Wi-Fi networks are popular in metropolitans around the world. Besides the infrastructures, Wi-Fi connection is available in blooming personal devices, including mobile phones, laptops, cameras and walkmans. Ubiquitous Wi-Fi machines construct peculiar urban landscapes. In the one hand, Wi-Fi access points create invisible signal landscapes; in the other hand, Wi-Fi notice boards and symbols constitute visible landscapes. In the invisible, the signals create connections among separate devices which are the extension of Wi-Fi users. The devices perform their function to satisfy users’ needs. Beyond tool, such as cars and airplanes, Wi-Fi devices immerse users in continuous Wi-Fi environments. In addition to invisible landscapes, users also live and act in visible Wi-Fi landscape. Users can see the Wi-Fi sticker on their devices and in fast food restaurants, pubs, cafe and telephone booths. More and more users go to the mentioned places for Wi-Fi not for sandwiches and coffee. The behaviour made Wi-Fi users becoming the part of urban Wi-Fi landscapes. In advance, Wi-Fi users are the flesh and blood part of Wi-Fi networks. The combination of Wi-Fi networks and human bodies transforms Wi-Fi users as cyborg, cybernetic organism.
Wi-Fi cyborg blurs the boundary of human/machine, subjective/objective, central/peripheral, technology/culture, dominant/dominated and imagination/embodiment. Users connect to the Internet via their devices and Wi-Fi access points. However, Wi-Fi devices also connect to different Wi-Fi access points to expand their networks by human’s move. Human may not be the dominant/subject and devices may not be the dominated/object. Wi-Fi access points seem the center of Wi-Fi networks but moving cyborg could be the center of multiple networks. Wi-Fi cyborgs move according to their daily life and the diverse routes from cyborgs create their cultures. Wi-Fi cyborgs seems the fictive imagination but they are embodied in users’ behaviours and prevailing Wi-Fi devices.
My artworks were inspired by Taipei Wi-Fi plan and proceeded in other four cities, including London, New York, Chicago and Hong Kong. I collect BSSIDs by myself and record my routes. BSSIDs, dates and routes constitute my artworks. To create artworks to express the obscure borders, I chose colour chart on webpage as the media. Colour is both of human and machine. In human societies, colours have their cultural and spiritual meaning; for machine, colours are sets of numbers and alphabets. Besides colours, a series of chart could be the beginning and the end. Webpage is the popular media to embody the imagination, especially dynamic pages. PHP, a script language, was employed to create my colour chart artworks. These artworks present the blurred boundaries and argue cyborgs have their cognition to perceive their urban Wi-Fi landscapes
