Nano-art, dynamic matter and the sight/sound of touch Harriet Hawkins a,⇑ , Elizabeth R. Straughan b a Department of Geography, Queens Building, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, United Kingdom b School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G128QQ, United Kingdom article info Article history: Received 17 July 2012 Received in revised form 20 October 2013 Available online 30 November 2013 Keywords: Touch Hearing Art Nano-imaginaries Matter Vibrations Immersive geographies abstract This paper offers an auto-ethnographic account of Midas, an immersive bio-media installation created by artist Paul Thomas. The experiences of the installation provide a stepping-off point for a discussion of the corporeal geographies and the nano-imaginaries that the work develops. Understanding the senses as a principle means whereby the body mingles with the world and with itself, we begin from a focus on Mid- as’s presentation of the inter-relations of touch, vision and hearing, thereby extending geographical thinking on aurality, but also reworking the immersive geographies that are implicated within ontologies of touch. We draw out these geographies by way of the depths and passages of Irigaray’s (1993) fluid ontology of touch. From here we explore the ‘creative rethinking’ of matter that the installation develops, exploring the organismic topographies that it develops which stand against nano-imaginaries of matter that are focused either on the corporeal violence of nano-splatter, or the understanding of nanotechnol- ogies through the mastery and control of matter. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Prologue Walking through the gallery we hear-feel the deep thrum of the installation even before we enter the room: the low tones vibrate through our bodies as we approach the space before they gradually be- come layered with a higher-pitched liquid trickle of sound. As we ad- vance closer, a grainy electronic static joins the ensemble of sounds, becoming, in time, all but drowned out by the throb of deeper, palpable notes, felt now through the floor. Moving around the corner, and into the installation space itself, we see an enlarged skin cell projected onto the far wall, where grey tones give-way to a blue-green before turning to gold. Advancing to the plinth in the middle of the room, and running our fingers over the three dimensional 9 carat gold coated-metal cast in the shape of a skin cell, the static electricity in our bodies completes a circuit, triggering the sound once more. As it does more points of gold, blue and green appear on the projection before us. We watch them slowly merge, with touch after touch causing vibrant col- ours to colonise the previously monochrome projection turning it to gold. 1 2. Introduction ‘‘Give me’’, says he, (nor thought he ask’d too much) ‘‘That with my body whatsoe’er I touch, Changed from the nature which it held of old, May be converted into yellow gold.’’ (Ovid, 2009, p. 119 myth of Midas) As the mythical King Midas learnt to his cost, touch is an inte- gral part of our going about in the world; the relationalities and consistencies of touch make important contributions to our knowl- edge of the world and our relational formation of ourselves as sub- jects. Indeed, without the ability to touch (excepting by turning things to gold) Midas was unable to sustain himself physically or emotionally, his physiological and psychological disintegration narrativising the ontological value that has been found in the sense of touch (by, for example, Merleau-Ponty, 1968; Levinas, 1987; Irigaray, 1993). Drawing out elements of this myth artist Paul Tho- mas has created the immersive biomedia nano-art installation Midas (2007), in which, as the prologue describes, the gallery-goer is invited to touch a three dimensional model of a skin cell covered in 9 carat gold, and in so doing catalyses a series of sonic and visual experiences. Midas was dependent on Thomas’s collaborations with a series of scientists that enabled him to culture living cells, mount sam- ples and scan them at a nano scale using an Atomic Force Micro- scope (AFM) forming raw data for the installation’s visual and 0016-7185/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.10.010 ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: harriet.hawkins@rhul.ac.uk (H. Hawkins), libby.straughan@ glasgow.ac.uk (E.R. Straughan). 1 The extract is from an auto-ethnography composed by the authors from field notes and shared memories of their visits to the installation Midas, installed in the Science Gallery, Dublin, 28/01/11–02/02/11. Geoforum 51 (2014) 130–139 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Geoforum journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geoforum