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Immaterials: Light painting WiFi
- Written by Einar Sneve Martinussen
- Tuesday, 22 February , 2011
The city is filled with an invisible landscape of networks that is becoming an interwoven part of daily life. WiFi networks and increasingly sophisticated mobile phones are starting to influence how urban environments are experienced and understood. We want to explore and reveal what the immaterial terrain of WiFi looks like and how it relates to the city.
Immaterials: light painting WiFi film by Timo Arnall, Jørn Knutsen and Einar Sneve Martinussen.
This film is about investigating and contextualising WiFi networks through visualisation. It is made by Timo Arnall, Jørn Knutsen, Einar Sneve Martinussen. The film is a continuation of our explorations of intangible phenomena that have implications for design and effect how both products and cities are experienced. Matt Jones of BERG has summarised these phenomena as ‘Immaterials’, and uses sociality, data, time and radio as examples. Radio and wireless communication are a fundamental part of the construction of networked cities. This generates what William Mitchell called an ‘electromagnetic terrain’ that is both intricate and invisible, and only hinted at by the presence of antennas (2004, p.55).
Investigating WiFi
In order to study the spatial and material qualities of wireless networks, we built a WiFi measuring rod that visualises WiFi signal strength as a bar of lights. When moved through space the rod displays changes in the WiFi signal. Long-exposure photographs of the moving rod reveal cross sections of a network’s signal strength.
WiFi outside the Oslo School of Architecture and Design
The measuring rod is inspired by the poles land surveyors use to map and describe the physical landscape. Similarly, our equipment allows us to reveal and represent topographies of wireless networks. The measuring rod uses a typical mobile WiFi antenna to measure reception, and draw out 4 metre tall graphs of light.
Walking with the WiFi measuring rod.
The size of the measuring rod and the light paintings it creates emphasises the architectural scale at which WiFi operates, and situates the networks in the physical environments that they are a part of. The light of the measuring rod pulses as it is being moved, which creates dashed lines rather than solid ones. This creates a semi-transparent texture that allows the visualisation to appear within the physical setting without covering it.
The dashed lines makes it possible to see through the graphs..
Material qualities of WiFi
December in Oslo is dark, making it an ideal month for light painting. During a few weeks of walking, measuring and photographing we visualised a number of networks in the Grünerløkka area in Oslo. The visualisations illustrate how WiFi networks in this neighbourhood are ubiquitous, but also fragmented and qualitatively different. The strength, consistency and reach of the network says something about the built environment where it is set up, as well as reflecting the size and status of the host. Small, domestic networks in old apartment buildings flow into the streets in different ways than the networks of large institutions. Dense residential areas have more, but shorter range networks than parks and campuses.
A WiFi network from an 1890s apartment building spilling into the street.
A dense network in the forecourt of the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO).
Our expeditions around Grünerløkka, and the time-consuming work of measuring networks by walking with a 4 metre tall instrument gave us a sense of the relationships between WiFi networks and the physical environment. Architectural forms, building materials and the urban landscape shape how networks spread into the city, and can make WiFi seem spatially unpredictable. The light paintings show how the network’s behaviour depends on where it is located and how the city around it is built.
A brick wall creating a shadow in a network protruding from the other side.
WiFi networks can, both practically and metaphorically connect different environments. The radio waves from WiFi base stations flow from indoor domestic spaces and semi-private work places, into public parks, streets and bus stops. A typical example of how WiFi networks can bring new functions to urban environments is the case of a university network extending into a nearby park. This makes it possible for students to use the park as a networked area when the seasons allow it. However, this password protected park-network is both technically invisible and practically unavailable for anyone else.
A university WiFi network stretching across a park.
A bus stop within a WiFi network.
The light paintings show how WiFi networks are highly local, informal and fragmented, but also illustrate how these networks make up a highly evolved, yet largely inaccessible urban infrastructure that is mainly created by its users. The visualisations demonstrate how WiFi is a part of the urban landscape, and how networks are both shaped by the environment and influence how urban spaces can be used. This connects to Genevieve Bell and Paul Dourish’s 2004’s research and discussions on how networks, computing and urban environments can be understood as interwoven layers of the urban experience:
The spaces into which new technologies are deployed are not stable, not uniform, and not given. Technology can destabilise and transform these interactions, but will only ever be one part of the mix.
