Tijuana

Transborder Imigrant tool

The border between the U.S. and Mexico has moved between the virtual and the all too real since before the birth of the two nation-states. This has allowed a deep archive of suspect movement across this border to be traced and tagged – specifically anchored to immigrants bodies moving north, while immigrant bodies moving south much less so.

The danger of moving north across this border is not a question of politics, but about the vertiginous geography. Hundreds of people have died crossing the U.S./Mexico border due to not being able to tell where they are in relation to where they have been and which direction they need to go to reach their destination safely.

The technologies of Spatial Data Systems and GPS (Global Positioning System) have enabled an entirely new relationship with the landscape that takes form in applications for simulation, surveillance, resource allocation, management of cooperative networks and pre-movement pattern modeling an algorithm that maps out a potential or suggested trail for real a hiker/or hikers to follow.

The Transborder Immigrant Tool would add a new layer of agency to this emerging virtual geography that would allow segments of global society that are usually outside of this emerging grid of hyper-geo-mapping-power to gain quick and simple access with to GPS system. The Transborder Immigrant Tool would not only offer access to this emerging total map economy – but, would add an intelligent agent algorithm that would parse out the best routes and trails on that day and hour for immigrants to cross this vertiginous landscape as safely as possible.

Ricardo Dominguez is a co-founder of The Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT), a group who developed Virtual-Sit-In technologies in 1998 in solidarity with the Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico. He is co-Director of Thing (thing.net) an ISP for artists and activists. His recent Electronic Disturbance Theater project with Brett Stabaum, Micha Cardenas and Amy Sara Carroll the *Transborder Immigrant Tool* (a GPS cellphone safety net tool for crossing the Mexico/U.S border was the
winner of “Transnational Communities Award”, this award was funded by *Cultural Contact*, Endowment for Culture Mexico - U.S. and handed out by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico), also funded by CALIT2 and two Transborder Awards from the UCSD Center for the Humanities.

Ricardo is an Assistant Professor at UCSD in the Visual Arts Department, a Hellman Fellow, and Principal/Principle Investigator at CALIT2 (bang.calit2.net). He also co-founder of *particle group* with artists Diane Ludin, Nina Waisman, Amy Sara Carroll a gesture about nanotechnology entitled *Particles of Interest: Tales of the Matter Market* (pitmm.net) that was presented in Berlin (2007), the San Diego Museum of Art (2008), and Oi Futuro, Brazil (2008).

http://bang.calit2.net/xborder/

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Becoming Dragon

Becoming Dragon questions the one year requirement of Real Life Experience that transgender people must fulfill in order to receive Gender Confirmation Surgery (Sexual Reassignment Surgery), and asks if this could be replaced by one year of Second Life Experience to lead to Species Reassignment Surgery. For the performance, Micha Cárdenas lived for 365 hours immersed in Second Life with a head mounted display, only seeing the physical world through a video feed, and used a motion capture system to map her movements into Second Life. The installation also included a stereoscopic projection that the audience could immerse themselves in. During the year of research and development of this project, Micha Cárdenas began her real life hormone replacement therapy and wrote poetry about the experience which was included in the performance of Becoming Dragon.

Micha Cárdenas / dj lotu5 / Azdel Slade is a is a transgender artist, theorist and trouble maker. She is an MFA candidate at the University of California San Diego. and holds a Master’s degree in Media and Communications with distinction from the European Graduate School and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Florida International University. She is a researcher at CalIT2 and the Center for Research in Computnig and the Arts. Her interests include the interplay of technology, gender, sex, desire and resistance. Micha is a founding member of a number of art/activism collectives including Sharing Is Sexy, the borderlands Hacklab and the City Heights Free Skool. Her work has been exhibited internationally at museums, galleries, conferences, community spaces and public spaces.

http://secondloop.wordpress.com

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Thighmaster

While technologists scramble to develop technologies for the production and storage of environmentally friendly electricity, it is also important to address our personal role in conserving energy. Indeed, thermodynamics shows that we can’t get energy without spending it, and while great efficiencies may be found in energy generation, it is clear that the most substantial way to solve the energy crisis is by reducing demand.

While reformulating lifestyle and habits is usually thought to be the job of media, public relations, and activism, there is no reason that technology should not be central to how we understand, consider, and change our own energy usage. Most of us are unable to pay close attention to our own power consumption in our busy daily lives. Indeed, the purpose of consumer products is to make laborious tasks as simple and easy as possible by replacing a consumer’s own energy with electricity or fossil fuels. As a result, it’s easy for us to avoid personal responsibility in the global climate crisis. This can produce feelings of guilt and self-reproach in the consumer. Project Thigh Master is a system that alleviates this condition by assuring that reminders to save electricity will not go unnoticed, increasing its owner’s peace of mind by setting a penalty for environmental waste.

http://web.media.mit.edu/~rusti/thighmaster/

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Kixly

Started in 2005, Kixly is the solo project of TIjuana based artist Moisés Horta Valenzuela.

Taking influence from the noisier side of shoegaze, the digital musique concréte of Lucky Dragons and the classic studio techniques of electronic music pioneers Steve Reich, William Basinski and Raymond Scott, Kixly produced organic soundscapes as if created using analogue recording techniques.

His sound has gradually shifted in order to express religious themes, the relation between saint worship in mexican culture and pre-hispanic panteism, and the psychological spirits of Moisés’ family ancestry.

In 2009 he co-founded, alongside Reuben Albert Torres, the multidisciplinary label Ni, which includes regional artists Los Macuanos and María y José.