The Captive Portal as Artistic Opportunity and Ascetic Project

This paper looks at how the captive portal can be used as an artistic medium, in particular how it can provide opportunities to expose the hidden formal characteristics of networked interaction through a particular, limited, engagement with wireless technology. It will introduce the captive portal as a geographically limited wireless local area network (WLAN) that forces those connected to a single location. The paper will examine how their value as artworks lies in their limitations and draw comparisons to the installation in contemporary art and historical precedents from medieval asceticism. To qualify these observations the author will conclude by discussing a practice based example of using wireless local area networks as an open, democratic and site -specific artwork.