Bell & Dourish (2004, p.2)
Materialising the networked city
WiFi networks are an early example of the technological phenomena that makes up the networked city. As new communication standards and pricing models get introduced WiFi may become obsolete, but it is has been one of the first examples of effective ways of bringing the internet into the city. WiFi also have characteristics that illustrate challenges and possibilities posed by networked cities: WiFi is invisible, complex and increasingly mundane.
A WiFi network along a heavily trafficked road.
Adam Greenfield discusses how ‘the complex technologies the networked city relies upon to produce its effects remain distressingly opaque, even to those exposed to them on a daily basis’. Greenfield argues for unpacking the technologies and systems of the networked city ‘demystifying them, explaining their implications to the people whose neighborhoods and choices and very lives are increasingly conditioned by them’. The WiFi light-paintings can be situated within the discourses of the networked city as illustrations of how invisible, complex technologies may be contextualised and communicated through visualisation. This is taken up and discussed in a forthcoming book chapter about this work:
WiFi networks are both physically invisible and technically obscure, which makes them blackboxed on multiple levels. The detailed technical level of the infrastructures, data traffic and electromagnetic fields that our mobile devices are built upon are obviously complex and difficult to understand. However, there are also interactional and material aspects to how we experience these technologies that are similarly opaque and vaguely understood. This material level is especially important for design research as it is not only related to the technical and infrastructural properties of the technologies, but also to how they are experienced as spatial, material and interactive phenomena in the city.
Through visualisations and the process of creating them we have unpacked some of the qualities of WiFi networks and made them understandable as spatial and contextual phenomena. This process of making the phenomena material through visualisation shows how digital structures and physical environments are interwoven elements of the urban landscape. It also illustrates how our interactions with devices and networks are a part of the fabric of everyday urban life.
Martinussen (2011 forthcoming)
Conclusions
‘Immaterials: Light painting WiFi’ points towards potentials for materialising and contextualising invisible technologies through light painting and visualisations. Hopefully, the film situates the networked city within the everyday environments in which it take place. The light paintings illustrate how the networked city can be both ubiquitous, messy, informal and seamful, and emphasise how the invisible landscape of networks is another layer of the dense and complex urban contexts we already know.
Acknowedgements
‘Immaterials: light painting WiFi’ is created by Timo Arnall, Jørn Knutsen and Einar Sneve Martinussen. The film joins together Touch, YOUrban and Einar’s PhD project on design, technology and city life. Einar is also writes about this work in a chapter for a forthcoming book titled ‘Design Innovation for the Built Environment – Research by Design and the Renovation of Practice’ edited my Michael U. Michael U. Hensel.
Timo writes more about immaterials and WiFi on the Touch weblog.
Thanks to Andrew Morrison and Jack Schulze (BERG).
References
Bell, G. and Dourish, P. 2004. Getting Out of the City: Meaning and Structure in Everyday Encounters with Space. Workshop on Ubiquitous Computing on the Urban Frontier (Ubicomp 2004, Nottingham, UK.)
Greenfield, A. 2009. The kind of program a city is [online]. Available at: http://speedbird.wordpress.com/2009/10/08/the-kind-of-program-a-city-is-2/ [Accessed 24 February 2011].
Martinussen, E. 2011 forthcoming. Making material of the networked city. In: Design Innovation for the Built Environment – Research by Design and the Renovation of Practice. Routledge, Taylor & Francis.
