I made a series of images during my fieldwork that are embedded in my thesis and I have recently been writing about their role in the production of my sociological knowledge. Inspired by the photo collage work of British artist, David Hockney, these images take multiple shapes because they are made up of a montage of intersecting and overlapping images. Whilst some incorporate only three images, others take over 50. I use them because they resist a neat, orderly and objective view of the world and, instead, suggest that interesting things happen on messy edges. (This will definitely be a title of a paper when I am done with this thesis!)

Hockney (interviewed by John Tusa, BBC3), explains this style in relation to perspective and time:

I knew in any photograph normally, you’re not quite connected with it, there’s a gap between you and the world actually, there’s an edge and that’s what the camera does. I was breaking that, meaning you could decide where the edges were like in drawing or painting. I got fascinated with it.

For me too, there is something exciting about images that are broken, fractured and disrupted, that represent a span of time and sometimes a period of action. My version of his style emerged from the restrictive boundaries of single photos in the context of my fieldwork. I found that one image could not capture the scene, whilst lots of photos offered a more textured palette from which to explore a range of activity, interactions and actors. It takes time to capture the images and put them together later. Thus, they are not simply taken. They are made. This is important in many ways in my thesis about the making of WiFi. It is also pertinent to my use of feminist literatures around ‘partial perspectives’ and ’situated knowledges’ which make clear the importance of differentiated viewpoints, personal experiences, multiple perspectives and connections in a plural network.

Yellow floral pinny found in Burra, 156km north of Adelaide, with good pockets for pens and post-it notes)

I have had a paper accepted for the 4S conference which is on next week in Rotterdam. It is based on a chapter of my thesis about disorderly design.

The study of visual representations in science, law and engineering clearly illustrate the sociological value of images and the practices that surround them. In these contexts, graphs, photos and sketches are seen as pivotal in understanding how practitioners construct knowledge, collaborate, reach consensus, recruit new members and do work. In essence, their persuasive power stems from the transformation of mess that occurs behind-the-scenes (raw materials, repetitive experiments and alternative interpretations) into finely honed, ordered, compatible and comparable visual accounts. The resulting inscription is therefore deliberately designed to omit the uncertainties and contingencies of everyday practice. Drawing on ethnographic observation and participation in a volunteer community wireless group in Australia I consider the visual methods members employ in the design of a wireless fidelity (WiFi) network and focus upon how they retain elements of multiplicity and unpredictability. I found that the textures of practice are not reduced, hidden or eliminated in the process of inscription. Members make WiFi because of uncertainty and ambiguity, not in spite of it. Furthermore, my analysis reveals how the public exposure of the messy reality of making WiFi is not a consequence of a fragile technology or the elastic nature of a volunteer community but a deliberate practice and a core strength of the group, critical to how they innovate, expand the network and recruit new members. It is also deeply embedded in the local context of a suburban city. Engaging with this volunteer community group also meant participating in and contributing to its visual culture and thus offers a site for posing new questions for studies of knowledge practices in new digital technology.

Basically, my innovation lies in bringing to light the achievement of making WiFi by Australian backyard technologists by drawing attention to the assemblies of ordinary, hand-made and home brew representations and practices that operate as tools in the construction of knowledge and new digital technologies. As a result, my work calls for a re-assessment of DIY knowledge practices in the spectrum of “big” science and technology studies.

Scorpio
Where possible you should take it upon yourself to be alone and avoid having to talk too much to others. You will be far better off and will be out of the loop which will mean others can’t try to play power games with you. A great day to get completely involved in some form of research, where you can shut everything out for a while.

oh, good then.

This week I submitted the “entry for PhD examination” as it is called over here. It is a form that asks for the final title, an abstract and date of submission. Yes, its that kind of document. It was hard work finalising those ten words for the title and getting 358 of the little buggers to summarize the entire thesis. I’ve written a lot, and am currently deeply embedded in the full rewrite, but I keep folding, poking and squeezing words into different shapes. I can’t imagine how it must feel to be happy with the order of the remaining 89,632!

At times like this I am reminded though of that famous line, Don’t get it perfect, get it done!

Indeed.

And soon it will be done, as I intend to submit in September (or before) (ha!) (sob)

My title, you ask?

*drumroll*

Making WiFi: A sociological study of backyard technologists in suburban Australia

(and that is the snappy version) (believe it)

Unexpectedly, I have found it hard to write my thesis and blog at the same time.

I know it is possible to do both but……

On my recent trip back to Adelaide I took the opportunity to share my research with people involved in my study and to thank them. Copying the structure of community wireless events I had a BBQ in the yard of a house I was living in during my fieldwork. It was a typical summers day and a wonderful group of people arrived, filling the garden with excited talk and my kitchen with lots of goodies (you can’t ask an australian to a bbq and tell them to bring nothing - it doesn’t work!).

Dissertation alley was set up in the space between the side of the house and the neighbour’s fence. Using clothes line pegs I hung photos, printed blog posts and extra pieces of writing on draped lengths of usb cord and power cable. Like the people who make WiFi, I made the most of materials at hand.

Standing in the sun, the smells of a cooking BBQ, squeals of kids playing, with a cold beer in hand it was a lovely afternoon to share ideas, emerging concepts and talk about the developing shape of the thesis. At the end of the day, I encouraged people to take pieces of it home; photos of themselves or their wireless nodes and bits of writing they thought interesting.

This home-made installation was devised specifically to render visible the labour of sociological knowledge. It provided a way to reveal the process of making my PhD about making WiFi (still with me?). All too often the production of knowledge is rendered invisible and hidden behind the scenes. Sometimes this is because watching someone write can be…. well, painful. As Gene Fowler once said, ‘Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.’ So, taking this opportunity to share some of my work-in-progress with the people who so generously gave their time (and still continue to do so) in this way was really enjoyable.

