Residency: Sam Kronick
Sam Kronick project produces Slow Internet Café, winner of the call Next Things 2014
One of the routers redesigned following the proposal of The Consortium for Slower Internet. Photo: Courtesy of the artist
The American artist, designer and technologist Sam Kronick started his residency at Plataform 0. Centro de Producción of LABoral, which developed Slow Internet Café, winning project of the call Next Things 2014-Personal, el Tercer Desafío Global de Arte y Tecnología, convened LABoral jointly by Telefónica I + D.
Sam Kronick, director of The Consortium for Slower Internet, proposes through the organisation he founded in 2013, The Consortium for Slower Internet, to develop a set of wireless routers which run on a firmware that intercepts and alters in a creative way the data flowing through them. This type of intervention is not possible using off-the-shelf hardware. In addition to modifying the software running on each router, the Consortium proposes to redesign the housing of each device using materials and shapes which show them as appealing objects to furnish our house. The Slow Internet Café will be opened to showcase the resulting objects. It will be a venue where visitors will be able to connect to many wireless networks, each presenting an extended version of the web.
According to Kronic, only those who control infrastructure control the flow of data. This way, “if we redesign and manipulate the infrastructure components in our homes, such as routers, handling the substrate that supports the network as a malleable substance, then we may consider that our data are actually our own.
Sam Kronic will develop this project during a 6-months art production residency, distributed into four months at Telefónica I+D centre in Barcelona, and at LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, in Gijón, during two months. Telefónica I+D will provide a work space at its facilities, as well as equipment and access to technological knowledge, to the platform and to other technological resources of Telefónica. On the other hand, LABoral will provide lab space, equipment and technical support, as well as access and exchange actions with other artists and creators at the centre and accommodation in Gijón.
