A new crop of beautiful, serendipitous, and occasionally horrible Google Streetview images have been dug up by Jon Rafman, and they are better then most.

I say new, because I'm almost sure you've come across a blog post or website dedicated to weird and mischievous images discovered online thanks to the all-seeing Google Map or Streetview, but these ones, who I came across thanks to Super Colossal are absolute gems.

Not settling for the everyday voyeurism of Google, Jon Rafman has become a committed (and surely labourious) artist to the material, and he has discovered some amazing images.  They can be incredibly beautiful, saddening, violent, and miraculously timed.

Apart from being very surprisingly composed images, they raise quite interesting questions, to Google, to the voyeur, and to the everyday web browser who feels like a galavant down a street in Istanbul or Whereverthehellyouwant.

The first detail we are instinctively drawn to is of course the location, and I think these selections are chosen intentionally to question the 'image' of the place we expect it to be.  A Moose running down the street, a pedestrian-looking scene with an armed middle-aged man, an exquisitely glowing white burqa, we seem to recognise where most of them are.  At least we become more self-conscious of thinking we know where they are.  The second taunt from the artist is that he has located and benefitted from something anyone could have found, but this is exactly what is behind its optimism - in most cases at least: quite fairly, we get a realistic equation balanced with violence, mystery, and ugliness.

Here are a few from his latest project, check out the rest of his work on the subject here.


My name is Sergie-

Blinnng!

GoogleRoadkill

Pretty, and sad.

Chillin' suspiciously.

Now I climb out, now I climb in, now I climb...

GoogleCrimewave

Wow.

Wow-er.

Although his neighbours had thrown millions into their contextual intergration, Callum felt confident his expression of entrance and threshold was superior.

ka-BLING!!!

http://9-eyes.com/