Ayo Technology

Lauren’s post on the awesome World Digital Library reminded us of another impressive online art collection, Google Earth’s Masterpieces of the Prado. These images weigh in at 14,000 megapixels, meaning you get closer to works by Dürer, Bosch, and Reubens in Google Earth than you would be able to in person. It’s pretty remarkable—you can see brushtrokes and cracks in the oil paint, but never any pixelation. Definitely best viewed in full screen Google Earth mode, but you can also check out some of these massive images in Google Maps.

in real life we’re much less bitchy

Art Fag City’s pitting (overrated light artist) James Turrel vs. Alice Aycock in a devestating expose of public sculptures in New York (catalogued via google maps). It’s part of the Let’s Meet In Real Life series that we mentioned a few weeks back with regard to SD Idea Man Jesse Aaron Cohen.

And look, they’re making a zine!

In keeping with the intent of the show — to reveal the behind the scenes operations of online work through the use of public physical space — we intend to use the gallery itself in the same way we employ the Internet: as a method of distribution. As such, the last two hours of the residency will be dedicated to printing out the findings and compiling them as a homemade limited edition zine. This will include individual works found on Google maps, a map locating all sculptures, and a lot of low resolution pictures.

In other google map projects, today we discovered SeeClickFix, which maps civic problems to be reported (by volunteer “fixers) to 311.

what was and what shall be

First there was Google Mars. Now, we hear of Google History. This doesn’t particularly relate to our stated mission, but it’s information-y and shit, we’re interested in it.

History layers added to google maps to reflect booms (Dubai) and busts (Katrina, probably Dubai again).

Ah, sweet sweet data viz.

digital LIFE

Whoa. Millions of photos from LIFE magazine are all online at google images. A promotional page is here, but use search filter source: life with whatever search term you like. We are reading (and loving) the Grapes of Wrath right now, so we’re digging this 1930s migrant search.

Wish they would scan the ads, too.