Wi-Fi and “Ghosts”

For some reason, WordPress is not letting me add any of the pictures I have of this Wi-Fi signal. Go here to my Facebook page to see them.

Have you ever wondered what a Wi-Fi signal looks like? “For his fascinating project Digital Ethereal, designer Luis Hernan set out to capture one of these invisible signals, WiFi, using a creative combination of long exposure photography and an Android app.

Since you can’t just set up your camera next to your router, click the shutter button and capture a ‘stream’ of information pouring out, Hernan decided to ‘translate’ that info into light and color using an Android app called Kirlian Device mobile that visualizes WiFi signal strength using a series of colors.

The resulting images reveal these invisible signals that Hernan says remind him of ghosts. From the Digital Ethereal project website:

I believe our interaction with this landscape of electromagnetic signals, described by Antony Dunne as Hertzian Space, can be characterized in the same terms as that with ghosts and spectra.

They both are paradoxical entities, whose untypical substance allows them to be an invisible presence. In the same way, they undergo a process of gradual substantiation to become temporarily available to perception. Finally, they both haunt us. Ghosts, as Derrida would have it, with the secrets of past generations. Hertzian space, with the frustration of interference and slowness.” (https://petapixel.com/2014/07/26/ghostly-images-wifi-signals-captured-using-long-exposures-android-app/)

http://www.digitalethereal.com

Notice that “ghosts (demons) and spectra” have the same conduit in order to communicate. Humans.

If you look closer you can see the feet of people. They are swinging the phone around. Think of it like holding a sparkler and seeing the tracers. This is how these designs are made.

You can see the phone on the ground sending out a Wi-Fi signal to another phone. Probably tethering the signal. Yellow is strong and darker blue is week. I have this app and red is a really strong signal.