DIY Wireless In The East End

An East End project kicked off on the 16 February that will see the East End from the city (EC2, Broadgate) to E14 connected by a wireless network. One would think this was an ambitious project organised by the government or the goodwill of corporations but what is particularly exciting is that it falls under the umbrella of a project called YouAreHere. The brainchild of Simon Worthington and the Ceci n'est pas un magazine paper, YouAreHere is an artists and creative industries led project which sets out to inform and network the East End creative industries community through trade and debate. Funded and supported by various bodies in the area including the Princes Trust, the Bridge Project, CIDA, and the London Arts Board it had its BETA testing on Saturday 16 February 2002 which saw connections created between Mayor Street and Kingsland Road in Hackney which proved the theory in practice. 

Practical workshops concerning how to set up an aerial and the software required will be based at Limehouse, the old town hall, which is a venue supported by the Princes Trust and the Bridge Project Trust to create a place for young volunteers to engage in training and community development programmes. Other organisations that run events at Limehouse are Stitches In Time and Twenteenth Century. A room at the top of the building has been donated by the Bridges Project Trust to be used as a computer facility which YouAreHere will be making use of to train members of the community. 

They can use this for collaborative working between companies to either share documents or ideas, individuals can publish and distribute their own work, do live broadcasts, advertise events, and list local groups. All of this on theback of a sense of community, rather than the billions that telecom companies have recently spent on licenses.

Because of both the structure of the web tool and the way community workshops are being set up the whole project relies on the participation of users. The workshops will be made up of two main types, firstly practical technology orientated sessions such as aerial building and secondly 'result-orientated' round table discussions groups for example to make plans for encouraging minority participation.

The idea for the community wireless network was started by James Stevens of Consume.net who, since June 2001, has been researching the technology and its implementation as YouAreHere with Metamute. YouAreHere is one of many initiatives being developed by Metamute to create sustainable cultural communities (http://metamute.com/mfiles/mcontent/metamutemap.pdf).

The first public workshop for the project will be held on 28 Feb-1 Mar 11am-7pm, at Limehouse Town Hall 646 Commercial Road, London, E14 7HA. There will be a press view 1 Mar 1-3pm and a party 1 Mar 8pm. Please let us know if you require any further information regarding the events or the technology and whether you would like to attend.

Related websites:
http://dek.spc.org
http://consume.net
http://metamute.com
http://www.bridgeproject.co.uk

Should you need any further information please feel free to contact me or Simon Worthington.

Pictures can be found at the following web address:
http://youarehere.metamute.com/twiki/bin/view/Main/WirelessWorkshop01

Leonard Latiff
Press and Marketing
leonard@metamute.com
020 737 76949
http://youarehere.metamute.com

Editors notes
Linked into this infrastructure is the vision to will enable the community to interact in an online environment, without the overheads created by corporate solutions, and enable them to take part and engage with each other concerning local issues via a broadband network. A web tool called a Twiki is already in place at the YouAreHere website which allows users to exchange dialogue not only about issues effecting them but about their needs and the possibility of collaborating on fulfilling through the exchange of skills and equipment. Unique about the twiki system is that it can be accessed via any web browser and allows users not only to change the content of the site but also the structure and the way it functions. They can build links to other pages both internally in the site or to external websites users think might be useful. Unlike other web tools there is an automated linking structure which automatically highlights commonly used terms allowing users to follow the various strains of a single discussions.