Mitchell, W.J. 2004. Me++: The Cyborg Self and the Networked City. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
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- Immaterials Light Painting WiFi 2011 | THECOOLTURE on 8 April, 2012 at 15:08
- Inspiration / Immaterials: Light painting WiFi | on 21 April, 2012 at 00:34
- YOUrban — Immaterials: Light painting WiFi | b-side on 28 April, 2012 at 12:21
- Luci senza fili: come le reti WiFi interagiscono con la nostra quotidianità urbana | Gazduna on 7 May, 2012 at 11:17
- Ver al WIFI « Blogtucompu on 8 May, 2012 at 19:05
- Light-painting the urban environment and.. « La mente di Daniele on 9 May, 2012 at 12:40
- YOUrban — Vimeo Awards 2012 on 22 May, 2012 at 11:09
- Voy — Vimeo Awards 2012! on 22 May, 2012 at 11:27
- immaterials: light painting wifi by timo arnall + jorn knutsen + einar sneve martinussen on 23 May, 2012 at 12:14
- WiFi visualisation | Change Meme on 24 May, 2012 at 15:56
- Quiet and invisible materialities | Material World on 30 May, 2012 at 16:13
- YOUrban — Visualising WiFi for the masses on 1 June, 2012 at 11:48
- The Content Marketer’s Guide to Visualizations Jon Cooper « Amalik on 5 June, 2012 at 23:36
- YOUrban — Projects inspired by ‘Immaterials: Light painting WiFi’ on 6 June, 2012 at 13:26
- ImmaterialsInformation Society | Information Society on 7 June, 2012 at 14:41
- [Friday Tech Fun]: Light painting WIFI | FirstDigest on 15 June, 2012 at 15:43
- Data Visualization Examples « A Summer of Questions on 9 July, 2012 at 17:49
- Jon Cleave — Immaterials; Wireless Technology | Undercoat on 28 July, 2012 at 12:16
- Bournemouth Graphic Design Graduate Jon Cleave on 7 August, 2012 at 16:30
- My artistic family | Erik Kroes on 19 September, 2012 at 15:05
- Voir l’immatériel « art et technologies contemporaines on 15 October, 2012 at 20:57
- A fast update from Playful 2012 « acupofteawithphd on 22 October, 2012 at 15:09
- Algebra proves useful after all, boosts Wi-Fi speed by 16x | Gadget Floor on 26 October, 2012 at 13:58
- 创意可视化：校园Wifi强度 | civn中文信息可视化社区 on 7 November, 2012 at 03:51
- Visualized Wi-Fi | The Mostly Technical Adventures of Bob on 4 December, 2012 at 12:11
- Invisible Wi-Fi signals caught on camera | PANDAblack on 5 December, 2012 at 01:13
- 数据可视化应用：看得见的Wi-Fi信号 | 世上的光 on 6 December, 2012 at 05:01
- 数据可视化应用：看得见的Wi-Fi信号 | 云动态 on 6 December, 2012 at 10:45
- 数据可视化应用：看得见的Wi-Fi信号 on 7 December, 2012 at 00:16
- 数据可视化应用：看得见的Wi-Fi信号 | 站长站 on 7 December, 2012 at 01:12
- Kablosuz Ağlarla Sokakları Boyamak « Sosyal Medya Kültür Sanat on 19 December, 2012 at 13:29
- Du light painting pour matérialiser les réseaux WiFi qui nous entourent | Geeks and Com' on 28 December, 2012 at 21:19
- light painting, creare con la luce « Georgiamada on 4 January, 2013 at 14:15
- Immaterials: Info-Viz Critique on 16 January, 2013 at 14:33
- LED light painting: Geeks creating works of art through tech - CheerArena : CheerArena on 7 March, 2013 at 11:21
- Visualizing Wi-Fi Networks Through Light | Threatpost on 25 March, 2013 at 02:49
- Visualizing wifi with light paintings | Field Notes on 1 April, 2013 at 15:57
- Voy — London and network friction on 25 April, 2013 at 12:28
- Sinal Wi-fi é medido em projeto chamado Immaterials, veja como seria poder ver o sinal das redes sem fio! | webdig Blog on 18 May, 2013 at 16:01
- Some intro FAQs | p.sarah.lowe on 30 May, 2013 at 15:20
- Networked Art Meets Light Painting | Lighting the Night on 11 June, 2013 at 00:22
- Immaterials: Light Painting WiFi | Najate & Joris on 17 June, 2013 at 16:43
- Française de communication » Poésie et Artland 2.0 on 31 July, 2013 at 20:37
- YOUrban — Immaterials exhibition in Brighton on 3 September, 2013 at 18:21
- The Immaterials project – Timo Arnall on 4 September, 2013 at 09:15
- How to: Wifi Signal Strength Light Painting | SainSmart on 16 September, 2013 at 04:52
- WiFi Visualisation as You’ve Never Seen it Before | brendan mitchell on 17 September, 2013 at 21:06
- La luz del WiFi | ARQUISCOPIO on 21 September, 2013 at 12:46
