = hs

Coming soon: the rebellion of the nanoActors