bluestates::explanations
bluestates is an art project which uses bluetooth - wireless networking found in many mobile phones and personal computers - to sense social relationships and, from that, to build an emergent model of an individual's social network.
First, a brief note about a technology at the core of bluestates: Bluetooth. Bluetooth is a low-power wireless networking technology developed in the late 1990s to provide a cheap and easy way to connect together a wide range of different consumer electronics. Many laptops have Bluetooth neworking built into them (particularly if you own a Macintosh), and nearly all newer mobile phones have Bluetooth into them. At this point, over five million Bluetooth devices are manufactured each week. There are so many Bluetooth devices out there - particularly in a technology-rich region like San Jose - that it has become possible to use Bluetooth to create a work that uses Bluetooth in a way its makers never intended.
All across downtown San Jose, as ISEA 2006 unfolds, bluestates run place "scanners", constantly examining the Bluetooth network (we call it the "bluesphere") looking for bluetooth devices, and keeping a growing record of them. A visualization of what a scanner might see is shown below:
In this case, a scanner named "Minerva" has found a number of other Bluetooth devices in close proximity to it, named "Hermes", "Hermione", "johnt-phone", and several others. Because Bluetooth signals are very low-power, a scanner can only sense other Bluetooth devices within a radius of anywhere from 15 to 50 feet from the scanner - so each of these devices were within 50 feet of the scanner. The scanner then sends the results of the roll call back to the bluestates database. Computers running the scanner software use their internet connection to send roll-call data to our database.
We will also run scanners on mobile phones and PDAs.
Mobile phones - which often aren't connected to the internet - work somewhat differently. When you bring a mobile phone running the scanner software (known as "BlueStates") into proximity with a computer running the scanner software (known as "bluestation"), the computer will ask the mobile phone to transmit its scan information to the computer (using bluetooth, naturally), which is then sent along to the database, via the computer.
Invisible but pervasive bluetooth connections between scanning mobiles and scanning computers keeps everything flowing nicely. You won't be aware any of this is going on. But it will be going on, all around you, invisibly, via bluetooth.
If you have a Bluetooth device - such as a laptop or mobile phone - and you want to be seen by bluestates, make sure your device is set to "discoverable" or "visible" (they're the same thing, but different manufacturers use different terminology). Conversely, if you don't want to be seen by bluestates, just set your device to non-discoverable.
The more scanners we have at ISEA, the better bluestates will work. To that end, we've written a some free software which turns your computer or mobile telephone into a scanner. We're asking everyone to give the software a try. (You can even have our source code, if you're interested, to use in your own projects.)
What about the exibition piece? What does it do?
When you approach the bluestates installation in the South Hall of ISEA, you'll be scanned - if you have a bluetooth device on you - and the records gathered by the scanners strewn around downtown San Jose will be used to visualize your relational space - not where you've been, but who you've been with. (We can determine who you've been with by noting who's been scanned along with you, and how frequently.) On screen you'll be able to see your relations - your connections to other people, as observed by bluestates. Will it surprise you? Or will it be just as you expected?
More questions? Just ask us.