Google just won’t stop popping up in the art world these days. After the much-hyped and thus far disappointing Google Art Project and several interesting photographic projects using Google Street View technology, the French artist Clement Valla has used Google Earth to create his Bridges series. The series began when Valla, who has worked as an architect and designer, noticed a bug in Google Earth’s 3D view: while the software uses the altitude of the ground to create it’s 3D renderings, it isn’t accurate enough to pick up on bridges which find themselves warping and melting according to the contour of the surrounding landscape. The results remind me a little of Fontcuberta’s Landscapes without memory, landscapes that seem only to be possible in a computer’s imagination.
3 Comments
Hey Marc, I’d be curious to hear a little bit more explanation of why you think this work is interesting. There could be something to “landscapes that seem only to be possible in a computer’s imagination,” but I’m not yet convinced
The visual dissonance between the “road” and the shadows are quite engaging. Roads in the algorithm, shadows in a representation of reality.
Vella’s collection of 60 postcards is impressive by its volume. Thumbs up from me.
I have to say I feel very strange now about these images in the context of the Japanese earthquake. My comment that these landscapes are only possible in a computer’s imagination is no longer true.