- Illuminating The Real-Time Information Streams Flowing Around Us [Future of Light] - PSFK on 27 September, 2013 at 16:15
- Internet of Things is already here – the connections are everywhere | Media Factory at Aalto University on 13 November, 2013 at 13:14
- invisible landscape of networks [ thanks @4KM ] | Sue Thomas on 15 November, 2013 at 21:12
- Expérimentations photographiques en numérique | Laboratoire d'Aix-périmentation et de Bidouille on 29 November, 2013 at 00:19
- » Invisible terrain of wifi networks Free Government Information (FGI) on 14 December, 2013 at 20:41
- Да нарисуваш... мечта • yovko in a nutshell on 11 January, 2014 at 18:45
- Electromagnetic radiation and health – Tricky Trackings on 23 March, 2014 at 09:47
- Immaterials: Light painting WiFi film | Fine 303 Cara Chambers on 28 March, 2014 at 01:25
- Immaterials: Light painting WiFi networks in urban spaces #ArtTuesday « adafruit industries blog on 15 April, 2014 at 15:01
- Spectrum Safari! | Many Possibilities on 12 June, 2014 at 15:57
- Fluffy Links – Tuesday August 5th 2014 « Damien Mulley on 5 August, 2014 at 08:55
- YOUrban — Satellite Lamps on 20 August, 2014 at 13:43
- Satellite Lamps – Timo Arnall on 20 August, 2014 at 13:55
- Glowing Orbs Reveal Presence of GPS : GPS World on 9 January, 2015 at 02:00
- no-flux on 26 January, 2015 at 13:02
- no-flux on 26 January, 2015 at 13:02
- 数据可视化应用：看得见的Wi-Fi信号 | 内容采集 on 2 March, 2015 at 15:19
- 와이파이를 칠하다 | 스내커 on 9 March, 2015 at 03:38
- Wifi 101 (NL) – Tricky Trackings on 14 April, 2015 at 12:28
- Data Visualization Projects Page | Sandra Song on 11 September, 2015 at 02:38
- Final project plan: Like city lights, receding. | becca ricks @ ITP on 10 November, 2015 at 21:44
- Immaterials: Light painting WiFi | Muneeb David on 13 November, 2015 at 10:21
- light painting, creare con la luce | Georgiamada on 15 February, 2016 at 14:48
Cool project.
Since vertical height is a meaningful component of terrain in an everyday sense, there’s a little bit of a visual metaphor mismatch, with higher signal strengths looking like virtual “walls”, and thus appearing to be wifi network boundaries, when in fact the lower signal strengths are more the boundaries.
I’d be interested to see experiments with alternate representation of signal strength, say diffuse on/off states of the lights, rather than stacked from the bottom, and maybe walking in a more sweeping fashion, rather than in a straight line.
Would also love to see this work coupled with a spectrum analyzer.
brent – sorry, but your comments don’t make sense at all. I’m pretty sure the vertical scale is logical to most people…
I get what Brent is saying. It could be an evolution.
Great idea all round. Inspired…
I’m not so sure about having a diffusive effect on the lights for stronger/weaker signals. Judging from the pictures it’d be hard to tell which was which. A spectrum analyzer would be very cool to add, though. Nice work to whoever did this project.
Brilliant project and Brent you are right about this mismatch but maybe it is even more interesting like that. Looking forward for further development.
This is just great; there is something wonderful about revealing – visually – information hidden in the air around us. Congratulations.
Brilliant!
What about changing colours based on the number of wireless networks detected?
You could see at a glance for instance one white higher peak and lesser strengths with varying degrees of intensity.
Empower with colors for public vs, unprotected vs. password available on request vs. locked networks.
That’s so great! May we use the pictures for a blog post?
Thank you, yes you may of course use the pictures in your blog. Using the Flickr URLs from the pictures on this site should not be a problem.
Wow, what is the name of this music track? It works so well with the images.
The music is from the Norwegian artist Phonophani / Espen Sommer Eide :
sommer.alog.net/
runegrammofon.com/artists/phonophani/
And the health implications?
