As you probably know, I have this new passion, cyber-photography – or screenshooting, if you prefer (I’m not sure whether there is a name for this type of image production). I have a blog about aerial images of prisons, and I occasionally post photos of interesting places I find on earth (and sometimes beyond).
One of the most prolific genre of this kind of imagery is blunders, mistakes, oddities created by the various algorithms, that people find hilarious (and sometimes I do too). I was fiddling with Google Earth the other day, and I started to look for art (specifically sculptures), just to see what the software could do. I went to Rome, one of the most meticulously reconstructed cities, both on Apple and Google maps. From a distance, everything seems the same. But if you look close, you obviously find approximation. I don’t feel this a mistake at all. On the contrary: it’s the software trying to figure out what is looking at (as we often do with art). I went to Ponte Sant’Angelo, a beautiful bridge with baroque statues of angels. This is what they looked like (click preview to enlarge):
Pretty amazing: I wish I had a 3D printer to make one. I also went to look at the bronze angel on top of Castel San’Angelo (click preview to enlarge):
Then I went to Florence, to see the Equestrian Monument of Cosimo de’ Medici in Piazza della Signoria as seen by Google Earth (click preview to enlarge). Could this be a new sculpture style? Googlism?
