A powerful essay on the impact Google Street Views has on the world we live in without really trying. The author, Jon Rafman, began collecting images from blogs and his own search of interesting, unique, and truly fleeting moments of humanity to illustrate the way in which we now live our lives. In his own words:"One year ago, I started collecting screen captures of Google Street Views from a range of Street View blogs and through my own hunting. This essay illustrates how my Street View collections reflect the excitement of exploring this new, virtual world. The world captured by Google appears to be more truthful and more transparent because of the weight accorded to external reality, the perception of a neutral, unbiased recording, and even the vastness of the project. At the same time, I acknowledge that this way of photographing creates a cultural text like any other, a structured and structuring space whose codes and meaning the artist and the curator of the images can assist in constructing or deciphering."
Some of the images are powerful, some are strange, some sad, and some just examples of everyday life at its core.
My favorites:
