Packetbrücke

Packetbrücke is an installation that addresses the unseen processes of wireless data transmission. The project intercepts data packets from two separate wireless networks and swaps them, effectively merging the networks in an unconventional manner. This exchange causes unexpected behaviors in devices connected to these networks, illuminating the underlying structures and vulnerabilities of network communication.

Wireless network packets are directly captured from a specific location and tunneled through the Internet to a remote location, where they are released back into the air. In doing so, Packetbridge literally injects one electromagnetic representation of geographical space into another, effectively producing a new imaginary topography and, through this remediation, an “impossible reality”. Through this disruption, Packetbridge invites participants to reconsider the boundaries of digital spaces and the fluidity of network interactions. It brings attention to the critical engineering that underpins modern communication systems, making the invisible workings of data exchange visible and tangible. Packetbridge demonstrates that positioning systems based on WLAN are a site for intervention, expressing at the same moment they are vulnerable to location spoofing attacks. This effect is especially interesting, considering that we increasingly rely on an ever-growing number of wireless devices for localization, navigation and time-synchronization.

The fact that beacon frames are constantly being sent and replayed is visually emphasized trough blue EL-wires wrapped around the Ethernet cables. The wires are being lit up each time a packet is transmitted over the associated cable thus visualizing network traffic and beacon-actvity, and thereby injection/invasion per channel.

The project has been relocating packets at several occassions in Berlin, Bern, Rijeka, Bourogne, Langenthal, Seoul and Ljubljana between 2012 and 2020.