by Carlos Cuevas

Upon researching projects that incorporated slow design principles, I came across artist Julian Bleecker. Bleecker is known for his considerable achievement in developing innovative mobile technology and art. I found two of his projects that include principles of slow design: WiFi.ArtCache and WiFi.Bedouin. WiFi.ArtCache is simply a small-range network that brings people together as a way to create a sense of community. It achieves this by keeping the signal relatively low, forcing the participants to get close and interact with one another. WiFi.Bedouin using a similar method to encourage interaction.

It’s no surprise that Julian’s most evident slow design principle, the backbone of all his projects, is number 5: Participate. His projects all require some sort of audience participation in order for them to be successful. Figure 1 demonstrates how WiFi.ArtCache uses this slow design principle using an example of a group of people interacting with the project. The other slow design principle I found within this project was number 2: Expand. WiFi.ArtCache uses the wireless network it creates and surrounds itself in to attract people to it. It does so by keeping it short-ranged. Instead of the network being used traditionally (to access the World Wide Web), it simply accesses what the artist wants to share with the audience.

Another one of Julian’s projects that has slow design principles is WiFi.Bedouin. The principles that were most evident to me were numbers 1 and 6: Reveal and Evolve. It uses the reveal principle because it looks like a normal backpack, but it’s actually a mobile hotspot that acts as a portal for environments that involve sharing information quickly (Figure 2). The evolve principle comes into play because behavioral changes can be observed overtime when the mobile hotspot is used to chronicle an event as it happens. Built into the network is a blog specifically designed for sharing events as they unfold. These can also be looked at long after the event has passed, as a pseudo-document.

I was incredibly impressed by Julian’s work. WiFi.ArtCache is such a complex project, it boggles my mind. The fact that each art piece changes slightly depending on the proximity and number of downloads from the center of the network and other devices. WiFi.Bedouin failed to impress me simply because mobile hotspots are abundant today. If I had read about WiFi.Bedouin in 2003, then I would have been incredibly impressed that hotspots could be so functional and mobile.