The UCSD Garibaldi

Professor Dominguez…has been a defining figure in the migration of performance art from physical space to virtual space. Professor Dominguez’s work, first with Critical Art Ensemble and then with Electronic Disturbance Theater, has been highly cited, and he has been invited to lecture on the work across a host of important international venues…The esteemed status of Professor Dominguez’s field-defining work has been duly noted by the external referees, who include major international intellectuals working in performance art, new media and globalization.
–Paul Drake, Senior Vice Chancellor, University of California, San Diego

With black tape across their mouths, surgical masks marked with X’s, and holding signs that read “Art is not a Crime,” and “Academic Freedom,” over 200 students gathered on Thursday, April 8th at the Silent Tree on library walk. Ricardo Dominguez, a tenured visual arts professor at UCSD and a world-renowned scholar in the emerging field of electronic civil disobedience is under criminal investigation for the art/research practices at b.a.n.g lab, and their most recent project, creating a virtual sit-in on the UCOP web site. In 2009 Dominguez was named by CNN one of its “Most Interesting People” for his work in developing the Transborder Immigrant Tool (TBT). Within the hour, Dominguez would be called to meet with university officials to defend his tenure.

With any story, there is a background, and it is difficult to know where to begin because there are many possible start points. This is a story that has its roots in the formation of UCSD, Dominguez’s previous scholarship and activism, his appointment as a researcher, our current economic recession, the structure of California’s government, xenophobic organizations in the US, and the colonization of the Americas.

As an artist, Dominguez has always looked to open “disturbance spaces” inside our contemporary communication platforms. He is a former member of the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), a group of artists and activists whose focus is “the exploration of the intersections between art, critical theory, technology, and political activism.” Later Dominguez helped found the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) which sought to expand the work of the CAE into cyberspace. They developed the idea of Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD), which just as the name suggests is an electronic extension of Thoreau’s old idea.

EDT illuminates a new set of possibilities for understanding the relation between performance, embodiment, and spatial practice in cyberspace. Unlike a number of other performance artists, who have explored the relation of the body to technology through the literal encounter of individual physical bodies to machines, those working at EDT have placed the very notion of “embodiment” under question. Rather, they have sought to understand the specific possibilities for constituting presence in digital space that is both collective and politicized.

As with any art, Dominguez and his collaborators’ work has always had the goal of taking known forms and then augmenting or subverting their messages in order to provoke thought, discussion and emotion. What made the EDT different is how they applied these age-old principles of artistic expression to “new” media and digital technology. But their work was never “art for art’s sake”. Their creations, performances and interventions were based upon questioning (but never fully answering) contemporary social problems and injustices. While never offering a programmatic or normative message, the EDT would question the rationale behind the structures of power and the justifications those in power used to oppress others.

On 1 January, 1994 at the exact time the NAFTA came into effect, the EZLN reformed as a revolutionary movement which did not look or function like any previous revolutionary groups. The power of the EZLN came from their lack of power — they could never defeat the Mexican (and US) army directly in armed conflict, so they attacked their oppressors with public, democratic activity and… art. Members of the EDT, including Dominguez, contributed to the artistic front of the EZLN’s fight for the indigenous people of Mexico. They crafted themselves as Digital Zapatistas, “attacking” the websites of the Mexican government and the agencies of the US government, which were supporting the oppression of the people in Chiapas. But the “attacks” were never effective… only affective.

The EDT and other Digital Zapatistas succeeded in furthering the message of the EZLN and the indigenous peoples of Mexico, but they never physically harmed anyone or anything, in spite of the government violence directed at them.

