Artist Statement

WIRELESS EXPERIENCE

WiFi Radio is an attempt to make perceptible the invisible fields of the wireless internet, and to create the experience of moving through wireless information as if it were physical.

Encased in a hacked Walkman radio, WiFi Radio receives information packets moving through the ambient wireless internet and transforms them into voices, so you hear the websites, passwords, usernames and other information flowing on the internet. To simulate movement through this space, we attach various sensors such as accelerometers, which alter the voice reading the wireless message. For example, if you are moving quickly you only hear snippets of a great deal of wireless data, but spoken softly. If you stand still you begin to hear less packets, but what you hear is louder and longer.

The goal is to create an environment and an experience where you are awoken from your dogmatic perception of the world and begin to incorporate these invisible fields into your perceptive range.

• Meredith Finkelstein is a technologist, artist, writer, gadfly etc. She experiments with social spaces, wireless networks, cybernetic robots, and manifestos. She is currently a resident researcher at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU. She is a founding member of THE FLOOR4 COLLECTIVE.    locative.x-i.net/ccc