Wifipicning – Take a walk through the screen

Français

Incrédibulle is the name of the association founded by Natacha, Sacha and Tristan, three friends, fellow bloggers and neighbours in the 5th district of Paris. They invite you, owners of laptops equipped with wifi capabilities, to participate in an experiment : a wifi picnic, an original concept that mixes proximity and network.

We’ll be expecting you at the bandstand in the Luxembourg Gardens where a wifi bubble (a local wireless network) will be operational (not connected to internet and battery fed). The bubble covers a distance of about 100 metres in the confines of which ‘bubblenauts’ can freely consult multimedia content reserved exclusively for bubble use, interact with each other, or take part in group activities (chats, exchanging of documents : music, photos, video, texts, etc).

The wifi picnic is a fun gathering, dedicated to conviviality, citizenship and sharing. The aim of this experience is to promote more social interaction thanks to the democratisation of wireless technologies and greater mobility. The wifi picnic allows participants to converse and get to know each other, either through the medium of the computer or face to face. It’s an opportunity to merge the real and the virtual (your avatar and yourself), and bring a little human warmth to a world of cold technology. Why not escape our own bubble and connect to a bigger one ?

Instructions :

Turn your laptop on in the designated bubble area, connect to the wireless network ‘wifipicning’ and go to wifipicning.com ; once there, you will be able to connect to the bubble thereby becoming a ‘bubblenaut’ able to speak in the chatroom with other participants who are physically present (but out of reach).

Past wifpicnings have taken place on two separate occasions in 2005, one at the Luxembourg Gardens (Paris) on the Neighbour Day, the other at Maussane les Alpilles (in the Provence region of France) last July. Thirty enthousiastic participants were attracted there from several different countries including the mayor of the town himself. This gave us the opportunity to measure the overwhelmingly positive welcome of the participants, whatever their age or technical ability.

We’ll be expecting you at the bandstand in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris on May 30, 2006 at 6 pm : Come with digital documents to share (legal exchanging of documents : music, photos, video, texts, ideas, poems, etc).

Make bubbles not war !

For further information : www.wifipicnic.com - European Neighbours Day

People to contact :
Natacha Quester-Séméon natacha_at_memoire-vive.org
Sacha Quester-Séméon sacha_at_memoire-vive.org
Tristan Mendès France tristao_at_memoire-vive.org

• Story of the bubble
• Press (in french)