ARTISTS TALKING

# 7 [24 December 2009]

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.

# 6 [23 December 2009]

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.

# 5 [22 December 2009]

Visualisation is composed of aesthetics and data representation.

Art provides us a special way to present the idea and concepts in an abstract and representational method. It creates an object or a field to present the contrast, ambiguity and hypothesis. Artworks are metaphor which can break the boundary between different objects and ideas to expand our view and deepen our points.  

This project applies metaphor to break the boundary between real world/cyberspace, human/machine and society/technology. The project outcome webpages are metaphor of Wi-Fi access points in real world and the colours produce a link between human and machine. The webpages are not only aesthetical in form and they are also the power tool to reveal our invisible urban landscapes and cyborg’s behaviours. By querying data from this project database, the signified colours present our views and theory to explain how and what Wi-Fi reshapes our life and makes us become cyborg.

# 4 [22 December 2009]

The second day continued.  It is interesting to find  Wifinity around Buckingham Palace. This company has its business on residential apartment blocks and military barracks both in the UK and Europe. http://www.wifinity.co.uk/

Military... so interesting.

BTopenzone disappears around Buckingham Palace and near residential areas. Today, i seldom uploaded my files because I can't find accessible wii-fi access points. Wi-Fi doesn't mean convenient internet access, it should mean territorial representations  and spatial imagination. To visualize Wi-Fi, we can obtain the images and representation and it is the contemporary cosmology and epistemology.  

# 3 [22 December 2009]

The first day of my exhibition. It is painful to walk around London in rainy and snowy day. I have paid 5 pounds to subscribe BTopenzone for my project and it is really helpful to upload my data immediately. This performance and exhibition aim to trace and show out wi-fi footprint and urban invisible wi-fi landscape. Most wi-fi maps show wi-if distribution and related information according to physical geography. I want to show what we see when we are using or walking in real world. I assume we will have special affection and membership for wi-fi  aps which we can go online by them and cyborg identity may be produced by the behaviour and concepts which are for wi-fi access points. Although wi-fi access points are popular in london, they don't have equal value and meaning, symbols for the users. I adopt abstract colour charts on webpage to emphasize the symbol traits of wi-fi networks. The real-time performance may help me to explain how I do wi-fi translation for the public.

# 2 [16 December 2009]

"Cyborg in Wi-Fi London" Performance and Exhibition by Jung-Hua Liu

My name is Jung-Hua Liu and fine art PhD student in University of Leeds.

My project aims to visualise urban Wi-Fi networks and study the link between technology and society. In my project, I assume Wi-Fi users as cyborg, the combination of human beings and machine (Wi-Fi access points and mobile devices), and my hypothesis is that Wi-Fi users will have construct cyborg identity by particular behaviour in Wi-Fi networks.

I will have an online performance and exhibition on http://fireant.itaiwan.net/cyborg_exhibition.php from 21 Dec to 25 Dec. I will walk around London and search Wi-Fi hotspots then upload the data to this webpage to create real-time colourful Wi-Fi landscapes. This performance will act in real world (streets in London) and cyberspace (colourful paintings). We will see how Wi-Fi networks are so popular in the city and become one important part of daily life and urban landscape. If you are interested in this performance and exhibition, you can go to http://fireant.itaiwan.net/cyborg_exhibition.php to obtain more information.

# 1 [13 December 2009]

What are filled out our cities? cars or high buildings? Wi-Fi maybe another answer.

 http://fireant.itaiwan.net/urban_image/tp.png