Instructions for the Physical Space
There are no particular requirements for the space where the installation of the artwork has to be presented, except that the monitors displaying the visualization of the software have to be traced by the viewers to the installation. The minimal requirements for the installation are three computers, say A, B, and C, so they show connectivity dynamics within the ensemble: A -> B -> C -> B -> C -> B -> A, etc. These dynamics may already demonstrate a feature of (social) self-organization or simply map transferred data chunks within the virtual environment. It is suggested that the computers installed in the space are visually different, so the idea of the specificity or uniqueness of interaction between elements is present.
Technical Requirements for the Computers
There are no specific requirements for the computers, and the software architecture should run on computers ready to install Freenet software. The Freenet software is designed to run on Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X. The designed plugins were tested on Windows XP, Linux Ubuntu 10, and Mac OS X 10.7 with the latest version of the Java Runtime Environment additionally installed. The processor speed of the tested computers ranged from 800 MHz to 3GHz, and the RAM ranged from 256MB to 4GB. Slow computers took time and patience to configure, while faster computers were quick to configure.
The minimum disk space used for installing and running the software architecture was 4GB. All the computers were connected to the same local network either through a LAN cable or wireless connection. The end performance shown was similar, except that the slower computers crashed more often.
Software Installation and Configuration
The installation of the software is supposed to have a Darknet Freenet mode. In order to install it, the software has to be installed in several steps. First, the computers have to be connected to the local network, ideally with a DHCP mode, so the computers choose their IP numbers from the given range of IPs. Secondly, all the computers have to run Freenet software, and thirdly, the two plugins provided – the Visualization and the Automaton plugins – have to be loaded.
The default configuration of the Freenet will work in Opennet Freenet mode, thus showing the dynamics of connected nodes at a certain level: the self-node, depicted as a square, will not change its location. In order to switch the Freenet nodes to Darknet Freenet mode, the neighborhood nodes have to be added to every single node. This is done through the menu option “add friends” (Fig. 1). If there are more than three computers within the installation, it is not necessary to add all the neighborhood nodes to each node.
As soon as the Freenet knows the neighborhood computers, it is necessary to switch the security mode of the Freenet to “high” (Fig. 2). This would mean that the Freenet is entering “Darknet” mode. Within this mode, the visualization should start to demonstrate a jumping square along the circle.
Loading of the Freenet plugins is done through the same Freenet interface, following the options “Configuration” and then “Plugins” (Fig. 3). The Visualization and Automaton plugins can be downloaded from the project’s website.
Fig. 1. Freenet interface to add friends. Screen shot.
Fig. 2. Freenet “Darknet†mode configuration. Screen shot.
Fig. 3. Freenet interface to add plugins. Screen shot.
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