The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema & Tv
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
      • Shows
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureArt

Jon Rafman: The Nine Eyes of Google Street View

Jon Rafman: The Nine Eyes of Google Street View | Exhibition review
25 July 2012
Eleanor MacFarlane
Avatar
Eleanor MacFarlane
25 July 2012

Google Street View documents our world with nine cameras strapped to a vehicle, snapping everywhere mapped without judgement. Wherever it goes there are people, or evidence of people, with their messy, hilarious and tragic ways. Automatically recording all areas, Street View has unintentionally captured human moments, and the results, edited from countless hours of footage, present a global portfolio of street life.

 In photography, so often the decisive moment depends on being in the right place at the right time. More than that, a photographer must learn to recognise particular anomalies and oddities that only really show up through a camera. Photography can create strange relationships between objects, pointing out the irregular nature of humans. Jon Rafman shows the skill of his photographer’s eye in choosing these moments that had been caught by default by Google Street View. Every one of these images will make you look twice, to get the joke, to witness the drama or recognise the humanity.

So often people are caught lying in the road – always alarming and inappropriate, we know there is a story there. Hookers, horses, kisses, hold-ups; Google Street View dispassionately records and Rafman trawls through footage taken since 2008 to find the moments of inspiration.

Two generous rooms at the Saatchi Gallery make this exhibition a worthwhile visit that will lead to pondering on the daily dramas of human life, the role of photography and about where the essential consciousness lies in art – with the automaton or with the authorship of the editor.

★★★★★

Eleanor MacFarlane

Jon Rafman: The Nine Eyes of Google Street View runs from 26th July to 29th August and 2nd October to 5th November 2012 at the Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Rd, London SW3 4RY. For further information or to book visit the exhibition’s website here.

Related Itemsreview

More in Art

Decentralise at Somerset House Online

★★★★★
James White
Read More

No Holds Barred: The Life and Art of Matthew Lanyon

James White
Read More

Shai Baitel announced as inaugural artistic director of Modern Art Museum Shanghai

The editorial unit
Read More

The National Gallery online: Lockdown’s top 20 most viewed paintings

The editorial unit
Read More

Art 2021: London’s best virtual exhibitions from home

Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

Ten artistic depictions of the Christmas story through the ages

James White
Read More

Five gifts for art lovers this Christmas

Emma-Jane Betts
Read More

Five alternative art exhibitions for Christmas 2020

Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

Sensing the Unseen: Step into Gossaert’s Adoration at the National Gallery

★★★★★
Anna Souter
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap
  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • London’s best pizzas for takeaway and delivery
    Food & Drinks
  • The Year Earth Changed
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Cruise – Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Birdy at Wilton’s Music Hall Online
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Syml – Dim EP
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • London’s Michelin-starred restaurants open al fresco right now – and all those re-opening in May
    Food & Drinks
  • Ride or Die
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!
    ★★★★★
    netflix
  • Live from the Barbican: Moses Boyd
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Weezer with the LA Philharmonic and YOLA at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Online
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • London’s Michelin-starred restaurants open al fresco right now – and all those re-opening in May
    Food & Drinks
  • Live from the Barbican: Moses Boyd
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • The Secret Connection – Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Cruise – Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Birdy at Wilton’s Music Hall Online
    ★★★★★
    Live music
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Cast announced for the UK premiere of Green Day’s American Idiot
Jackpot | Movie review