google street views

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S I X T E E N

G O O G L E

STREET VIEWS


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INTRODUCTION

The images in this book, captured by the roving Google vehicle, depict solitary individuals in a vo contemporary landscapes. Despite Walter Benjamins argument that photographys ability to duce strips even the unique o its uniqueness, I chose these images precisely because they asstheir uniqueness and resist categorization. I invite you to consider with me, through these wordthe images themselves, how the a rtist and photography itsel can point a way out o this parado

Street View photography presents a dierent perspective on the individuals relation to his exteworld than the art o previous historical periods. For example, when the Romantics portrayed sofgures within landscapes, the ramework was oten an encounter with the sublime. In these lanscapes, man elt both in awe o nature but also transcendent over it. The encounter with the subhowever, also pointed towards the individuals inner powers and towards his reedom.

In Street View photography, Google cars, mounted with nine cameras, roam the earth recordin

automatically whatever comes within their purview. The detached gaze o their cameras witnessbut do not act in history. Street View photography, artless and indierent, without human intentascribes no particular signifcance to any event or person. Beret o context, history or meaningonly glue holding the Street View images together is geospatial contiguity. Such a perspective dnot easily contain the sublime.

Unlike the landscapes o the Romantics, the landscapes o this Street View collection are neithraw nor savage. They are oten vast or suggest interminable progression. Empty roadsides, urbprojects, and government institutions, social and economic contexts that constrain inner powersreedom, are the settings in which our subjects are thrust.

And yet the very instruments that alienate us can also inorm us about the nature o our alienatiDoes not Googles mode o recording the world make maniest how we already structure ourperception? Our own experience oten parallels this detached, indierent mode o recording witconsequent questions about our own signifcance. By becoming aware o Street Views way oconceptualizing our experience, however, alternative perceptions become possible.

The artist, in the act o raming the images, undoes amiliar conventions and alters our vision oworld. Despite the oten-impersonal nature o these settings, the subjects in these images resisbecoming purely objects o the robotic gaze o an automated camera. For in the act o raming,artist reasserts the importance o the individual. This altering o our vision challenges the loss o

autonomy and in the transormation o our perceptions, a new possibility or reedom is created

Jon Raman, 2009


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Sixteen Google Street Jon R

Edition

Published by Goldewww.shopgoldenag

Designed by Braunschweiler &

Printed by Harvest Graphics, Lenex

2009 Jon Raman and Golde

INDEX

In order of appearance:

1. D680 Lavigerie, Cantal, France

2. Rue du Plan dAgde / Place Saint-Roch, Montpellier, France

3. 97 Canongate, Edinburgh, Scotland

4. Rue des Poissonniers, Paris, France

5. Via Colombo, Mediglia, Lombardy, Italy

6. 58 Lungomare 9 Maggio, Bari, Puglia, Italy

7. Scenic Highway, Northwest Comanche, Oklahoma, United States

8. Barkly Highway, Ranken, Australia

9. 204 W 35th St, New York, New York, United States

10. 308 SW Rose Garden Way, Portland, Oregon, United States

11. 10 Carrer de Calatrava, Barcelona, Spain

12. Av de Villaviciosa, Alcorcon, Madrid, Spain

13. 5 Via di Santa Chiara, Rome, Lazio, Italy

14. Rue de la Fontaine, Guemene-sur-Scor, Morbihan, France

15. 4 Carrer de Ferlandina, Barcelona, Spain

16. Unknown


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