His students in the visual arts department have created a sound sculpture exhibit featuring columns of white speakers, that draws attention to the presence of nanotechnology particles in everyday products. Another student spent 365 hours as a virtual-world dragon, her movements mimed with motion-capture technology in a three-dimensional visual laboratory
In class, Dominguez's students are taken on a brain-twisting journey into abstract ruminations on cyber-hallucinations and the nature of beauty.
To the uninitiated, the language is incomprehensible. Want to learn about "Trans( )infinities," his latest course offering? It "will be imagined as an (empty set) of potential aesthetic practices that move between, through, across and beyond the post of the post-contemporary by transfixing on the loanwords," reads the course description.
Last year, Dominguez was granted tenure.
"Professor Dominguez ... has been a defining figure in the migration of performance art from physical space to virtual space," wrote Professor Paul Drake, UC San Diego's senior vice chancellor of Academic Affairs, in a tenure notification letter quoted by the UC Faculty Coalition in a letter to administrators.
With the public unveiling of the immigrant cellphone, Dominguez seized the spotlight. The phone's global-positioning system program directs immigrants to desert water stations and has a "poetry-in-motion" audio feature.
"May the road rise up to meet you," says one poem. "May the wind always be at your back."
The phone is more conceptual than practical. Similar border-inspired projects have been dreamed up by several artists over the years, including an illegal-immigrant shoe equipped with maps and a compass. They languished in galleries, generating little interest beyond art circles.
But the immigrant cellphone — created with three colleagues for about $10,000 — scored public relations riches. CNN named Dominguez one of its most intriguing people in December, and the associate professor shared the media stage with conservative lawmakers, giving him a platform to draw attention to the plight of immigrants.
Distributing the device is beside the point now, Dominguez said. "Deployment has already been made," he said. "This spasm of interest is what the project is about."
Colleagues cheered. Dominguez and his co-creators received an award from the university's humanities department and were honored at an international electronic art festival in Mexico City.
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On March 4, Dominguez dusted off his virtual swarming software to protest college fee increases. This time, there was no ovation. Administration officials shut down his computer server in the middle of finals week. A few days later, campus police showed up at his office.
According to Dominguez and a faculty group, the university has launched at least two probes: One to determine whether creation of the phone was a proper use of public funds, the other to see if legal grounds exist for filing criminal charges for the virtual sit-in.
The charges, they said, could lead to disciplinary measures and the revocation of Dominguez's tenure. Dominguez's salary was $65,000 before furloughs.
"We'd be better off taking his salary and hiring more math teachers...let's get back to basics," said Peter Nuñez, a former U.S. attorney from San Diego. UC San Diego President Marye Anne Fox has been asked to provide a financial accounting of the immigrant phone project in a letter signed by Reps. Duncan Hunter, Brian Bilbray and Darrell Issa.
UC officials, in a statement, said the university doesn't take positions on the political implications of researchers' work, but reviews allegations of law breaking. The university declined to comment on Dominguez's case.
Around campus, some professors and students say the probes strike at the heart of academic freedom.
"We are astonished that work that earned tenure [for Dominguez] can be turned on its head and form the basis of a criminal investigation," said Ivan Evans, a sociology professor.
This twist puzzles Dominguez. He suspects outside political pressure may be driving the probes and that officials may be sensitive to criticism after dealing with a series of racially charged incidents earlier this year at the San Diego campus.
Dominguez met with his lawyers this week, making them the newest cast members in a performance that could end with the protagonist being yanked offstage. Dominguez, for his part, still revels in the plaudits he has earned from his fellow artists and colleagues.
"That has been a kind of glorious moment in the performance," Dominguez said. "It's the humanity that has gathered around ... Electronic Disturbance Theater."
richard.marosi@latimes.com
