University of Leeds

3) Colour charts,

Colour chart is prevalent in our daily life. In 2009, Tate Liverpool had a “Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today” exhibition. In their introduction:

“…… the commercial colour chart as its point of departure, addressing the impact of mass-produced colour on the art of the past sixty years…… the shifting moment in twentieth-century art when artists began to perceive colour as ‘readymade’ rather than as a vehicle of spiritual or emotional content…… the beauty that occurs when artists assign colour decisions to chance, readymade source, or arbitrary system. Midway through the twentieth century, long-held convictions regarding the spiritual truth or scientific validity of particular colours gave way to an excitement about colour as a standardised commercial product. The Romantic quest for personal expression instead became Andy Warhol’s “I want to be a machine”; the artistry of mixing pigments was eclipsed by Frank Stella’s “straight out of the can; it can’t get better than that.” (http://www.tate.org.uk/liverpool/exhibitions/colou…)

Colour is a kind of readymade in contemporary society but we have more than colour charts than commercial, such as scientific and industrial. Everyday, when we see computer screens to navigate web sites and web colours are on our eyes. The colours don’t come from nature but from industrial setting. Web pages show colours according to 6-digit hexadecimal coding. Hexadecimal coding are also used on Wi-Fi access points to mark their serial number as known as BSSID (Basic Service Set Identifier) or MAC address (Media Access Control address ). Unlikely, BSSID is 12-digit hexadecimal coding not 6-digit coding. First 6-digit code of BSSID is vendor’s code in IEEE and last 6-digit code is serial number in factory. The combination of two codes produce unique Wi-Fi BSSID code. Because of its unique, it is a good features to express lots of Wi-Fi access points in cities.

To show Wi-Fi access point’s “house” metaphor, Wi-Fi access points will be presented as a house. First issue is “what kind of house” and the following issue is “which media”. For the first, we can follow Ahrens’ study to find frameworks to locate Wi-Fi in society’s situation and find the mapping principles which come from functions, entities and qualities.

a) What framework: individual city has the common and difference on their ideal Wi-Fi plan. The usual commons are government or service provider emphasize Wi-Fi’s convenience,open,popular ,simple,”free” and “freedom/liberty”. Chicago city provide free Wi-Fi in their public libraries, the below is their introduction on their web site:

“Welcome to the Chicago Public Library’s High Speed Wireless Internet System. All locations of the Chicago Public Library offer free wireless access to the Library’s network. Getting online is quick and simple. All you need is a wireless enabled laptop computer, tablet PC or PDA. The Library’s WIFI network is open to all visitors free of charge and without filters. No special encryption settings, user names or passwords are required. “(http://www.chipublib.org/aboutcpl/wifi.php)

Public library in New York City also provide Wi-Fi access:

“All Library locations offer free wireless access (Wi-Fi) in public areas at all times the libraries are open.”(http://www.nypl.org/help/computers-internet-and-wi…)

Hong Kong’e publich library Wi-Fi is part of the government Wi-Fi plan which provide free Wi-Fi access in government’ s building or facilities:

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London public library also has the similar description, but you need to setup proxy to go online which is a bit of complicated than the two:

“All locations of London Public Library, except Glanworth, Lambeth or Northridge, provide wireless…….Wireless Internet access uses radio frequency signals to exchange data between laptop computers and a network without the need for cables. LPL offers free wireless access to the Internet using the WiFi standard, IEEE 802.11b.”(http://www.londonpubliclibrary.ca/node/328).

With the launch of the GovWiFi programme in March to provide free wireless Internet access in government venues citywide, free WiFi services are now available in 31 public libraries across the territory. The programme will proceed in phases and more public libraries are expected to be WiFi friendly by the middle of this year.

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Like Hong Kong, Wi-Fi in Taipei public library was part of government Wi-Fi plan, but the service is run by commercial Wi-Fi company and not every library has this service. The following introduction was completed when library wi-fi was free:

2)Conceptual metaphor

How do we connect object or concepts of different categories/types? Metaphor is our frequent way to explain something by others which have parts of commons with the subjects/topics. Source Domain (SD) is the explanation source and Target Domain (TD) is the explained object/idea. SD/TD of metaphor is like signifier/signified in structural linguistics or symbol study, but there are mapping principles between SD/TD in contrast to the arbitrary relationship between signifier/signified. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson coined “conceptual metaphor” to refer to metaphor which is constructed by culture not only by the outline/shape.

As mentioned, Wi-Fi access points and houses own lots of similarities. The similarities are based on functions, entities and qualities (Ahrens : 2001).Functions mean how and what the object works, such as house has “shelter” and “social/geographic position” function and Wi-Fi has “connection” and “provide resource” function. Entities refer to the the parts, for example, house has brick, windows, and doors and Wi-fi has antenna, signal and ports. Qualities are characteristics and traits, including house’s concrete and valuable and Wi-Fi’s wireless and sharing.

The principles of three items are not always the same, and they will strengthen or weaken with social change. The change provide a framework to constitute and arrange what will be emphasized and ignore in metaphor mapping principles. The framework may comes from government, mass media, political trend, economic transformation, and religion.

Above all, although Wi-Fi networks and house owns lots of commons but Wi-Fi landscapes might have the slight/huge differences which are caused by framework. As anthropologist Christopher Tilley (2002) pointed out “[metaphor] is a primary way in which persons and cultures make sense of the world…… to make connections between things as to understand them.”(Tilley 2002: 24-25) Metapgor offer us a cultural/social way to realize what and how Wi-Fi are integrated in our sociey.

Metaphor is a convenient for us to understand describe something we are not familiar or difficult to explain clearly especially abstract ideals or new objects. Wi-Fi is an new object and concept for citizens, so Wi-Fi service providers, advertisement or governments need to adopt familiar object or concept to introduce Wi-fi to the public. Taipei city promote Taipei city-wide Wi-Fi networks as “CyberCity” and Hong Kong government aims to be “Wireless City”. These terms refer to city but the city is not based on geographical space but cyberspace and connection way. New York’s non-profit Wi-Fi advocating organization aims to help “the growth of free, public wireless Internet access in New York City and surrounding areas”. From NYCWireless’ introduction, Wi-Fi’s quality is free and public as human rights to other resource. London “launched” free wifi with ” an advertisement of 15 to 30 seconds in length every 15 minutes.” which represent freedom to internet is not free and all are business. Wi-Fi is not neutral object and technology. Different cities empower Wi-Fi for present particular personalities and functions. Entities are also diverse for separate urban Wi-Fi cities. Taipei’s Wi-Fi boxes are installed as street lights, so the users can see Wi-Fi machine in the middle of roads. In London and Hong Kong, Wi-Fi noticeboard could be found in telephone booths. It seems we can get superman’s power from access to Internet by telephone booths if you have membership or are a service subscriber.

Above all, Wi-Fi networks are embodied metaphors which contains and opetate lots and various of mapping principles in different cities. In the other world, Wi-Fi networks became materialized media which materialized culture, politics and economics by metaphor and it is also the message itself as Marshall McLuhan(1965) proposed “the medium is the message.”

Until now, metaphor and “house societies” theory are helpful for us to realize “Wi-Fi networks are materialized media”. in advance, this characteristics will be highlighted to discuss how the materialized media represent identities and urban personalities. To achieve this target, this paper will create colour-chart Wi-Fi urban landscapes. This is not a engineering or sociological model, though the landscapes are based on both basis. The colour charts are fine art works to produce abstract and conceptual urban Wi-Fi landscape to create a metaphorial and visual images to argue materialized media issue by house society and conceptual metaphor. In the next section, I will introduce technical knowledge to explain how to convert Wi-Fi into a visual and non-geographic map to expand Wi-Fi beyond territory.

, main results and main conclusions.