Did you know that almost anywhere that you go in a city you’ll be sharing space with someone’s private wireless computer network? All of their personal communication—e-mail, love messages, bank passwords, credit card numbers, and bizarre surfing habits—will be passing through your body without your awareness. Who are they, and how do you feel about sharing space with their personal life? David McCallum’s Warbike turns this wireless network activity into sound. As you cycle the streets, you’ll hear the activity of this invisible communications layer that permeates our public spaces. From his thesis:

“The Warbike, a project that sonifies computer wireless networks to a bicycle rider, is presented within the framework of psychogeography, its contemporary counterpart of locative media, wardriving, and the bicycle as symbol and political platform. An account and analysis is presented of the methods and choices for the construction of the device, and the applied sonification techniques. The central consideration is how sonification can be used to communicate to a participant his movement through the invisible infrastructure of wireless networks. Data from wireless networks, including network activity and encryption status, are sonified to a cyclist through a speaker-enabled backpack powered by a PDA. Exhibitions of the Warbike showed that participants reacted favourably, and that the chosen methods of sonification properly conveyed their movement through the wireless communications infrastructure.” Read his thesis here [PDF]. [via Network Research]