Thousands of motes can be deployed across the city for gathering data in wireless sensor networks. Used in large numbers they can communicate with one another via radio signals across the network. They can reconfigure themselves or self heal, so that the network stays stable. The data is funnelled through a system to a point where it can then be interpreted. The motes themselves can be deployed every thirty metres depending on the frequency, and any number can be place in a network. A new mote in just developed allows nine hundred metres without line of sight, suitable for a city wide proposal.

Each mote can sense its own position, wake up and find its neighbour in the network. They have low energy use, but the life expectancy is determined by the battery. In the future it is imagined they will run on solar power. So the concept is to embed the city with thousands of motes to gather data for the creation of artistic artefacts.

The motes can monitor sensors such as temperature, sounds, light, position, acceleration, vibration, stress, weight, pressure, humidity, and gps. The sensors take a constant stream of data which is published onto an online environment where different interface can make representations of the XML and from this lots of artistic interpretations can be imagined.

The first version will be deployed at the Watershed Media Centre Bristol, as part of research into the intelligent building

The city experience is a web of connected networks and multi layered threaded paths that condition us to the emotional state of the city space. In essence, the city fabric is a giant multi user multi data sphere. To take part you really have to put something back in, that's like life. In this case, to take part you have to input data so others 'may' see the output of the data response.

The city has a history of stories relative to time and place, stories from the street. Love stories personal and extreme, crime stories, stories that are small or that can affect global parameters. All of these spheres can be represented by media and therefore by data within the digital realm and becomes a data source so powerful so interwoven that its scale can only be imagined as metaphor. The size and scope of such an archive, of such rich mediated data experience would support many projects. As such it can be interpreted as history via one sort of interface or as a game via another sort of interface. A possible objective is to 'mediate' data into a conceptual artefact. With this perspective there are many unimagined threads of data and connections that describe our world that can be explored within which we can create artistic interpretations. >from *Sensity by Stanza*. 2004. via alex

related context
> interactive city. isea, august, 2006
> ubicomp 2005. tokyo, september 11—14, 2005
> what is urban computing?.
> grafedia: hyperlinks for the urban landscape. february 18, 2005
> plan: pervasive and locative arts network. january 28, 2005
> cityborg.net, a digital interface with our world. december 17, 2004
> the sensor revolution. march 2, 2004
> resonances and everyday life: ubiquitous computing and the city by anne galloway. december 27, 2003

imago
> mote city network