Interconnected

I was fascinated with the amount of flowing wireless data around me and the relationship it has between the school, the students, and my own computer. Using Processing, I was able to capture packets of information streaming through the network in real-time and project it as a dispersion of particles on strings. If a student were to visit a website, for example, Processing will visualize the activity as a torrent of particles. If there's no activity, however, the particles will remain in suspension.

Class

Mediatecture

Instructor

Oliver Hess

Role

Creative Technologist
Programming
Animation

Special Thanks

Nik Hafermaas
Oliver Hess

Installation

Yarn was an excellent light reflecting material. The fuzzy threads of yarn made the string look bigger than it was.

The result was creating a net that was strung across two trees that made it look like it was hovering by itself in the dark. 

The rectangular shape also mimics the schools architecture in the background. Showing the relationship of the building and the people inside using the internet.

Programming

Visualizing the wifi signals required two parts in the code.

The first was getting wifi traffic. This was done using the Carnivore Library. A packet sniffing library that has it’s background in CIA history.

The second was the particle system. MSA Particles is a Processing library that simulates fluid 2D fluid dynamics using a field of vectors that carry direction information.

The code was combined so that WiFi data would produce a torrent of particles that would flow across the yarn threads.