The Art of Google Streetview and CCTV Feeds (Slideshow, Video)
Posted by Martin_Connelly on Wednesday, Nov 17, 2010
In it’s current incarnation, the 9 eyes of Google street view exists without description, without navigation, and without a stated purpose, but that almost makes it better. It is an amazing collection, gathered by Jon Rafman, of images collected by Google Street View cars, images that stand sort of appositionally to those giant “24 hours in ____” coffee table books. The images are inadvertent, and the beauty they capture is often a surprise.
There is a political slant to the project, best described by Rafman himself, in an essay published last year.
He writes:
Street View collections represent our experience of the modern world, and in particular, the tension they express between our uncaring, indifferent universe and our search for connectedness and significance.
… It was tempting to see the images as a neutral and privileged representation of reality—as though the Street Views, wrenched from any social context other than geospatial contiguity, were able to perform true docu-photography, capturing fragments of reality stripped of all cultural intentions.
…Although Google’s photography is obtained through an automated and programmed camera, the viewer interprets the images. This method of photographing, artless and indifferent, does not remove our tendency to see intention and purpose in images.
…The collections of Street Views both celebrate and critique the current world. To deny Google’s power over framing our perceptions would be delusional, but the curator, in seeking out frames within these frames, reminds us of our humanity. The artist/curator, in reasserting the significance of the human gaze within Street View, recognizes the pain and disempowerment in being declared insignificant. The artist/curator challenges Google’s imperial claims and questions the company’s right to be the only one framing our cognitions and perceptions.
Hijacking automated imagery is not a new idea, and, unsurprisingly, it is more popular in Europe and especially in Britain (where the popular count puts the number of CCTV cameras at 4.2 million, or one for every 14 people).
French born artist (and curator of DATA the Dublin Art and Technology Association) Benjamin Gaulon, launched his 2.4 GHz project to “survey the surveillance.” He uses consumer products to hijack and gather broadcast CCTV footage, displays those feeds in public places, and runs workshops to help others do the same.
Here’s a video of collected signals, perhaps most interesting in it’s stunning boringness.
2.4Ghz™ Project by Recyclism from recyclism on Vimeo.
But there’s a difference between these two projects, and it’s mostly in tone. Both are wary of all seeing eyes, both are reacting to a sense that we’re living in the Panopticon, but Rafman’s project is concerned with finding beauty and humanity, despite the medium, whereas Gaulon’s feels more like a warning. For my money, 9 Eyes makes me happier. It might not all be pretty, but it’s comforting in a “small world after all” kind of way.
h/t The Fox Is Black.Filed under:
About the author
Martin Connelly is a freelance transmedia journalist based in St. John's, Newfoundland. He's worked across borders, both figurative and literal: as a newsroom editor for China Central Television In...
