1. Introduction:
What will you expect to see new and fast-growing social spectacle in globalized cities? Wi-Fi may be the answer. Wi-Fi has been developed fast in the first decade of 21th century. World’s metropolitans have their Wi-Fi infrastructure plans, and private and commercial Wi-Fi access points also distributes everywhere in the cities. To depict this globalized Wi-Fi era, this project chooses online website as the main media to present the Wi-Fi spectacle for global audience. The code-translated colours are important medium to visualize Wi-Fi, because the colours cross the boundary of human beings and machine by its code-based natures and human’s vision.
2. Places:
Andrew Feenberg (1991) “discusses both how the labor process, science, and technology are constituted as forms of domination of nature and human beings, and how they could be democratically transformed as part of a program of radical social transformation.” Definitely, Wi-Fi is the noticeable technology involved with radical social transformation. Wi-Fi access points are ubiquitous in London, including personal houses, companies, schools, riverside, museums, trains and train stations. We are moving around different places and Wi-Fi networks. Wi-Fi network provide a hybrid place of real world and cyberspace, as Paul Routledge ‘s place “is still a central dimension of social movements. This because “they forge an associational politics” that is constituent of “a diverse, contested coalition of place-specific social movements”. In these “convergence spaces” conflict is prosecuted on a “variety of multi-scalar terrains that include both material places and virtual spaces.” Is the convergence of struggles in these material and virtual spaces the real constituent force of commons?” The competition of open Wi-Fi social movement, municipal Wi-Fi and commercial Wi-Fi is the obvious political struggle. Wi-Fi networks are not peaceful and technological places, because these places are full of economy, politics, space, privacy issues.
Wi-Fi networks are multiple spaces in modern cities, and one person maybe living in one more Wi-Fi networks. Wi-Fi networks are still expanding and renewing in private or public places. Never completed Wi-Fi networks are similar with Marc Ague’s “non-places”. Augé has coined “non-place” to describe the “place” which is about overabundance of event, spatial overabundance, the individualization of references and he has called that this is the traits of supermodernity. Modernity is to construct the collective identity by the space, history and other monuments, and supermodernity is about the overabundance of space and time which make individual become a special reference. The former emphasizes the specified time and space, and the latter focus on the specified individual experience.
In the first part, this paper will outline Wi-Fi development after 2000 and how different cities planned their city-wide Wi-Fi infrastructure. Then, I will discuss the previous Wi-Fi artworks which reflect the social and cultural background and political intention. Besides artworks introduction, I will cite “house society” theory in anthropology to explain why I apply house as Wi-Fi metaphor as Wi-Fi’s image and role in this project. House is important material/immaterial object which help its members to shape their identity by tangible/intangible way.
In methodology section, my fieldwork and collection method will be introduced, At the same time, Conceptual metaphor comes from linguistic and philosophical study and it was applied to discuss how we imagine our invisible concepts or object by tangible or clear objects according to our cultural background. Conceptual metaphor is helpful for us to create urban wifi image and explain what the images mean.
I will also describe how this project translate unique MAC address (or BSSID) of Wi-Fi access points into web colours. This is more technical and it is important to explore how Intnernet-related technology has the similar features and concepts.
After methodology, this part will introduce the cities background which I have my fieldwork on. This paper will create tables to compare the infrastructure in different cities and conclude mapping principles according to conceptual metaphor and house societies study.
In artworks part. I will explain the works on web pages and performance in the real world. For web page, I will introduce php and mysql which are not only tools but also the logical/signifying ways to create the artwork. Open systems and John Cage will be engaged with the performance and interpret how the behaviour and environment change us from human beings to cyborg.
The conclusion will review the theories and artworks. This section will confirm artworks are both representation and analytical productions and they also are political movement which interact with our society.
Cyborg awareness and cyborg identity.
Besides depicting colourful urban wifi landscapes, the other part of this project is “collecting and walking in Wi-Fi networks” performance. We can’t see Wi-Fi signals, but we can be aware or conscious of walking in Wi-Fi networks. Stumbling and collecting Wi-Fi, we know how density of Wi-Fi in cities and know where Wi-Fi can be accessed, such as McDonald’s. Even if we don’t use any Wi-Fi-equipped devices, we still know we are in Wi-Fi networks. The performance show how we shape cyborg awareness and consciousness. We remember and know Wi-Fi location by Wi-Fi devices or Wi-Fi noticeboard. The knowing break the boundary of human and machine and create a cyborg awareness. We know where we can access Wi-Fi and we become a member of accessible networks which is the medium to construct the identity which is involved with real world/cyberspace and human/machine.
Why I choose Wi-Fi as my study subject?
In this project, Wi-Fi is the represented object and Wi-Fi is also a way which can display our ideas and theory. In its first role, this project visualizes Wi-Fi to colour house image, and the other role means that I walk in cyborg world by popular Wi-Fi networks.
How do this project depict Wi-Fi to emphasize its importance to our life? There are many good Wi-Fi maps to provide our where Wi-Fi service is available but they focuses on geographical location not social location/position. To understand Wi-Fi in our society, we had better place it in the context from social and individual perspectives. What is the elementary unit to study Wi-Fi? House is my hypothesistical unit because Wi-Fi machines exist in different houses and home house is my major analytical subjects. Wi-Fi is popular in residential area and there is higher Wi-Fi density in residential area than other places. So I take home house images to describe and depict Wi-Fi.
In Crunchtime2010
(http://www.crunchtime2010.org/)
, I will display my four pictures. This event is exploring globalization and my works focuses how Wi-Fi has its impact on global urban landscapes.
