Google Streetview "Art"

[julianphotoart]

So 10 days ago my family and I were at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. There was a whole room devoted to an exhibit of "art" created by some guy who downloaded Google Streetview images, blew them up to 16x20 or 20x24, framed them nicely, and gave them turgid pedantic titles. In short, the totality of his "creative" input was to have so much idle time on his hands that he could cruise Google long enough to happen to run across the images he happened to pick. What do you think?

 

[mbisc]

On par with Beuys smearing 100lb or so of butter into a corner of an art gallery.

Brilliant the first time, and if you are into conceptual art.

Completely banal turd (to be polite), if you are not 😀

 

[cgiff]

So 10 days ago my family and I were at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. There was a whole room devoted to an exhibit of "art" created by some guy who walked down the street pointing his camera at things, blew them up to 16x20 or 20x24, framed them nicely, and gave them turgid pedantic titles. In short, the totality of his "creative" input was to have so much idle time on his hands that he could cruise city streets long enough to happen to run across the images he happened to pick. What do you think?

I'm not saying I agree (am being a bit of a devil's advocate), but I don't really see the issue here.

 

[gns]

So 10 days ago my family and I were at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. There was a whole room devoted to an exhibit of "art" created by some guy who downloaded Google Streetview images, blew them up to 16x20 or 20x24, framed them nicely, and gave them turgid pedantic titles. In short, the totality of his "creative" input was to have so much idle time on his hands that he could cruise Google long enough to happen to run across the images he happened to pick. What do you think?

Well, you haven't told us anything about the work, really. Just something about the process. It is as if you said something like, "This guy just takes a little hand camera out into the streets and walks around snapping pictures".
What do I think? The answer is the same in both cases. It depends...On what the results are.

Cheers,
gary

 

[julianphotoart]

Well, you haven't told us anything about the work, really. Just something about the process. It is as if you said something like, "This guy just takes a little hand camera out into the streets and walks around snapping pictures".
What do I think? The answer is the same in both cases. It depends...On what the results are.

Cheers,
gary

I agree. I should also have added to the description that the Streetview shots he blows up are not processed or played around with at all. They are taken straight off the screen and just blown up as-is.

 

[cgiff]

Were the scenes interesting?

 

[keytarjunkie]

Wow wow wow. Have we really never heard of 9eyes here?

Yes, it obviously brings up some deeper questions about who is really making these photographs and their true intentions as an artist, but how dare you call him a copyright infringer, fake, scammer, and con job, just because you've read a few sentences about his work. Grow up.

 

[mbisc]

Were the scenes interesting?

Is rancid butter interesting (to return to my earlier point)?

Kinda, sorta, if you are the first one to do so, but other than some sort of voyeuristic aspect of seeing the new and weird, it is kind of empty at the end of the day...

 

[Neare]

Collages are art. Artist here finds works already done by other parties and displays them in a different form.

Google street view is the same concept. It's art, get over yourself photographers. It's part of an art community that extends beyond the world of photography alone. You didn't think of it, you aren't having an exhibition in a museum of art right now, your loss too bad.

Thanks. 🙂

 

[mbisc]

Collages are art. Artist here finds works already done by other parties and displays them in a different form.

Stealing from Wikipedia:

A collage (From the French: à coller, to glue, French pronunciation: [kɔ.laːʒ]) is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. (...snip...)

Nothing was assembled here -- just a plain screen print.

 

[julianphotoart]

This thread and the "stealing is stealing..." thread are converging. And both now have posts from anarchists. It's amazing that anyone can knowingly rationalize theft. Stealing isn't stealing, and the sky is not blue.

 

[goffer]

I dont have a problem with it... he basically did what us as photographers do in the real world: hunt for something interesting and take a picture. He just put a modern twist on it by doing his hunting through a virtual rendition of our real world, using his print screen button as the camera.

 

[Neare]

Actually a print was assembled, the artist had the initiative and patience to scour through the program for days, probably months. It is just like the concept of a Collage except that instead of 50 images, it's just one. But that should make no difference because you should take everything as it is. Listen to our friend Garry Winogrand - all a photograph needs to be is aesthetically pleasing. And the same goes for art in general.

I used to sing another tune, I used to be skeptical of this work. But after seeing the work and seeing that the subject matter was generally more interesting than most of the work you see from photographers, it made me embrace it. Because regardless of how it got to print, the end result is fantastic. And the end result is the only thing we the viewers see, hanging up on that museum wall.

I think it's awesome that a robot camera takes great photos, and that a human traveled the world to find them - without ever leaving their home. It's a crazy concept, crazy enough to be art. The randomness and luck of our world is interesting and beautiful, this is what this is about.

☐ This is a box, think outside of it. 😉

 

[jsrockit]

More conceptual than craft... and that's what I think bothers people here. Doesn't bother me at all. He found his gimmick and someone bought into it. Just the latest in a long line IMO.

 

[gns]

I agree. I should also have added to the description that the Streetview shots he blows up are not processed or played around with at all. They are taken straight off the screen and just blown up as-is.

More about what he did or didn't do and nothing about the pictures.
What were the pictures about?

 

[igi]

In short, the totality of his "creative" input was to have so much idle time on his hands that he could cruise Google long enough to happen to run across the images he happened to pick.

How do you know that's the totality of it?

You're probably expecting the artist to act like a photographer. Well, sorry, he's an artist.