Turning Google Earth StreetView into art??

[MattNQ]

This interesting endeavour might generate some debate over when the work of others can be turned into your own art??

Aaron Hobson started touring the world via Google Earth street view, and has captured some of the more interesting images from the google cameras - stitched a few together & a bit of pp to create his works of art.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...799587,00.html

He must have some time on his hands though...While I have often used Google street view to find some good locations to shoot, I'm not sure I could spend weeks trolling through whole countrysides without going slightly mad....

[ving]

very interesting indeed, but my understanding was the google held copyright of their material

[rellik666]

Sorry I am reading that right, he has copied the streetview images and then PP'd them? That's a bit wrong isn't it?

[geoffsta]

Wouldn't that be a great thing for the elderly to do. Connect a 55" TV to a computer, show them how to use street veiw. Then let them go wild. (I'm being serious)
I myself work with the elderly and I'm often stumped to find something different to amuse them. Wow.. What a great idea.

[Bennymiata]

Some years ago, a friend of mine gave his time to go to retirement villages and show the elderly how to use a computer and surf the net.
Naturally, the old folks used to pester the retirement villages to get PC's for them, then found out that all the old guys just surfed for porn.
It as quite funny at the time actually!

[arthurking83]

I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but I see this as the weirdest form of stupidity I've ever been alerted too.
What I find weird about this level of idiocy is that this guy is bragging about it as if it's some kind of achievement!

Rip some low res boring images from the net, load them into an editor batch them with some automated action and call them 'art'

The main idea of photography is to go out and capture the images yourself ..

Grabbing 'already captured images' processing them to your taste and uploading them as 'art' is not what photography should be about.

What makes this series particularly tedious, is that we now know that basically zero effort was made by the 'artist' to go out and capture the images for himself.

It's taken the genre of landscape(and streetscape) photography to new lows!!

[Tommo224]

I like surfing StreetView, it can make time go by sometimes when you can't be bothered doing anything else at all.

But really, what this guy has done. Although I don't agree on it being such a big deal artistically, I do like the images. And had he captured them himself in a camera, then I would be quite impressed!

Taking screenshots from the StreetView thing is not an amazing thing at all.

Wonder what Google say about it?

[flame70]

If only i could get google car to go the weddings i couldn't do and do a drive thru down the aisle

[mikec]

I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but I see this as the weirdest form of stupidity I've ever been alerted too.
What I find weird about this level of idiocy is that this guy is bragging about it as if it's some kind of achievement!

Rip some low res boring images from the net, load them into an editor batch them with some automated action and call them 'art'

The main idea of photography is to go out and capture the images yourself ..

Grabbing 'already captured images' processing them to your taste and uploading them as 'art' is not what photography should be about.

What makes this series particularly tedious, is that we now know that basically zero effort was made by the 'artist' to go out and capture the images for himself.

It's taken the genre of landscape(and streetscape) photography to new lows!!

Reading the interview I don't think he called anything he did photography, it was all called art. As far as I can tell this can be considered a form of art, just like any other art medium. This is art using photographs as the medium. Is that wrong? I don't think so (copyright aside) because they are now something new, some might also say better than the original. Sure some people won't appreciate or accept the method but all art is like that.

Something similar to this has actually be done before, I remember seeing something in the World Press Exibit at Powerhouse in Brisbane where a guy had used Street View for something similar, but with much less in them.

If he isn't directly making money from this, I think google would like the publicity. If he started raking in money, they might step in.

[arthurking83]

For me art is 99% effort.
The effort is then broken down into sub sections such as inspiration, creativity, application, and so on.

Screen dumping images off the net, into software that then interpolates them into another point of view requires very little effort, despite what the 'artist' will say they've put into the art piece.
Now I didn't say 'no effort' I said very little effort, as some work is required on the part of the prospective artist to tell the software exactly what to do.

Yes it may be art of some kind.. but then again so was my correction on my son's homework the other night too, where I crossed out a number and rewrote the correct number next to the incorrect one. So I consider it to be art, but I doubt very much anyone else would .. certainly not an art appreciator, not my son's teacher, nor my son either!

At some point we have to consider whether the 'art' should be allowed to be called art, so as not to confuse the art that has substance, from the art that has none at all.
I have this as yet to be fully determined blurry line in the canvas for what I think is art or not.
A major factor in the determination of this imaginary blurred line is the effort put into the art piece.

I also have to admit that in no way am I an 'art appreciator' and am not educated in any way with respect to art either.

One thing I do know though(as an opinion) is that photography is most certainly art.
I've never been inspired or enthusiastic of the fact that 'artists' re use others images(photos) to create art of their own, and personally don't consider this to be a form of art myself.
if the use of a particular image is required, the artist themselves really ought to get out and recapture an image as identical to that image as they can.
ie. put the effort into the art piece from scratch.

I personally don't mind in having had others use some of my images over the years(on DeviantArt) to create art of their own with it(or school projects, or whatever they've done), but I prefer it if they don't post it as art.

As an example of how inert and dispassionate this form of art makes me feel. Imagine if I'd taken a classical art piece from any era, or any artist,say VanGough's Starry Night .... and I simply reframe it with my own frame .. that I bought from the Two Dollar Shop, or as a kit from Bunnings, and then hocked it off as 'my own art' .. is then then considered to be 'my art'?

We know it's art, as the original author had initially created this masterpiece, but is my subsequent reframing effort, using off the shelf items now considered to be art as well?

Auto stitching a couple of images screen grabbed off the net, brushing them over with a bit of gaussian blur, and then some dodge and burn doesn't make the finished product art.
It's doodling .... stuffing about ..... boredom relief, or maybe even maths!

Nup! I think the term art requires that the piece has had an amount of effort put into it. Effort can be considered to be many things, whether it's physical effort with resultant blood sweat or tears(or any other applicable cliché), or whether that effort is mental or emotional which then feeds the imagination of the artist, even with minimal physical effort for the piece.

And FWIW, the fact that this has been done before is no reason to consider it to be called art. I think that simple fact that it may have been done before is even more reason to discount this kind of work as art. The idea isn't even original!

I remember that in school, if you copied another students work and submitted it as your own, you failed.
Art should be judged accordingly!
Maybe I'm just old fashioned and that younger generations have different ideas on what's what nowadays??