"Your Matter Is Our Market! Your DNA Is All We Need!"

Katherine Mangu-Ward | March 14, 2008

Worried about "the elusive dangers of nanotechnology mixed with the recklessness [of] capitalism"?

Have I got the "interactive/walk-through sculpture that educates" with "sensor-equipped sniffing sculptures" for you!

"Inside the Wave" is a showcase of six Tijuana/San Diego artists. One part of the exhibit features disembodied Spanish, English, and German voices saying:

"Your carbon is our lifeblood! Your matter is our market! Your DNA is all we need!"

Whoever wrote up the event for the San Diego Union-Tribune seems as baffled as I am, noting that "It isn't entirely clear what the health effects are of the strangely-named nanoparticles (like carbon buckyballs or halogenated phenoxy)."

Read about what our future with nanotechnology and capitalism will be like in Todd Seavey's "Neither Gods Nor Goo." (Hint: no apocalypse, lots of stain resistant pants.)

Comments

|3.14.08 @ 3:42PM|#

Uh, yeah, the health effect of a buckyball really comes into play when you have a fine powder of them all over the floor. You will find out real quick that gravity is indeed THE LAW.

|3.14.08 @ 3:56PM|#

Nanoscale ball bearings?

Bucky ball black ice
I slipped on lab linol'em
Effing engineers

some guy|3.14.08 @ 4:08PM|#

Art haiku cheated.
Apostropes not allowed.
Go back two spaces.

The Democratic Republican|3.14.08 @ 4:09PM|#

friday...late in the day...all these big words...

i'll have to come back to this post on monday.

some guy|3.14.08 @ 4:10PM|#

Shit. Try again.

Art haiku cheated.
Apostrophes not allowed.
Must spell-check often.

|3.14.08 @ 4:12PM|#

Grey goo good God gross
nano not nearly needed
Let's learn liking laws.

Jeez, actually broke a sweat on that one.

|3.14.08 @ 4:33PM|#

Are apostrophes
Not even allowed if you're
Using contractions?

|3.14.08 @ 4:37PM|#

As particle group contributor and poet Amy Cowell said, "When things become a part of everyday life, they're not a question anymore."

Thanks Amy for clearing it all up. That explains why cigarette smoking hasn't delined by ~50% in 40 years.

Sheesh!

|3.14.08 @ 4:43PM|#

Haiku excuse -

My mother was horribly frightened by a Japanese poet when she was carrying me. As a result I am unable to compose or appreciate Haiku.

I hope you all understand.

|3.14.08 @ 4:45PM|#

I think it's high time that journalists started routinely placing "artist" in scare quotes.

Art-P.O.G.|3.14.08 @ 4:55PM|#

I think it's high time that journalists started routinely placing "artist" in scare quotes

For some "reason" I just got the mental image of Jack Kevorkian, lit like Boris Karloff, hooking a Euthanasia machine up to some unfortunate oldster. Above it, the headline blares: "But is it art ?"

|3.15.08 @ 3:50PM|#

Worried about "the elusive dangers of nanotechnology mixed with the recklessness [of] capitalism"?

Oh yes, I am worried! After all, capitalism killed millions of innocent people and destroyed whole economies and enslaved... Oh, wait, that was the recklessness of ANTI-Capitalism...

Then, no, I am not worried.

|3.16.08 @ 5:44AM|#

Yeah, I thought the classic fear was nanotechnology and...fascism!?

LarryA|3.16.08 @ 1:37PM|#

sculpture that educates on the elusive dangers of nanotechnology mixed with the recklessness (of) capitalism.

I applaud this necessary effort. After all, the dangers of capitalism and technology are so elusive that without these sculptures no one would know they exist.

The irony that the sculptures themselves are high-tech merely adds to my admiration.