Abstract
This paper looks at how the captive portal can be used as an artistic medium, in particular how it can provide opportunities to expose the hidden formal characteristics of networked interaction through a particular, limited, engagement with wireless technology. It will introduce the captive portal as a geographically limited wireless local area network (WLAN) that forces those connected to a single location. The paper will examine how their value as artworks lies in their limitations and draw comparisons to the installation in contemporary art and historical precedents from medieval asceticism. To qualify these observations the author will conclude by discussing a practice based example of using wireless local area networks as an open, democratic and site-specific artwork.
Highlights
This paper will look at captive wireless local area networks, otherwise known as captive portals, and discuss how artists can use them counter the trend of perpetual expansion in networks and the accompanying affects on the subject, those of alienation and synchronisation
The basis for this paper was to look at how artists can counter the perpetual expansion and elaboration that is occurring across digital networks
It has used the example of the installation, as proposed by Boris Groys, to describe how small spaces can exist within larger administrative structures that can highlight the machinations of these structures and allow for experimentation with alternatives
Summary
This paper will look at captive wireless local area networks, otherwise known as captive portals, and discuss how artists can use them counter the trend of perpetual expansion in networks and the accompanying affects on the subject, those of alienation and synchronisation This perpetual expansion can be illustrated by the simple increase in the size of the data sphere, the amount of data generated globally, and projections on how much it will continue to grow. “In a society like ours, avowedly based on buying and selling, in which all natural and human resources are regarded as the absolute property of the first business man enterprising enough to exploit them, these secondary aspects of the means of communication tend to encroach further and further on the primary ones This is aided by the very elaboration and consequent expense of the means themselves”. It will look back to medieval history for clues to how limited spaces can function as emancipatory zones within dominant administrative regimes and compare this to an example of the author’s own artwork
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