SketchUp model / video

Whereas urban industry would once have produced thick plumes of smoke or deafening sheets of sound, today’s information-rich environments – like the State Library of Queensland – are places of still, quiet production, with few sensory side-effects. We see people everywhere, faces lit by their open laptops, yet no evidence of their production. They could be using Facebook, Photoshop, Excel or Processing.

Creating a representation of the Wi-Fi could help us understand the phenomenon better by making the invisible visible via a form of translation. This particular representation is a 3D model indicating signal strength across the library.

Sensing the Wi-Fi like this is almost akin to dowsing – detecting the presence of unseen forces – and mimics the sensation of users attempting to discern where the Wi-Fi signal is strong.

Acknowledgements: State Library of Queensland http://cityofsound.com/