Halley Docherty has used Google Street View to superimpose famous paintings and album covers on their modern settings (for example, the Beatles crossing the street on today’s Abbey Road). Doug Rickard, in an exhibition called “ A New American Picture,” documented the “forgotten streets” of America by curating images of the disenfranchised in their downtrodden neighborhoods. Other artists have taken a different approach. In so doing, Rafman’s image exploits the most basic fear of mass surveillance regimes: that you’ll be just another faceless entity. Rafman’s image of a man in a bunny costume with a blurred face next to a “real” person’s face draws an unsettling juxtaposition it’s a reminder that Google Street View is incapable of telling the difference between this masked person and you. But the technology isn’t without glitches. In 2008, one year after the launch of Street View, Google incorporated face-blurring technology to protect the identities of passersby captured by its cameras.
(The “nine eyes” in the title refers to the number of cameras on the pole attached to the top of a Google Street View car, although the number has since increased to 15.) Jon Rafman’s ongoing project “ The Nine Eyes of Google Street View” reflects the unsettling relationship between humans and surveillance. The ‘eyes’ of the Google Street View camera.
Never before have people had such easy, on-demand visual access to public spaces all over the globe, and over the past decade artists have wielded this immense power to comment on issues ranging from surveillance to sex work. What, exactly, is it about Google Street View that makes it so appealing to creative types? Perhaps it allows us to experience the fantasy of what scholar Donna Haraway called “the God’s trick” – the impossible desire to see everything.
Games have sprouted out of Street View – like Geoguessr, in which players guess where in the world they’ve been randomly placed – while some users have documented funny images captured by the roving cameras of Google’s cars.īut Google Street View has also provided ample fodder for artists of all stripes, inspiring a range of creative works that include photographic curation, music videos and impromptu performances. A feature of Google Maps, it lets users explore cities and towns around the world – and even peer inside businesses and government institutions ( including the White House). On May 25, Google Street View celebrates its 10th birthday.
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