about

Thousands of WiFI hubs are installed in residential and commercial spaces every day. These hubs extend intentionally and unintentionally into public space, creating an invisible front porch to the houses, apartments and businesses where they are installed. This spatial phenomenon has produced new urban practices in which neighbors or passers-by access unlocked private networks to borrow bandwidth. As private space is extended into the public realm, traditional architectural boundaries become blurred by the use patterns that penetrate them. Our understanding of physical space becomes complicated by traces of electronic signals, the way they are formatted, and the information they project to us. The wireless network suggests a new subtext to urban space.

As the dynamics of the material and wireless landscapes begin to mediate our relationship to place, how do we experience the city in new ways? TRACE is a project that examines the interplay of wireless networks with the corporeal experience of the urban landscape. The project challenges purely static notions of the city to promote an alternative perception that recognizes both the fluctuating character of the network as well as the ephemeral aspects of urban space. It seeks to understand the events of the city through the spaces and experiences they construct.

Borrowing from the conventions of cartography, TRACE produces a series of maps that visualize the wireless landscape. These maps are generated by a software program that runs on a WiFi enabled PDA or a laptop. Each map responds to a different state of the network, examining the binary qualities of being in and out of WiFi range, in locked or unlocked zones, and in areas of unique or default node names. State changes are triggered by participants' routes through the city, which enact the relationship between the physical experience of the urban landscape and the network. As surveyors of this evolving landscape, they contribute to a collaborative mapping of this hybrid terrain. By making this topography visible, TRACE seeks to reveal the intersection of the physical and immaterial infrastructures of the city.

During the ZeroOne San Jose/ISEA 2006 festival, a cart distributing PDA’s will be available to the general public. Please check the web site for times and locations. The TRACE software is also available for download at www.tracemap.net.

TRACE is a project by Alison Sant in collaboration with Ryan Shaw, Ram Subramanian, Rick Johnson, Michael Swaine, and Stamen Design. It is generously supported by the San Francisco Exploratorium.