LABS

Glucose By Noah Shibley

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Leonardo Abstract Services (LABS) 2008-2009
Glucose, wireless chat for local communities

As the technologies of electronic communications and entertainment are on the incline, conversely social interaction and community have been on the decline. Particularly on the decline are interactions among people in local communities such as apartment buildings and neighborhoods. The one type of community that is an exception to this trend and has seen a lot of recent growth are online communities. In following with these trends this project uses the electronic medium of a chat-room which allows people to use the communication tools they are becoming more comfortable with, in order to build relationships in their local community. By combining a wireless local area network with a chat-room interface the usually anonymous users of the network are brought together into a communal social space . While the users of the network can choose whether or not they want to participate in discussion in the chat-room, their presences on the network can be seen by all the other users. This creates the physical analogy of sitting together in a room, with some people participating in a conversation and other people keeping to themselves. In addition to this, the use of mesh networking will allow local networks to spread geographically. Each new wireless router connected to the network will create a new chat room that any user on the network can join. This provides a means for people in an increasingly large local area to interact and possibly get to know one another. The project also allows for the owner of the wireless network to easily control the usage of their network both through technical and social solutions. Personalizing the network by transforming it into a social environment creates a situation where people are less likely to abuse the resource provided by that individual. Supplying a way to see who is using your network and the ability to talk to them, allows for ”stealing” wireless to become ”borrowing” wireless. User testing of the prototype has shown significant promise in building community among neighbors. Based on these results, deploying this project into a potential community environment such as a large apartment building, could eventually foster a strong sense of community among the occupants.

Degree: MPS (Master of Professional Studies)
Year: 2006
Pages: 39
University: New York University
Supervisor: Kathy Wilson
Email: ksw2@aol.com
Language: English
Dept: Interactive Telecommunications Program
Copyright: Noah Shibley
Lang_author: English
Email: nms277@nyu.edu
Keywords: social software, ubiquitous computing, community, wireless, networks, urban, chat

LEONARDO ABSTRACTS SERVICE (LABS) is a comprehensive collection of Ph.D., Masters and MFA thesis abstracts on topics in the emerging intersection between art, science and technology.

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Lanfranco Aceti is known for his social activism and extensive career as artist, curator, and academic. He is a research affiliate and visiting professor at ACT @ Massachusetts Institute of Technology and director of the Arts Administration Program at Boston University. He is also the Editor in Chief of the Leonardo Electronic Almanac, The MIT Press. He has exhibited numerous personal projects including Car Park, a public performance in the UK at the John Hansard Gallery; Who The People?, an installation artwork acquired in its entirety by the Chetham’s Library and Museum in Manchester; Sowing and Reaping, installation artworks acquired in their entirety by the National Museum of Contemporary Art of Cyprus; and Hope Coming On, a site-specific choral performance he designed for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with the collaboration of the Boston Children’s Chorus, and realized in front of Turner’s Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On). In 2017, Aceti prepared a series of new artworks for an exhibition entitled Shimmer and curated by Irini Papadimitriou (V&A) at the Tobazi Mansion in Hydra, a new large choral performance titled Accursed for the Thessaloniki Biennial in Greece; and Knock, Knock, Knocking a public space installation in the Mediterranean Garden Pavilion of the New Sea Waterfront of Thessaloniki.