The project I dove into is called “Architecture of Radio”. It is an application created by Richard Vijgen in 2016. The project is meant to visualise the invisible radio signal networks that we are constantly surrounded by dubbed the “infosphere”. The infosphere is an interdependent environment of invisible networks that is made up of “informational entities”. These signals come from cell towers, wifi routers, and various types of satellites. The application is site-based meaning that it’s appearance morphs based on your geographic location and where your device is pointed to. In the video demonstration we see the lines of the network shift, shrink, and grow as the user moves around which shows us how these invisible networks actually behave in 360 degrees. The application relies on openly available data which includes almost 7 million cell towers, 19 million wifi routers, and hundreds of satellites.
What drew me to this project was the initial appearance of it. The blue and white map reminded me of something I’d see in some futuristic sci-fi movie. Like some piece of technology that’s meant to look completely advanced and impossible, however the Art of Radio is very much a living representation of the present and not the future. Vijgen could’ve represented the infosphere in so many ways: dots, lines, pink or green or yellow circles but he chose this specific appearance for the project. It’s clean and simple, yet is a spectacle once you understand what you’re looking at. It opens the observers eyes and lets them into a world that you’d never get to see otherwise. I suppose the algorithm that makes this infosphere visualization might be quite complicated. It’s constantly taking in millions of data points that change each frame, and mapping them out. For this I’d assume the code takes in the coordinates of the current location and the signals passing through it at that exact time, then draws a line to symbolize the origin, direction, and destination of the signal.