[spectre] Art Dirt Redux: Interview with Luka Frelih Transcript

[Murphy]

Art Dirt Redux Interview with Luka Frelih Transcript
December 21, 2005

http://post.thing.net/node/652

Art Dirt Redux mp3: 
http://spaghetti.nujus.net/artDirt/archives/000553.html
Frida V. project web site: 
http://twiki.ljudmila.org/bin/view/Luka/FridaV




GH Hovagimyan: I'm here with Luka Frelih and you're from Ljubliana, 
Slovenia. You're here doing a residency at THE THING working on your 
Frida V. project.

Luka Frelih: Yes, at the AT&T "Death Star" building here in New York.

GH: I went over there to look at your work and essentially what you're 
doing is a bicycle-rigged thing that's got a wireless WIFI kind of rig 
on it, a bicycle that has on the back of it a...

LF: A computer with a wireless card and a little web cam. The purpose 
of all this gear is it's a "mapping bicycle". There's a GPS, too. 
That's an important part so while you ride around on this bicycle the 
computer knows where you are, logs your position and also listens for 
wireless networks around and if it finds one that's open it tests for 
the Internet. Once it finds you're online it says "GREAT" and marks a 
green spot in the database. Also because there's a web cam the driver 
can record little clips of the ride, or the scenery or whatever is 
going on there. You could do podcasts ...

GH: You could do a live webcast.

LF: It's not live, it gets recorded and once you're online it syncs the 
thing with the server.

GH: Basically it looks like you have a little computer, did you build 
it yourself?

LF: The case I built myself because I couldn't find one small enough to 
fit on the back of a bicycle. It works on a standard 12 volt alarm 
batteries.

GH: What's the operating system?

LF: Linux.

GH: That's the way it's going because essentially you have all these 
little boxes that are like primitive computers that work for certain 
amounts of functions.

LF: You could say it's a kind of "mapping appliance" but for me it 
means there's basically more freedom in terms of programming it and 
less work because I can use the stuff that's already out there and 
freely combine, mash together, just for scanning and for choosing the 
open networks. I've recently found a great tool that was made for all 
these academic roaming networks of wireless access points on campuses. 
I only use a little of the functionality of that software but it's 
ideal for the purpose I have. I didn't have to write that myself, for 
instance. It's very easy to automate the scriptings, and things happen 
when I press a little button on the control panel, which looks like a 
little crane control box but the point was I didn't want to put a 
screen in front of the guy on the bike. I didn't want to have a 
keyboard because the basic job or task of the person is driving and I 
don't want to distract them with even a map like in a GPS navigation 
system. The purpose is that you drive around, you look around and 
experience the space like a normal bike ride but meanwhile the computer 
is taking in all the invisible aspects of this same space. When you 
come back it adds to the database and eventually a map forms. For now 
it's mostly Manhattan but I hope to do Brooklyn.

GH: New Jersey.

LF: Well, it depends who will come to see it because I want people to 
contact me and say "I want to ride around my neighborhood." I don't 
just want to do downtown.

GH: So you want people to contact you by your email, which is...

LF: luka at ljudmila.org I don't want to be the only one who rides. The 
best part of this project is actually riding the bike.

GH: But it has to be in places that actually have hot spots.

LF: Or just where people live. People turn their ADSL on and don't 
secure it and unknowingly broadcast the Internet and provide access to 
their neighbors.

GH: So you’re saying someone in suburban New Jersey is better?

LF: Better than these offices that have things locked down and security 
because they don't want you to get in their files.

GH: It's more casual.

LF: A virtual neighborhood.

GH: Let me get this straight. You ride around on a bicycle, you have 
web cam on the front, a computer on the back and an antenna that senses 
if there's a WIFI network.

LF: Yes.

GH: If you find a WIFI network then...

LF: An orange light lights up and you have to stop because the range of 
this network is not so big and then you wait. If there is Internet 
access it turns green and if there isn't it goes red and you ride on.

GH: That's on the control panel?

LF: Yes. That's how you know.

GH: If you find a place that's green then you say, "Hey, this is good".

LF: Yes. You take a photo or wait a bit and let the computer upload its 
finding to the net so that next time you're in this neighborhood you 
can sit on the bench there and enjoy the outdoors and surf, or listen 
to podcasts ... well, that you can do on a portable play but let's say 
listen to net radio. Or check your email. Or chat. Whatever people do 
these days that requires a live link.

GH: But there's something else happening. You're saying there's a GPS 
map and there's a photograph of the place from the point of view of the 
bicycle.

LF: Yes.

GH: That goes into a database and the GPS will give you an exact 
location, the photograph will give you what it looks like and you can 
take more than one photograph, you can move the bike around.

LF: Sure. You can take videos or you can record sound.

GH: So, you said there's two different thing happening. In Europe 
you're not allowed to make a database of maps?

LF: Basically, in the US maps that are produced with public money have 
to be put in the public domain. You have something called Tiger, which 
covers all the streets, a base map of all the objects and you can 
download that as a database, reuse it, make your own maps with whatever 
kind of content.

