Sziget Chat 0.7.1 RELEASE

Hello Sziget Festival!

This application creates ad hoc WiFi connections between the lucky smartphone users who have come upon it in the wilderness of Google Play. Users of the program can feel like there’s a virtual island rising from the sea of phones swirling around them, supported by stilts that they stuck down themselves. The outlines of the island can constantly change and the islanders are the users themselves who select each other and can get into improvised contact with each other. They don’t know anything about each other but for the fact that they are a few hundred metres from one another.

They can even remain hidden from each other while they are within sight distance – there’s something tingling about that. Everyone’s individual, you never know what will arise sympathy or curiosity in others. If you don’t like an appearing chat partner, just break the connection; the whole thing leaves no trace.

There’s no need to travel anywhere, no pressure to identify yourself, still you can get into immediate chat contact with anyone turning up in the surrounding WiFi field.

You’re walking in town, travelling in a vehicle, entering a restaurant or waiting for the concert to begin or the starting whistle of your favourite team’s match and you suddenly receive a message. If you don’t want to answer, you turn it down, neither him/her nor you will find out about each other. Or if you feel like it, you can look for someone you don’t know and initiate contact – it could be the start of an interesting acquaintance.

There are no constraints, you can remain in obscurity as long as you want to -- the unmarked WiFi isolates you from each other for the moment. This will stay like that if you want it to.
You can also maintain the mystery of the relationship for longer and find the islander or passerby from yesterday at the point where you regularly change buses, for example, or at a different concert. You’re near each other again but you still don’t know one another, you can keep guessing who the other person could be.

However, if something about the other one grabs your attention, you can send him/her a voice message – still keeping your privacy, or even a photo, or any text that you like. You can reveal your identity, to the extent that you consider appropriate at that point.

It’s very important that this is entirely different to the anonymity of the internet because almost everyone uses their phone like their toothbrush. So you’re completely safe, just make sure to save the application and its files.

Happy chatting!