Street Ghosts

JournalArt & Culture

Street Ghosts

Putting ordinary people on the map – whether they like it or not...

An innovative street art project has turned the tables on Google’s Street View, taking a long hard look at the collection of data and how our privacy is at the mercy of such huge information-sucking cybergiants.

The internet application, for which Google sent vans armed with cameras around the world to capture a real-picture rendering of towns and cities, also captured a lot of people going about their private lives, and artist Paulo Cirio, for one, wasn’t happy about it. He and a small team of post-production types set about recreating images of the people framed in Street View and putting them back there, in the same spot, in the form of ghostly low-res street art renderings.

We had a good chuckle at this collection, despite the serious message behind it. Sorry, couldn’t help ourselves. Some of the images are just funny. What was the guy in Shoreditch doing, playing at waving his arms in the air? What we want to know is this: what do the people who have been captured and put on display not once, but now twice – without permission – think of it all?

streetghosts.net

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Assistants for research, editing and pre-production: Adalky Capellan, Max Fox, John Bussiere.
Special thanks to Eyebeam Art and Technology Center for having made this project possible.