Now, if only I could turn my viva into a bbq…..

Although i’m more into the re-use/ recycle side of life, this is kind of tempting….

Scrap Club is happening this Saturday

Reminding you to get your tickets if you want to partake in the slaughter of machines.

Swing a sledgehammer and release the trapped creative energy that was put into the making of computers, fridges, pianos, washingmachines and other everyday objects -> Thats a holistic way of saying smash them up baaad.

Its taking place this Saturday the 15th March 5pm - 11pm in Area10 which is right behind Peckham Library in Peckham Square SE15 5JT. [Peckham Rye is 5min on the train from London Bridge]. It will cost you £7 in advance and slightly more on the door.

The International Summit for Community Wireless Networks is an annual global conference that brings together many of the greatest experts in the world on wireless networking technology, information activism, and community empowerment.

Proposals for panels — March 31, 2008

The BBQ is an Australian cultural ritual. It is technology that is so rigorously embedded in the national cultural framework that its original purpose, the very thing that it was designed to do (in this case, cooking food) is only one of the many loose boundaries in which it operates. In Blokes and Barbies: The legendary Australian barbeque, Mark Thomson (1999) argues that the BBQ represents much more than a burnt ‘snag’, a consumer product, a cooking tool or an outdoor appliance. In fact it doesn’t even matter if the food is awful. Its purpose is much larger.

An Australian barbeque is an instant excuse for socialising. The Barbie is a loose social framework in which many things are possible – an open door for anything from fairly outrageous drunken behaviour to the simple pleasure of eating outdoors in the company of friends. The barbeque has become the quintessential Australian social event. This appears to confuse people from overseas, who are expecting some sort of culinary display. They don’t realise that a barbeque is more a form of behaviour (in some cases fairly pathological at that) or ritual rather than the cooking of gourmet food outdoors under strict foodie guidelines. It’s too bad if it got rained out or you ran out of gas or there was a terrible family fight. You were going to have a barbeque, and that’s the main thing (1999:112).

Thomson (1999) shows through examples of BBQs made from steel drums, old farm machinery, wheel barrows, fences and even a good old (clean) spade, there is no such thing as the BBQ. Each yields a unique story simply through its material composition, which in many cases delves into local history because of the resourceful re-use of old technology. Yet, he doesn’t stop there. His stories weld together the makers, their families, ethnic origins and cultural culinary practices and the places where BBQs are (home) made and used. He shows how this Australian icon niftily manoeuvres across a broad cultural landscape by flexibly embracing the diversity of its makers, reflecting the nuances of the landscape and the heterogeneous textures of available materials.

de Laet and Mol (2000) provide us with the concept of fluid to illustrate the social and mechanical malleability of a simple technology across multiple boundaries. They show how the Zimbabwe Bush Pump ‘B’ is more than just a steel pump designed to provide clean drinking water in the African bush. They write it ‘is solid and mechanical and yet, or so we will argue, its boundaries are vague and moving, rather than being clear or fixed’ (2000:225).

[…] we hope to contribute to an understanding of technology that may be of help in other contexts where artefacts and procedures are being developed for intractable settings which urgently need working tools. Because in traveling to ‘unpredictable’ places, an object that isn’t too rigorously bounded, that doesn’t impose itself but tries to serve, that is adaptable, flexible and responsive - in short, a fluid object - may well prove to be stronger than one which is firm (2000:225).

Like the BBQ, there is no one, single or deterministic means for how the pump should work and, furthermore, they question what ‘working’ actually means. They show how in addition to pumping water, it provides health, builds communities and the nation state. Its multiplicitous nature is built into the blue steel pump head, pump stand and lever, enabling it to operate in diverse conditions across different boundaries. The central tenet of their argument is that the Bush Pump undermines notions of what we accept as ‘appropriate technology’ because it is designed to ‘serve’, rather than ‘impose itself’ on people, places or tasks (ibid). It is a fluid technology that is strong because of its malleability.

What emerges from my notes and images of various Air-Stream events (such as barbeques before monthly meetings) is evidence of many visual representations of the network. There is no one single, systematic or stable notion of the network, rather there are multiple realities of the system.

Those who study representations in medical practice have written about multiple realities. In her work on the disease, Anaemia, Mol (1999) found that the definition of the disease could not be contained in a neat, defined or stabilized way. It evades singular representation because it takes various forms, not all of which can be seen or understood by everyone. These include skin, blood, x-rays, tests, statistics, reports, walking, doctors, scientists, patients and their families. Mol argues that Anaemia consists of multiple realities, many more than would be evident from a study of medical practitioners or of patients or of the laboratory. She writes, ‘there are different versions, different performances, different realities, that co-exist in the present’ (1990:79).

Similarly, Martin’s (1994) study of the immune system is premised on the belief that knowledge about the body can be found in a variety of sources inside and outside traditional disciplinary confines, in everyday spaces, in lay people’s views as well as in those who are responsible for the health of a society. She deliberately seeks people and places, books and media, representations and ideas outside the confines of science because, for her, ‘seeing science as an active agent in a culture that passively acquiesces does not provide an adequately complex view of how scientific knowledge operates in a social world’ (1994:7). Thus she moves back and forth across messy boundaries and intersections; in on and offline spaces, in the professional and everyday, the clinical and the visceral. She does this, she writes, ’To avoid the idealized picture of science, which its practitioners would like to believe, that knowledge is produced inside and flows out, I would like to consider an alternative series of guiding metaphor altogether’ (Martin 1994:7). Her alternative metaphor is one of the body as a porous and flexible entity.

These STS literatures are currently helping me explore the fluid and multiple characteristics of volunteer community wireless networks.