University of Leeds

This paper will introduce how the collaboration of art, anthropology and linguistics visualise Wi-Fi networks as colourful house societies where cyborg live and behave by metaphor. Wi-Fi networks are becoming more and more ubiquitous in modern urban life and the influence reshape our space from physical world to the combination of real world and cyberspace. The special landscapes attract geographers, sociologists and anthropologists to study their social and cultural meaning besides scientific and engineering orientation. The social and humanistic studies focus how Wi-Fi as new-born technology to change our consciousness and daily behaviour. They depict Wi-Fi in one way from human being’s opinion. Actually, both of human beings and Wi-Fi networks contribute a new world appear – cyborg world. To decipher and explain the invisible and non-intuitive change, this paper adopts a novel and artistic way to analyze and represent this phenomena. After 1960s, conceptual artists develop plenty of expression to discuss, highlight or represent abstract concept and issue beyond just represent them by their pen, brush, hammer or other traditional tools. They are eager to apply action, body or multiple medium to express their opinions. Art can explore complicated and subtle social/cultural phenomena by creating visual, acoustic, physical and metaphorical artworks to break the boundary and connect invisible/intangible clues in a meaningful network to mark them. To practice the cyborg hypothesis, the artist were playing cyborg role to access and collect Wi-Fi networks in different cities. The performance and Wi-Fi data were converted in to colour charts which take Wi-Fi access points as house in anthropology study. Claude Levi-Strauss pointed out house is the elementary social unit for understanding social structure and relationship. The result will show Wi-Fi access point is the important medium as house to offer user as cyborg places and position in real world and cyberspace.