► eBROCHURE (PDF)

Writer and independent researcher Laura Tripaldi shows how politics can play out in the nanoscale dimension, by focusing on the role of colloids in defining what “matter” and “bodies” are. When, in 1856, Michael Faraday experimented on gold colloids and investigated their behaviour, the reality of what was known as “matter” and was usually perceived as a collection of intrinsic properties became much more elusive and complex. Even our entire biological bodies could be understood as remarkably intricate colloidal systems consisting of trillions of tiny biochemical particles dispersed in water. One hundred years after Faraday’s experiments, gold colloids were first used in modern pregnancy tests. This revolutionary invention gave women the possibility to make autonomous choices about their bodies, and serves as an example of how non-human nano-actants participate in our politics and ontologies.

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