One of the most important developments of EDT was FloodNet — the technology behind Virtual Sit-Ins such as the one against the UCOP website for which Dominguez is now under investigation. Originally conceived to protest the murder of innocent civilians by the Mexican government in Acteal in 1997, EDT’s goal was to take the long respected tradition of a peaceful sit-in to the virtual space of a website. And, just like an embodied sit-in, to be effective the virtual sit-in must be open and transparent. There are key differences between the virtual sit-in and a “Distributed Denial of Service Attack,” which Dominguez has been accused of launching. With the latter, computers of unknowing individuals become conduits to increase traffic to a particular Internet address, therefore rendering it inoperable, threatening the potential crash of the system itself. In this type of attack the identity of the perpetrators remains obscured in a prolonged assault usually motivated either by retribution, financial gain, and/or attempts to censor free speech.

In contrast, with the virtual sit-in, the goals of the action are stated, grievances described, participants known and once it is over no physical damage is done. FloodNet is a Java applet that is the code equivalent of going to the target website and constantly clicking the “reload” button. It also allows the participants to leave messages in the server’s error log by looking for non-existent URLs in the target server, which will then generate error messages. For example, a search for “human_rights” will generate an error message “File not found. ‘human_rights’ does not exist on this .gov server.”

In 2005, Dominguez was hired to a tenure-track position at UCSD to explore the theory and practice of ECD and the connections between online art and activism. In 2009, he was granted tenure by the same administration, which is now threatening him. The epigraph to this piece was taken from SVCAA Drake’s notification letter grating Dominguez tenure. Also among his scholarly and artistic accomplishments cited as reasons to grant Dominguez tenure were the various uses of FloodNet technology to conduct virtual sit-ins on websites run by governments, international finance organizations, anti-immigrant sites and even UCOP’s website.

Why were these previous sit-ins praised and this current one a subject of investigation? Prior to b.a.n.g lab’s orchestration of the Virtual Sit-in, Dominguez and his colleagues had been under ongoing institutional scrutiny for their work in developing the Transborder Immigrant Tool (TBT). The TBT is an inexpensive cell phone converted into a kind of poetic and humanitarian compass, designed to direct border crossers to caches of water in the desert. While conceptualized as a symbolic critique of US border policy, the artists emphasize that this tool also has the potential to saves lives. In the wake of the national and international press surrounding the controversy of this tool, Professor Dominguez and his colleagues received death threats from people within the San Diego community and beyond. Additionally, San Diego area Republican Congressional representatives Duncan Hunter, Brian Bilbray and Darrell Issa have sent letters to Chancellor Fox asking if the UC should be helping people cross the desert safely (or in their politically correct discourse: “helping illegal immigrants”).

Beside the Silent Tree on library walk, Dominguez gently thanked the community for their support. After taking an informal vote on how he should navigate the impending meeting with university officials, the crowd of supporters joined him in a silent procession to the office of the chair of Visual Arts, where the meeting was to be held. In the hour to come Professor Dominguez would frame his encounter with the administration “Zapatista style,” transforming a closed meeting, the purpose of which was to conduct “fact finding” in relation to his March 4th actions, into a collective meeting or “consulta.” Moving back and forth between closed doors of the office, and the crowd who had gathered outside, Dominguez fielded questions. Because the meeting was not open to the public, and because Dominguez did not have legal representation present, he asked that the meeting be postponed.

Rejoining the crowd of supporters he sat quietly listening to faculty and students as they read letters that spanned the globe, and which voiced solidarity, alliance, and outrage at the administration’s criminalization of his work. Humbly standing and thanking everyone for their presence, encouraging continued partnership in the effort to revision and rebuild a better university, Dominguez put on his backpack and left to teach his afternoon class.

Related cases:
– Micha Cárdenas and Brett Stalbaum, lecturers in Visual Arts and members of b.a.n.g. lab are also being investigated for their roles in helping create the TBT.
– Ken Elrich, lecturer at UC Riverside, is being investigated for his art-protest website, www.markyudof.com. The site “announced” UC President Yudof’s intention to resign on March 4th, and return to school to study social movements. Of course, this was satire, but UCR is currently harassing and investigating Elrich.

(Endnotes)
1 Jill Lane, “Digital Zapatistas” in The Drama Review, 47, 2, Summer 2003, p 131.