By Claus Hetting, WiFi NOW CEO & Chairman
In most places Wi-Fi signals are all around us nearly all the time – but of course, we don’t see them. But what if we could? The artist calling himself RootKid has created a remarkable piece of electronic art that converts Wi-Fi signals – and their dynamics – into bright, fluctuating lights. It is a fascinating visual reminder of the incessant flow of information around us that we can’t see.
Wi-Fi signals ebb and flow around us all the time – from quiet periods during the night to times of extreme activity, typically in the evening as people come home from work, switch on their home devices, begin watching movies, start gaming, and so on. Now artist RootKid has created a piece of remarkable light art that allows you to experience the intensity of what goes on in the invisible world of radio waves. The artwork is called ‘Spectrum Slit’ and is basically a kind of home-made spectrum analyser.
RootKid’s device converts 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi signals into light emitted from 64 LED filaments mounted vertically and equally spaced across a panel (see RootKid’s video below for a full explanation of how he designed the device and the ideas behind it). “Each filament produces up to 130 Lumens. At full power, it can produce an absurd amount of light. This is on purpose, since I wanted the piece to convey the blinding nature of activity in the radio wave spectrum,” RootKid says. Watch the video below to discover that RootKid is not only an excellent artist, he’s also highly capable electronic design engineer.
The piece also (this was inadvertent, RootKid says) emits a noise in proportion to the strength of the Wi-Fi signals. “When we look at this blinding wall of light, we cannot but be reminded, that we live surrounded by ghosts, of our own making,” RootKid says.
/Claus.
