Monday 18 October 2010

The interpretation of Wi-Fi images

Different types of Wi-Fi machines have their economic modes, including citywide paid Wi-Fi hotspots, infrastructure-type municipal Wi-Fi access points, free Wi-Fi connection provided by volunteers, wireless routers in offices and wireless ADSL modems at homes. The economic modes also accompanied with the political operation: people lock their home Wi-Fi access points to avoid others accessing them and Wi-Fi activists help users to share their wireless signal to create community Wi-Fi networks against telecom companies’ high-price internet fee. Wi-Fi houses come from huge cityview to personal view. It broke the illusion of connected city as a whole to a personal independence. Wi-Fi house images create a link between public and private domain. House is the elementary unit to distinguish us from the others and I transformed Wi-Fi access points to house metaphor. Against the overwhelming numbers of commercial Wi-Fi hotspots, these images connect Wi-Fi distribution to personal moving routes to make Wi-Fi access points close to personal experience than Wi-Fi hotspots as shops that provide Wi-Fi connection. Wi-Fi access points are not only the property owned by telecom companies but also the part of human experience. When we see Wi-Fi users as cyborg, cyborg turned Wi-Fi access points to cyborg’s house. The house images convert separate Wi-Fi access points to a hierarchical house society.

House is one of the personal identity. The images construct landscape portraits for interrelated Wi-Fi access points. Popular Wi-Fi access points/hotspots are not the product of technology and telecom companies, they are houses for cyborgs. We are not controlled by the capitalist but we create and live our life in our Wi-Fi houses.

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