Immaterials Uses a Wand of Lights to Reveal Hidden Wi-Fi
Networks Using a four-meter-tall lightbulb-studded stick and
long-exposure photography, the designers “paint” a picture of
network signal strength onto cityscapes. What does wi-fi look
like? It may seem like a silly question, but not to Timo Arnall
and his collaborators on the “Immaterials” project, which
combines clever design and technology hacks to visualize the
electronic networks humming and buzzing all around us. Their
latest iteration “explores the invisible terrain of WiFi
networks in urban spaces by light painting signal strength in
long-exposure photographs”: Arnall and his team are familiar to
readers of Co.Design: Previously, they’ve used the iPad as a
light brush and visualized RFID networks. The wi-fi project
mashes up all those previous techniques, which are a delightful
fusion of low and high-tech. They built a four-meter-tall rod
studded with 80 small lightbulbs and hooked it up to a network-
strength sensor, creating a probe that would