Postcards from Google Earth, Bridges
Postcards from Google Earth is a series of screenshots of strange moments in Google Earth, where the illusion of a seamless representation of the Earth’s surface breaks down. These uncanny images are not glitches or errors, but the logical result of the system. They expose the network of algorithms, computers, storage systems, automated cameras, maps, pilots, engineers, photographers, surveyors, and map-makers that generate them.
These images are screenshots from Google Earth with basic color adjustments and cropping.
I am collecting these new typologies as a means of conservation - as Google Earth improves its 3D models, its terrain, and its satellite imagery, these strange, surrealist depictions of our built environment and its relation to the natural landscape will disappear in favor of better illusionistic imagery. However, these strange mappings of the 2-dimensional and the 3-dimensional provide us with fabulous unintended forms. They are artifacts worth preserving.