Yes, what about the health implications? Sistematically underestimated, if not denied at all.
It is a fact that, until we cannot see it (or hear it, or smell it) we remain unaware of being constantly, passively exposed to a massive amount electromagnetic pollution. And this is only the WiFi network. Worrying.
You should be much more worried about that massive electromagnetic wave generator in the sky that pummels the earth daily.
Microwaves put out 800-1000Watts, radar puts out 10-100KW but a wifi base station only uses 0.1W… but the earth absorbs 122 Terawatts of radiation from the sun each day.
Very cool project.
really nice idea, inspiring to say the least
Hi,
Very good idea, and it was built and shot in nice way. I am trying to see, what other implementations it can have or what are its applications ?
Regards,
ritul
great idea, yet to show the different colors of different network
Amazing way to create a “tangible” percetion of something “intangible” that covers all the world and is the structure of the actual comunication…congratulations
Hey guys,
Congrats for your project, i took the liberty to talk about it on my website, i hope that i have talked about it right.
I have one question though : do you think it would be possible to take this project on a “3D” scale. For instance replacing the rod by a larger surface, and taking picture from up above. I’d love to see how we literaly swim everyday in this kinda 5th element
Thx for your answer & bravo again
M.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Sweeping across the landscape with a linear grid of these would produce a 3d version of the same thing.
Great idea. Useful and poetic.
Super! très bonne idée
Great use of an Arduino and a WiFly shield! (that’s what it is, right?) Now my next job will be to get me some EL wire, a WiFly shield and make a shirt that does this – had one before, but the wires broke of
You apparently haven’t seen the T-shirt:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/interactive/991e/?cpg=clrss
Bravo. I love this.
Wonderful idea, and a beautiful implementation. Thanks for making the world nicer.
A magnificient idea and wonderful visulization!
thanks for the wow moment of the day…wow.
That’s fantastic! When they said light painting I had no idea how you would use that to represent wi-fi signals but the rod is a great visualization. If nothing else it looks awesome
Hi,
Your artwork is great and I like the light idea and design.
My friend mailed to me about your artwork because I have some Wi-Fi artwork.
I think you maybe interested in them, so I attach the links below.
1. London Wi-Fi Music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jziXJy_hO9k
2. Walking in Wi-Fi Networks:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAOINa5VjZk
3.Cyborg in Wi-Fi London” Performance and Exhibition: http://fireant.itaiwan.net/cyborg_exhibition.php
4.Wi-Fi art project:http://fireant.itaiwan.net/wireless/en/
5.Wi-Fi in Different Colour Form:http://fireant.itaiwan.net/urban_image/
6.Wi-Fi information in different cities: http://fireant.itaiwan.net/urban_image/choose_city.php
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwesome! Seriously. 60 x 60 mounted print please. Thanks!
Wonderful work and such a clever insight to think of revealing this hidden presence in a way that is both readily grasped and beautiful to observe. Congratulations, very good work.
Have you considered building a similar apparatus with a GPS module, and recording the signal strength and recorded position and making a topographical map (or heat map overlaid on a real map) from the data?
Fantastic, saw the comments on Nasjonalgalleriet/nrk yesterday.
great idea!
i’d be curious to see how a pinwheel cluster would look like, representing a specter of frequencies!
Great concept and execution. At the IXDA seminar yesterday you mentioned two reasons why this project has got so much attention. You forgot a third: the aesthetic qualities, the images are simply stunning!
I have to agree with Brent and he’s absolutely right, with this lights stacked you’re showing the power density of the signal in a given point but you should also pay attention to where it is messure because the space in which the signal’s power density is spread may not be a straight bar as you’re showing in the video above. It may be interesting to see that too.
In general, I love your concept it has opened my mind to new ideas. thank you.
This is absolutely great. Congratulation!
It definitively has its place in a contemporary art gallery. I hope you are considering it. I would love to see this project as an exhibition in places like Palais de Tokyo (Paris) or Casa Encendida (Madrid), etc.
What’s next for you guys? How do you plan to continue this project?
What a brilliant idea way to go. I was mesmerized by the video.
Cool video; and a great concept. Keep up the good work!
Very nicelightpainting of the immaterial terrain in the city indeed!