e n d o f t h e u n i v e r s e .

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a fascinating and profound project by artist jon rafman, that looks into the artistic possibility of google street view.

my interest was piqued by this essay/work because i’d had ideas for a similar project last fall in my photography class. the concept of intersecting google (and more specifically google images, google maps, google earth and google street view) with art and presenting it as a kind of cultural/geographical survey of the global 21st century, to me, presents itself as a goldmine of creative endeavours.  the idea of the democratization/open-sourcing of information, and a renewed definition of “data” seems to be something resonating among a lot of people in the world at this moment. 

i’d also had a concept for a similar project with flickr, and picasa, curating user-contributed images in different ways and playing with the idea of appropriation, “found” art, topographical information and the concept of a photographic “survey.”

i’m interested in what rafman says in the essay about his project, because of its resonance with my own perception of photography and the photographic image as i understand it, but also for what he states that i hadn’t had a vernacular for:

“A street view image can give us a sense of what it feels like to have everything recorded, but no particular significance accorded to anything. The detached gaze of the automated camera can lead to a sense that we are observed simultaneously by everyone and by no one.”