work sample 1: WiFi.ArtCache
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The design challenge of this project was to create an apparatus that brings together physical proximity, narrative, interactivity and physical space in such a way as to engage a discourse about ubiquitous computing and the production of space. > PROJECT DESCRIPTION WiFi.ArtCache is a WiFi network cloud that alters the uses and meanings of the public spaces, spaces that are now entangled with the bits and bytes of the "wireless web.". It reveals the leaky, spongy abutement joining our data and our physical world by tracing out the contours of networks. Through the limited range of WiFi systems, the Caches 802.11 radio creates a spatially constrained range of influence. Rather than relying on 802.11 WiFi technology to extend the reach of the Internet into physical space, WiFi.ArtCache uses 802.11 in a reverse mode of operation it relies on its limited range to create a small, local network cloud. When you are within proximity of its network, you can connect to the Cache as if it were a typical WiFi access point, only this one is not the Internet. The Cache is a free floating 802.11 WiFi node purposely disconnected from the public Internet. You could not connect to the Cache through your Internet connection at home or work. You must be physically in the presence of the Cache in order to connect to it through its WiFi network. Instead of accessing the Internet, you download to your WiFi-enabled device artist-created Macromedia Flash animations whose narratives respond to social and location-based activity occurring within range of the Cache's 802.11 network. Visitors to the Cache use their WiFi-enabled device (PDA, laptop, etc.) in order to download, view, and interact with digital art as if it were a wireless gallery. The artist-made Macromedia Flash animations served by the Cache are programmed to alter their behaviors and appearance based on five criteria: 1. whether the object is in or out of range of the Cache; 2. how many of the same kind of object are active in range of the node and have been downloaded to participants computers; 3. how many of any kind of object is active in range of the node; 4. how long has the object been out of the node; 5. how long has the object been available on the node (i.e. what is its age?). Artists may also specify limits as to the number of copies of a particular digital art object that may be downloaded to visitors WiFi devices. > MOTIVATION WiFi.ArtCache is inspired by a paradox of the Internet: it makes it possible for us to stay in touch with our family, colleagues, business partners, friends, and so forth - with the paradox that we may remain physically distanced. The Internet has divested proximity of its sense of closeness and touch. Semantically, proximity has been loosened of its sense of physical distance and material substance. By using proximity and the dance of bodies in a shared physical space as an interface modality, WiFi.ArtCache is designed to foreground this paradox, and the tension between being in touch, while being at a distance. The Internet has always been about diminishing the constraints of physical geography and the perceived burden of distance, space and matter. This project deliberately inverts this logic. WiFi.ArtCache is meant to remind us of a kind of materiality of virtual worlds, and help visualize through artist-made narratives the ways in which we actually share our bulky, physical space with our airy, ethereal data. The abutment WiFi.ArtCache illuminates - where data swaddling social beings is made evident - is consequential and significant. The junction has a material and metaphorical quality that is refashioning public and private space particularly as our data finds its way into more of our worlds nooks and crannies. WiFi.ArtCache makes apparent the boundaries of networks, but does so not to suggest that the virtual and physical are different. This project is not one that relies upon binary distinctions between an existence either on and off the network . Rather, it is intended to suggest that we live in a world of hybrids where it isnt even possible to consider self as distinct from networks or data. But note that this is not the cyberfantasy of the self fully jacked into networks, leaving the flesh behind. That fantasy is pass; it is so 20th century. The purpose of seeing the world from the perspective of a shared existence with our data is to force us to change the way we think about the places we live, and to consider how we can share those places with our ulterior data in a livable, habitable, aesthetically rich way.
more Julian Bleecker work samples: > work sample 2: MobileScout (2004) > work sample 3: WiFi.Bedouin (2003-2004) > work sample 4: PDPal, Eyebeam Edition (2002) slowLab work samples:
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