The Red Project
The Red Project refers to the practice of “redlining” which was once a common practice where mortgage companies would refuse to invest in certain sections considered to be poor, mostly of minority based populations. This created segregation in the US for many years, and was deemed to be “good business”
This project, with its red design for the areas of wireless access, resonates this idea. The interesting thing about this project is the interactive embedded map in which the viewer can look up any area in the world as see the amount of WiFi networks (I have it set right now on Milwaukee). I was disappointed, however, to read that this is not an accurate rendering of WiFi networks but only a estimation (a very well researched one, however, as a team of students traveled around for almost a year collected data from various places).
I don’t know yet what to make of this project in the Milwaukee area. I’m looking at the map right now, seeing the vast amounts of red all throughout the city, not really knowing what to make of the information. I guess this isn’t really my field – geography and cartography and anthropology, so the actual information does not really interest or make sense to me. But the concept is interesting, and I think this is information that should be documented and researched by someone more interested in this field than I am. These artists are pioneers, being the first to create a map like this. Hopefully there will be more to come, and more people to interpret this data.
About Me
- Tattered Guitar
- I am an instrument of tattered strings tossed out by many. The melodies of my chords do not resonate with the quality of others like me. I am an outcast, ignored by many, handled by few. I am a lone traveler, battered and beaten. I am a Guitar. Here my journey is documented.
1 comment:
Chris -
Did you ever see that map that Google generated about the spread of the flu virus? it sounds comparable to this - sort of a DIY data collection that is then shared, the resulting pictorial presentation offered not as a conclusion but a prompt to one.
I may not get the conclusions either - as, did I miss this, but how is the WiFi gained? It is all paid for yes? So the project "predicts" where WiFi is available but is in any position to assess or declare the ow and why of that?
With such info so collected and share, isn't there a presumption of an available expertise or ability to react - by people like you and me? At first glance, and as a user of WiFi (or so I predict), have you no questions? You seem to shrug off any capacity to comment. Do pioneers at mapmaking require pioneer of map readers?
Consider that you notice that red is everywhere over our city. Does this suggest that there is no redlining, when it comes to WiFi - that access is available to all whatever their economic or racial status. Is this project - do you think - at all utopian? Is it accurate?
I appreciate the attention here, and the late hour of the posting, but it would have been good to have seen you take a stab here, past your initial takes. The makers seem to presume that you have the capacity, and I am sure you do.
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