magicbike
is a mobile WiFi (wireless Internet) hotspot that gives free Internet
connectivity wherever its ridden or parked. By turning a common
bicycle into a wireless hotspot, Magicbike explores new delivery
and use strategies for wireless networks and modern-day urbanites.
Wireless bicycles disappear into the urban fabric and bring Internet
to yet unserved spaces and communities. Mixing public art with
techno-activism, Magicbikes are perfect for setting up adhoc Internet
connectivity for art and culture events, emergency access, public
demonstrations, and communities on the struggling end of the digital-divide.
Weaving
Internet Infrastuctures into Cultural Fabric
Magicbike
aims to weave wireless infrastructures into an existing mobile
and socially active cultural fabric, bicycle culture. Bicycles
are extremely versatile vehicles that travel many places inaccessible
by automobiles and other forms of transportation. Bicycles are
also traditional symbols of political movements ranging from the
women’s movement in the latter 19th century, to the labor
movements of the early 20th century, through today where bicycles
are held in high esteem as a clean, energy-efficient alternative
to a global dependence on oil and urban sprawl. Since WiFi is
an emerging technology based on open standards it is malleable.
Superimposing WiFi technology onto bicycle culture pushes the
technology towards the particular needs, tastes, and motivations
of bicyclists. Wireless and computing technology gain from becoming
more (mobile and) bicycle and street friendly. The culture around
wireless is also influenced by century-old cultural trends of
political consciousness, social responsibility, and physical health.
Bicycle
Hotspots Tech Description
Magicbike
turns common bicycles into WiFi hotspots. The end effect creates
bicycles that broadcast free WiFi connectivity to their proximity.
The technology behind this is not complex. Magicbike is simply
a creative configuration, or reconfiguration, of widely available
computer, bicycle, and WiFi gear. WiFi antennas mounted on the
bike's frame feed into a laptop embedded into a specially outfitted
bicycle side-bag. The bike's embedded laptop is configured to
be a wireless repeater and hotspot. The bike receives its uplink
connection either from the cellular network or from far-off WiFi
hotspots (with the help of its mounted antennas). With this uplink
connection from any one of various sources, the bike is able to
serve-up its own Internet connection.

A
Magicbike hotspot operates like standard hotspots, able to serve
up to 250 users in a radius of 30 meters indoors and 100 meters
outdoors [although its antennas can increase the hotspot’s
accuracy and range]. A group of bikes can repeat and/or bridge
the signal down a chain of wireless bikes. Meaning, a bicycle
gang can snake into subways stations or across hilltops to provide
Internet connectivity to (fringe but) vital communities and spaces
ignored by the traditional telecommunications industry. A grassroots
bottom-up wireless infrastructure can be formed and pedaled to
any place accessible by bicycle.
Wireless
Bikes as Art Objects
Wireless
bikes are a tacitly surrealistic Ready-made that playfully reframe
our assumptions about the interplay of technology and art. The
tradition of Ready-made objects in modern art is credited to start
with Marcel Duchamp’s “Roue de Bicyclette” or
“Bicycle Wheel,” his first “Ready-made.”
The bicycle’s role in art seems to be that of a transcendent
object acting as a vehicle to interface conceptual and material
existence, virtual and real existence, if you will. At first,
“wireless bikes” seem like an incongruous montage
and technological farce. But, importantly, this technological
farce out performs the market in providing Internet access to
vital urban spaces. As art out-maneuvers commerce, we see that
our technological boundaries are products of our imagination and
not truly technological at all. Riding down the streets or parked,
these bikes become beacons for play and inquiry. They ignite our
imagination about the boundaries of bike and computer, mundane
and hi-tech, street protest and online activism, mediated play
and spectacle.
Artist
Bio
Yury Gitman
is a wireless and emerging-media artist. He engages WiFi, web
development, hardware hacking, and the culture around wireless
to create expressive pieces and art interventions. He has exhibited
work with Eyebeam and The New Museum among many others. Noderunner,
a wireless game he co-created was awarded the Ars Electronica
Golden Nica for Net Vision in 2003. The New York Daily News, credited
him for creating two of the top ten "hippest hotspots"
in New York, Magicbike (the bicycle hotspot) and EVill Net (the
East Village network). Currently he teaches a graduate level Wireless
Art course at the Parsons School of Design. Additionally, he is
the director of the Arts group at NYCWireless. He received a Masters
degree from New York University's Interactive Telecommunication
Program and a BS in Science, Technology, and Culture from the
Georgia Institute of Technology.