Art Installation Maps the Beauty of WiFi

Immaterials acts as a reminder of what drives our society, what facilitates our social flings, and shows us the fragility of the foundation of our daily lives.

Kat George
March 04, 2011

A new project by creative/tech team, Timo Arnall, Jørn Knutsen and Einar Sneve Martinussen, makes real time art using a four metre long rod, 80 points of lights and pre-existing WiFi signals. Immaterials: Light Painting WiFi is a project that essentially tracks the terrain of WiFi signal strength using light to mark out the pervasive undulations of the invisible thread that has come to be appreciated as the definitive binding that holds our society together, and that effectively keeps us functioning as a cohesive, global community.

The thrall of this project is twofold. One one hand, there is an element of otherworldly beauty; that this spectre that floats around us, through us and in between us at all times, when exposed, is as wonderfully brilliant and delicate in its aesthetic disposition as one could have imagined. On the other hand, the absolute profoundness of the beast (the internet, the world wide web, our global interface) is powerfully shocking.

Acting as a reminder of what drives our society, what facilitates our social flings, our business relations and our personal pursuits, Immaterials shows us the fragility of the foundation of our daily lives — a series of signals that come and go like a tide, largely unnoticed, but necessary for the world to turn the way we want it to.

Immaterials: Light painting WiFi

Published on March 04, 2011 by Kat George
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