The Midas Project
Paul R. Thomas · eSpace (Curtin University) · 2008
The Midas project paul thomasThe Midas project is a visual and sonic installation that amplifies certain aspects of experience at a nano level.The Midas project is analogous to the curse of the fabled Midas, King of Phrygia, to whom Dionysus gave the power of turning all that he touched into gold.This gift of touch soon changed for the king from a source of pride in his ability to a curse, as even his food and drink transformed into gold.The metonymic work is based on this Midas story, which parallels the transmutability of matter predicted by some nano scientists.As early as 1959 in his paper 'There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom',1 Richard Feynman made social predictions concerning the potential of nanotechnology to transmute knowledge, stating that there 'is enough room on the head of a pin to put all of the Encyclopedia Britannica'.Eric Drexler further explored these ideas in his 1986 book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology,2 in which he hypothesized on a 'grey goo' theory, suggesting that manipulating atoms could lead to a chain reaction where self-replicating nanobots became destructive.The action of the nanobots would call to mind the touch of the mythical King Midas.Bill Joy discussed these concepts of transference and transformation in an article in Wired magazine: 'It is most of all the power of destructive self-replication in genetics, nanotechnolgy and robotics (GNR) that should give us pause'.3The Midas project uses the atomic force microscope (AFM), invented in 1986, and developed at the end of long line of optical microscopes introduced since the early 1600s.Robert Hooke (1635-1703) used the optical microscope to study living systems.4Optical microscopes were used exclusively until 1931 when the first electron microscope was introduced.The scanning probe microscope (SPM) was introduced in 1981, leading the way for the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) and the AFM.Optical microscopes have a number of limitations in that they can only image dark or strongly refracting objects effectively.The diffraction limits resolution to approximately 0.2 micrometres, and ambient light can diffuse the focus.Unlike previous microscopes, the AFM is not optical and therefore the name is a misnomer.144 sk-interfaces 1 R. P. Feynman, 'There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom', Engineering and Science 24.1