'Light Paintings' Visualize Invisible WiFi Network Connections

What would your city look like if WiFi networks were visible to the naked eye?

Timo Arnall, Jørn Knutsen and Einar Sneve Martinussen of Oslo, Norway, attempt to answer this question with a short film, titled 'Immaterials: Light Painting WiFi,' which gives new life to these usually unseen networks.

The film's "light paintings," which represent "cross-sections" of individual WiFi networks, show semi-transparent trails of soft light that appear to interact with the architectural aspects of their environment without having any visible impact of their own. The trails crisscross streets and fields, intersect with buildings and with each other, and vary in height depending on location.

The filmmakers created these trails by constructing four-meter "WiFi measuring rods" affixed with 80 lights for reading nearby WiFi networks' signal strength. As a person holding a rod walked about a given space, long-exposure photos were taken to create the WiFi trails visible in the film.

A blog post about the project explains how each network creates a unique light paining:

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.

View the film (below) to see some of the light paintings created in Oslo's Grünerløkka neighborhood, and visit YOUrban to learn more about this project.

WATCH: [h/t M. Hypponen]

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi from Timo on Vimeo.

Comments

[studmoose]

12:51 PM on 03/02/2011

On MetaCafe & Amazon...

You can buy T-Shirts and other stuff that lights up when a Wi-Fi signal is near.

They are signal meters that glow brighter or have bars that tell you the strength.


(It's almost like those Sound Meter T-Shirts that look like an equalizer, with multi-colored vertical bars.)

[European1919]

08:15 AM on 03/01/2011

KEWL!

[JackHoffman]

08:12 AM on 03/01/2011

My dial-up isn't connecting. Can I get support here?

[Lahonda]

12:52 AM on 03/01/2011

Brilliant work. Visualizing data or even better, the shape of the communication channel, helps one understand the limitations related to delivery. Fewer points with the same effectiveness equals less capital expenditure for the same effective delivery. It would be nice to see the same test in daylight. Emit UV from the measuring device or some other frequency that satisfies the ambient interference and get the proper camera? You'll have an excellent profile loaded/unloaded profile of a campus or any other environment seeking economy in implementation.

Love the effort to better represent our true environment.

[josh417]

09:54 PM on 02/28/2011

Wireless radiation also has a dark side; more and more people are being made sick by it, but the fact that it's invisible makes it difficult for them to figure out what's happening. I hope someday a project like this will help people visualize such radiation in a more realistic light.

"Scientific research conducted over the past decade has associated cell phone radiation with increased risk of developing brain and salivary gland tumors, neurological symptoms such as migraine and vertigo, and neurodevelopmental effects observed as behavioral problems in young children (BioInitiative 2007; Divan 2008; Kundi 2009; Sadetzki 2008; Schuz 2009)."

-Environmental Working Group (the same organization working with progressive senators to pass the Kid Safe Chemicals Act). Full report at: http://www.ewg.org/cellphoneradiation/executivesummary

See also:
http://www.wireless-precaution.com/main/science.php
http://fullsignalmovie.com/trailer-credits.html
http://www.icems.eu/resolution.htm
http://www.prove-it.co
http://www.disconnectbook.com/

[Lahonda]

12:54 AM on 03/01/2011

This could be done with light itself. WiFi is transitional.

[CabCurious]

07:40 PM on 02/28/2011

That was really uninteresting beyond the idea behind it.

But the idea got lost somewhere.

[JasonMcl]

04:19 PM on 02/28/2011

Fun / Geeky science fact of the day:

Light and EM radiation such as WIFI signals, radio signals, cell signals, microwaves, etc are fundamentally the same thing. They are all part of the EM spectrum

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_spectrum

Our eyes are specifically set to perceive only a very small part of this kind of energy. But if they were somehow tuned to go beyond the sensitivity of normal light, you would actually begin to see UV lights and remote control signals, then if you went down the spectrum even further you would be able to actually see microwaves and then radio waves.

If our eyes were actually able to detect just how much EM radiation is bouncing around at any given moment, It would be like staring at strobe lights on acid and it would most likely drive all of us to madness.