By 2015 the first cheap rapid prototyping fabricator hardware flows into the streets and quickly creates global networks of nano_Garage(s) that make up the first layer of future matter hacking tactics. All the usual suspects start to push towards the development of an Open_matter(s) Group that set the stage for the first true nano_fab engine technologies complete with uncooked nano_blocks that become available. While the dream of A.I and the singularity do not happen with the wide area distribution of nano_fab engines - the nano_Garage(s) around the world (especially in the southern cone) taking rapid advantage of adding this new method of lobal and horizontal production to shift away from the locked down economies of past. It also allows the emerges of a *science of the oppressed* as a strategic mapping of the tactical advances being side_loaded by the nano_Garage(s) movement(s).

http://medialab-prado.es/article/nanogarajes_especulaciones_sobre_fabbing_abierto

Particles of Interest
*particle group*

*an interactive installation of multilingual meditations
on nanotechnology, culture, and property*

Opening Reception: Wednesday, January 14, 5-7pm
Exhibit Dates: January 14 - February 4
CALIFORNIA NanoSystems Institute (CN(S)I) UCLA

As part of the *Scalable Relations* series of networked exhibitions that
present media artworks by faculty of the UC Digital Arts Research Network
(DARnet) across UC campuses from January 9 - March 14, 2009. The
exhibition takes place at the BEALL Center for Art + Technology at UC
Irvine as well as other venues at UCDARnet institutions. Scalable
Relations brings together works that explore digital media’s capability of
representing a growing amount of data in constantly evolving relations.
Addressing a range of issues, the projects in Scalable Relations
illustrate the complexities and shifting contexts of today’s information
society.

http://www.ucdarnet.org/scalablerelations/venue_ucla.php

*particle group* is a collective consisting of Principal Investigators
Ricardo Dominguez, artist Diane Ludin, interactive sound/installation
artist Nina Waisman, poet/critic Amy Sara Carroll and pd programmer
Marius Schebella, with a number of other collaborators flowing in and out
of the project since 2006. The collective draws inspiration from
sonification, performance, poetry, critical theory, popular culture, and
the hard and social sciences to develop installations that engage with
the politics and poetics of nano-science and its markets. *particle
group* aims 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 in works that forge subversive relationships with the
twenty-first century’s frontiers of nano-science and the para/literary.
*particle group* has exhibited at ISEA 2006; House of World Cultures
(Berlin) and San Diego Museum of Art in 2007; O Futuro (Brazil) and
Gallery@CALIT2 (UCSD) in 2008. The *particle group* is funded by CALIT2
and the UCSD Division of Arts and Humanities.

Particles of Interest:
An Interview with *particle group*

By Eduardo Navas
http://gallery.calit2.net/portal/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=67&Itemid=59

Project website: http://www.pitmm.net/

Products labelled nano today are more related to marketing than they are to science.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PdA82vaLFE&feature=related

IT sounds like a plot straight out of a science-fiction novel by Michael Crichton. Toiletry companies formulate new cutting-edge creams and lotions that contain tiny components designed to work more effectively. But those minuscule building blocks have an unexpected drawback: the ability to penetrate the skin, swarm through the body and overwhelm organs like the liver.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/fashion/04skin.html?_r=2&ref=science&pagewanted=all

Among the Bush administration’s final environmental legacies will be a decision to exempt perchlorate, a known neurotoxin found at unsafe levels in the drinking water of millions of Americans, from federal regulation.The ruling, proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency in October, was supposed to be formalized on Monday. That deadline passed, but the agency expects to announce its decision by the year’s end, before president-elect Barack Obama takes office. It could take years to reverse.

Critics accuse the EPA of ignoring expert advice and basing their decision on an abstract model of perchlorate exposure, rather than existing human data.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/12/feds-set-to-low.html

Government-sponsored discussions of the implications for society of advanced nanotechnology and other emerging technologies have taken place and are ongoing in both the US and Europe. A recent Nanowerk Spotlight written by Michael Berger gives an update of deliberations in Europe and compares and contrasts the US and European approaches. From “Europe and the U.S. take different approaches to Converging Technologies“:

The two differing approaches that the European Union and the U.S. take in tackling converging technologies is exemplary for the philosophical difference in how these two geographies approach the development of new technologies. Policies in the U.S., especially during the past eight years, have been, well, shaped is not the right word here, let’s say drifting, towards a purely market-driven approach to technology development: the government’s job was to provide sufficient basic R&D funding, keep a minimum of consumer safety levels, but otherwise not to get into the way of industrial activities. In addition, a major driver and funding agent for emerging technologies has been the military (for instance, over 30% of all federal investment dollars the U.S. spends on nanotechnology come from the U.S. Department of Defense — “Military nanotechnology - how worried should we be?”).

In contrast, the European approach places the emphasis on the agenda-setting process itself. Rather than letting the market call all the shots, the European approach favors a guided development where societal, safety and environmental aspects are incorporated into the decision-making process. It envisions that various European converging technologies research programs will be formulated, each addressing a different problem and each bringing together different technologies and technology-enabling sciences. The European concept of “CTEKS: Converging Technologies for the European Knowledge Society” (pdf download, 876 KB) adopts a demand-driven approach in which converging technologies respond to societal needs and demands. While the U.S.-pushed NBIC (nano, bio, info, cogno) approach focuses strongly on enhancement of the individual human being, the European approach urged to take the precautionary principle into account and made it “a priority to clarify the civil and societal benefits of this research to give them a new legitimacy and to put them firmly in a context of positive social dynamics.”

U.S. proposed agendas for convergence that include “Converging technologies for improving human performance” or “Converging technologies for battlefield domination” were rejected by the European expert group that helped define the European approach as troubling and potentially destabilizing.

The main task of the EU-funded project CONTECS was to develop ideas for a comprehensive and integrated European agenda with regard to converging technologies. The project delivered its final report — An analysis of critical issues and a suggestion for a future research agenda (pdf download, 2 MB) — in May of this year. This Nanowerk Spotlight summarizes the main points of this report and all quotes and most references are taken from it.

http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2826#more-2826