Citywide provides a way for geographically-based micro-communities to maintain communication with one another. The application makes use of the wireless hotspots provided by groups such as Montreal’s Île Sans Fil to create a chat-space that is local to each particular hotspot. Use it to converse with other visitors, shout out to the cute guy in the corner, post announcements, or explore the history of previously posted messages.

Citywide is currently active at Laïka bar/café (Montreal, Canada), and will be extended to more locations so users can also observe the chats at other hotspots, or the text traffic across the entire, City-wide network. Although they cannot interact with the non-local activity, they can get a sense of what is happening in other parts of town or what the city, as a whole, is talking about. Driven by interests in dynamic texts and visualizing social networks, the project ties the geographical determinism of urban living together with the invisible linkages created by disembodied virtual networks.