Ricardo Dominguez (professor)
Encyclopedia
Ricardo Dominguez is an artist and associate professor of visual arts at UC San Diego
. He has been the subject of controversy over a number of acts of electronic civil disobedience
on his own and with the Electronic Disturbance Theater
, which he co-founded.
Dominguez, the founder of the Electronic Disturbance Theater
, has organized "virtual sit-ins" that attempted to overload and crash websites
, for which he and his co-founder developed a program called FloodNet that automatically requests the target page over and over. These events sometimes incorporated a search term, such that the search would return a phrase like "Transparency not found" in the University of San Diego
website, or "human rights not found" at the website of Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo
. On one occasion, the United States Department of Defense
diverted a planned attack to a nonexistent website. One goal of the movement is solidarity with Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico.
Dominguez also helped develop a phone app called the Transborder Immigrant Tool (TBT), which would use GPS technology to help immigrants find water stations in the Southern California desert and which also includes a poetry feature. It also raises awareness about the number of people who die in the U.S.-Mexico border region and aims to rethink the ways in which "immigrants are always presented as less-than-human and certainly not part of a community which is establishing and inventing new forms of life." TBT was subject to considerable controversy initiated by three Republican California congressmen; ultimately the University of California stated that TBT did not misuse research funds, but would not comment on whether it had broken any laws.
In an interview, Dominguez reports that his work, along with that of the Electronic Disturbance Theater, "has been to develop works that can create a performative matrix that activate and take a measure of the current conditions and intensities of power/s, communities and their anxieties or resistances."
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
. He has been the subject of controversy over a number of acts of electronic civil disobedience
Electronic civil disobedience
Electronic civil disobedience, also known as ECD or cyber civil disobedience, can refer to any type of civil disobedience in which the participants use information technology to carry out their actions. Electronic civil disobedience often involves the computers and/or the Internet and may also be...
on his own and with the Electronic Disturbance Theater
Electronic Disturbance Theater
Ricardo Dominguez, Brett Stalbaum, Stefan Wray, and Carmin Karasic are collectively known as The Electronic Disturbance Theater or EDT for short. Taking the idea of the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the EDT members always used their real names. They never concealed their identities...
, which he co-founded.
Dominguez, the founder of the Electronic Disturbance Theater
Electronic Disturbance Theater
Ricardo Dominguez, Brett Stalbaum, Stefan Wray, and Carmin Karasic are collectively known as The Electronic Disturbance Theater or EDT for short. Taking the idea of the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the EDT members always used their real names. They never concealed their identities...
, has organized "virtual sit-ins" that attempted to overload and crash websites
Denial-of-service attack
A denial-of-service attack or distributed denial-of-service attack is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users...
, for which he and his co-founder developed a program called FloodNet that automatically requests the target page over and over. These events sometimes incorporated a search term, such that the search would return a phrase like "Transparency not found" in the University of San Diego
University of San Diego
The University of San Diego is a Roman Catholic university in San Diego, California. USD offers more than sixty bachelor's, master’s, and doctoral programs...
website, or "human rights not found" at the website of Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo
Ernesto Zedillo
Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León is a Mexican economist and politician. He served as President of Mexico from December 1, 1994 to November 30, 2000, as the last of the uninterrupted seventy year line of Mexican presidents from the Institutional Revolutionary Party...
. On one occasion, the United States Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
diverted a planned attack to a nonexistent website. One goal of the movement is solidarity with Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico.
Dominguez also helped develop a phone app called the Transborder Immigrant Tool (TBT), which would use GPS technology to help immigrants find water stations in the Southern California desert and which also includes a poetry feature. It also raises awareness about the number of people who die in the U.S.-Mexico border region and aims to rethink the ways in which "immigrants are always presented as less-than-human and certainly not part of a community which is establishing and inventing new forms of life." TBT was subject to considerable controversy initiated by three Republican California congressmen; ultimately the University of California stated that TBT did not misuse research funds, but would not comment on whether it had broken any laws.
In an interview, Dominguez reports that his work, along with that of the Electronic Disturbance Theater, "has been to develop works that can create a performative matrix that activate and take a measure of the current conditions and intensities of power/s, communities and their anxieties or resistances."