The first Wifipicning review

Version française

One day in May when the three of us were visio-conferencing, we said to each other, “in eight days, it will be Neighbour’s Day, what if we invited our Net neighbours to join us outside for a wireless connexion.”

We have experience in setting up rapid-fire operations, so we wrote the text, came up with the concept, created the logo, found the the technical solutions (hardware and software) and wrote to a few friends. The guru of virtual communities, Howard Reingold, the inventor of the concept of Smart Mobs and lecturer at the Stanford Humanities Lab, immediately greeted our project with enthousiasm. Francis Pisani, a California journalist and collaborator with the newspaper Le Monde, helped us spread the word.

Wifipicning, may 31, 2005, Luxembourg Garden, Paris:

We wanted to create our wifi bubble in the Luxembourg Garden. By creating a bubble with a limited range, we would be implementing a geographic restriction in a public venue. This in order to reduce the physical space between the participants in the zone covered by the local wifi network - cut off from the net. Thus, we are able to create a micro net with a human face.

D-day, 6 pm : Arrived at venue. A Policeman from the Senat come to provide us some electrical outlets in case we don’t have enough batteries (two hours and a half later they weren’t empty!). Turned on the computers. The chat was installed on a laptop, the photo gallery on another and the DNS server on a third. The home page came up. Everything was working. Thank goodness ! 6.30 pm : the first computers were connected here in this beautiful and charming bandstand. Fellow Web surfers arrived and passers-by were taken aback. Not all of the participants had computers, so we shared them, lent them and mixed up the pseudonyms. Tatiana spoke with everyone and welcomed all the participants and onlookers in this house without walls. Some of them ask us what we are doing here. They regret to haven’t been informed earlier, otherwise they would have taken their laptops with them. In one corner three astrophysicists (two French, one Russian), in Paris for a scientific symposium, were discussing with the others in French and English and even sent a few words in Russian (всем привет and хорошо сидим). All three have been working for several years on a concept in cosmology called “ superbubbles“. Yet another coincidence…

A participant has no wifi card, no problem, she is connected to the bubble via an ethernet cable. A researcher from the neighbourhood stopped to speak with us ; we lent her a computer. A journalist friend tried to get aquainted with the others in the Chat. A researcher in molecular biology leaving for London by shuttle in one hour came in. He saw from far a group of laptops… composed of Macintoshes only! We explained the concept to him. He opened his Powerbook, connected to the bubble, introduced himself and spoke with everyone in English and German. We spoke with one another via the computers. Conversations criss-crossed as we glanced from one to another.

We added champaigne bubbles to the bubble, ate excellent heart-shaped chocolates and laughed at the silent jokes in the Chat. The photos taken on the spot are put online at once in our bubble. Everyone of us can leave a comment and choose those who are publishable. Only the Mac that hosts the chat has some signs of slowdowns. If we have more participants we shall have to find another solution to host the chat and be able to chat on the same computer.
We tested the range of the bubble at a distance of thirty metres! Our tiny wifi router performed miracles! We could have been dozens around the bandstand.

Just like a flash mob, the wifi bubble constitutes a small, short-lived and friendly community, mixing the real and the virtual, a kind of happining. In the context of shared activities, the wifi bubble possesses big potential and opens up the possibility of amusing and unexpected perspectives. Natacha, Sacha, Tristan et Tatiana have a lot of ideas for developing the concept : inviting a well-known personnality to speak via the chat with those present. Sharing files, multiplying proposed services ; A DJ performing live in the bubble for a mini-concert outside. Participants could write a story together, chat on the beach, in the mountains, in a museum, in a night-club, in a library, in the middle of a field, in a café, in the street…

Two and a half hours later, it was over. We shut our lap-tops and promised to blow another bubble this summer in Paris, in Maussane les Alpilles (near Les Baux de Provence) and in Normandy. We were delighted, everything went well. We were fifteen. The experiment was a success. The atmosphere was so convivial we cannot but begin again. And we are not alone, Bresilians on the web are already talking about launching sparkling bubbles under a southern sun.

To read also
Story of the bubble, may, 2005

Tristan Mendes France is an ardent human rights supporter. He writes books and articles, leads enquiries, makes documentaries and short art films. He also composes music, collaborates on numerous projects, participates in a number of associations and is also parlementary assistant in the Senate.
http://mendes-france.com and blog

Natacha Quester-Sémeon and Sacha Quester-Sémeon are both active in the humanist association « Les Humains Associés» - founded by Tatiana Faria, who, among other things, has had her own virtual community for ten years (web sites, forums etc). Recently, the association took part in the planetary protest against the war in Iraq. Their company I-marginal is responsible for the creation of web-sites and their contents, journalistic activities (written press and Web), conception, production, publishing, graphic design, photography and other related services.
http://humains-associes.org (The Associated Humans, NGO) and this blog (moblog, phone blog) : http://memoirevive.tv