A few years ago Google sent out an army of vehicles across the world with the aim to document anything and everything around us. The project, labelled ‘Google Street View’ was an extension of their popular map software, it was to allow users to see the streets that they would be driving down after searching for directions. Armed with a 9 camera ball atop a large pole, a GPS tracker and a laser scanner they drove up and down every motorway, road, dirt track and high street they could, taking 9 photos every 20 meters and stitching them together.
What they created was a series of momentary snapshots of our world, and whilst they attempted to mainly take photos early in the morning, so there would be less cars (with number plates to blur out) and less people (with faces to blur out), there have been a great deal of unique moments captured during the process.
About a year ago, artist Jon Rafman started collecting and documenting the most interesting moments captured by the cameras entitled ‘The Nine Eyes of Google Street View’, collating the images to create an honest and open view of the world around us. The project aims to bring back the rawness of early street photography and through the un-biased lens of the street view cars, remove all social context and present a neutral view of everyday life.
Check out some of our favourite things he’s found below and for more information and imagery head to 9-EYES.COM
