Invisible Social Network, meeting machines

invisible-social-networkok

The mapping of invisible WiFi networks has been an inspiration for different artworks since the 2000s, following their global proliferation. As invisible gateways to the whole online world, they can be perceived as an active presence that our mobile devices perceives and speaks with. In his open source project “Invisible Social Network”, Evan Kelly has developed a system of mapping these. This is constructed around a portable device, a “Wibot”, which registers interactions with machines that surround it through a simple textual message. After a physical encounter, each geo-localised WiFi network enters a database and is visualised in a unique shape based on its data.

 

Evan Kelly – Invisible Social Network