In Europe there's nothing like that. The government finances these 
geo-companies to make maps because every government needs maps if 
nothing else for the military and for maps of all the conduits in a 
city. They have great geographic information systems. But they don't 
release any of that under a license that would allow you to make your 
own map and put it out on the Internet and say "OK, this is a map of 
ice cream parlors I like" and has the streets so you can actually find 
these ice cream parlors.

So, they're forcing us to make maps from scratch. Richard Stallman's 
open source movement twenty-five years ago was forced, well not forced 
... he said "I want free software" so he started from the beginning by 
creating this compiler, whatever, so I propose we start making our own 
maps and releasing them under a free license.

It all adds up. You make a map of your part of town -- it doesn't have 
to be GPS or hi-tech -- you can do this in a drawing program. 
Eventually put them together and it becomes like a WIKI, like Wikipedia 
is doing for encyclopedias. We could take ownership of the maps. Maps 
are one kind of database but there are many kinds of databases. 
Copyright laws strongly protects anyone who takes a database and 
improves it. They end up owning the final product.

GH: Owns the whole final product?

LF: Yes, can close it down or charge for access.

GH: This I don't understand. If there's a public database ...

LF: Yes, if I take this Tiger map and fix some errors or put my own 
layer on top I can release the whole thing in a license that is much 
more restrictive.

GH: The other issue I think it very interesting is the notion of a "net 
consciousness" ... you were talking about wikipedia, which if everyone 
is connected to the net in some way that they basically can contribute 
to it.

LF: Yes, everyone can contribute and if enough people contribute then 
if everyone contributes a little bit then the whole pile of stuff 
becomes huge, much more than any single organization can achieve.

GH: The interesting issue is that you basically deal with what you're 
interested in -- your home, street, whatever.

LF: Yes, that's why I want people to say "I live here and I'm 
interested in what's going on here, what's open in my neighborhood?"

GH: You can present that and say "this is my neighborhood" but when you 
do that in mass media or whatever it's stupid because it is just my 
neighborhood, it's unrelated to anything. But if you put it with whole 
bunch of other people ...

LF: Then you get the whole map because my neighborhood overlaps with my 
neighbor's neighborhood. Obviously not everyone has access to the 
Internet but in this part of the world almost everyone has some kind of 
access and there are many ways of contributing something, creating your 
own media. Like we're doing this podcast or you edit a wikipedia on 
something you feel passionate about.

Or in the case of maps you ask why is this map better than the 
professional map? Because the professional map is scrubbed of anything 
that isn't of universal importance. All the interesting details are 
lost and only the public things -- you get churches or city hall is 
marked but not that there is this nice little cafe or here is a really 
good place to sit in the afternoon and listen to birds. It's all 
possible to put on a map.

GH: It becomes the total projection of humanity, like human 
consciousness.

LF: Well, the map is not the territory, the menu is not the meal! Even 
with errors, any map has errors. Most commercial maps have intentional 
errors for the purpose of identifying copyright infringement. If you 
steal a map they will say this little street here doesn't exist, why is 
it on your map? Is it because you copied our map?

Let's say something really changes, that there's a big skyscraper that 
falls down and the map has to be updated. In some cases it will be 
updated in others it's not such a big deal. It might never be updated. 
If we let people add to the map we don't have to rely on someone who is 
paid to do it, who constantly looks for what has changed.

GH: It's not just this net consciousness happening, there's art, you're 
making art, correct?

LF: Yes, it's an art project. Why? Because I'm an artist, that's how I 
can do this project. I can get a bit of money for it through this and 
I'm not immediately asked how I'm going to sell it, how am I going to 
make a profit.

GH: Except if you were in America, that's the first thing they'd ask 
you.

LF: Even with art?

GH: Absolutely. That's the first thing they ask you when you're an 
artist.

LF: Really? Well, I don't come from America. I'm just here for a few 
days; please guys excuse me I don't know how things go here ...

GH: American artists are totally jealous. We look at the Europeans who 
can make art and not worry about how to make money with it. Damn...

LF: You have to worry about how to get by without money but that's a 
different problem.

GH: It's the same thing here in America. Anyway, art projects now are 
always about somehow changing viewers or users ...

LF: I call my work a participatory research project.

GH: So the viewer/user by paying attention to their environment, making 
a map, whatever they're doing they begin to have awarenesses similar to 
experiences in art but you don't know what a person experiences when 
they look at a movie.

LF: Yes.

GH: We're getting to the end of our time here...

LF: We don't want to make it too long because then no one will want to 
listen to it.

GH: I'd like to thank you and I'll leave all the information on the web 
site for people to contact you.

LF: Yes, please. I'm here in New York until January 10 and anyone 
interested wants to come by the 32 Ave. of the Americas or if you want 
me to come with the bike to your neighborhood or basically take part in 
this project please contact me. That's why I'm here, so this project 
gets out. So thanks for listening and hope to see you.

GH: See you later.