Google Maps Satellite Art

Jenny Odell - Satellite Collections

Artist Jenny Odell creates beautiful collages from Google Maps satellite images.

"In all of my prints, I collect things that I've cut out from Google Satellite View -- parking lots, silos, landflls, waste ponds. The view from a satellite is not a human one, nor is it one we were ever really meant to see. But it is precisely from this inhuman point of view that we are able to read our own humanity, in all of its tiny, reliably repetitive marks upon the face of the earth."

Pong Socket - Earth Art

Pong Socket's exploration of the planet in Google Maps has concentrated on finding the beautiful patterns and textures that can be found in satellite view.

"Earth Art is about showing beautiful natural art from above by looking at incredibly unusual landscapes in places with extreme climate."

Rhett Dashwood - Google Maps Typography

Rhett Dashwood has also scoured Google Maps. Rhett, however, undertook the painstaking task of finding the letters of the alphabet in satellite view.

"Over the course of several months beginning October 2008 to April 2009 I've spent some of my spare time between commercial projects searching Google Maps hoping to discover land formations or buildings resembling letter forms."

Via: Matthew Sammon (G+)

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Hand Drawn Maps on Google Maps

They Draw & Travel is a collection of wonderful user submitted hand drawn maps.

As part of the launch of the website a Marvellous Map competition was held with a grand prize of $1,000 for the winner and 5 runner-ups each receiving $200. The six winners of the competition will be announced on Friday.

The World Map lets you browse the 225 maps (so far) submitted to They Draw & Travel on Google Maps. You can click on any of the 225 map markers and view the hand drawn map submitted for that location.

They Draw & Travel - World Map

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Cairo Street Art on Google Maps

Cairo Street Art has created a Google Map that allows anyone to post photos of graffiti found in and around the Egyptian capital.

The map is actually just an embedded Google My Map. It is a nice example of how you can create a cloud based map without any programming knowledge using a collaborative Google My Map and simply embedding the map in your website.

Cairo Street Art

Graffiti Maps From the Archives

• Red Bull Street View Art - graffiti found in Street View
• StreetArtLocator - user contributed map of street art
• South Central LA Graffiti Map - graffiti in South Central, LA
• Graff Map - map of graffiti locations around the world

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Design Events on Google Maps

A.N.D.

The A.N.D. project has created a Google Map to show the location of upcoming events in London, New York, Moscow and Tokyo in the fields of contemporary design, photography and architecture.

As you might imagine the A.N.D. project has put some thought into the design of their map. The map markers represent iconic buildings in each of the four cities. For example, New York's map marker is the Empire State building and London's is Big Ben.

If you click on one of the four building markers the map zooms to your chosen city and displays the upcoming events. Each of the event markers includes a label with the name of the event.

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U.S. Cultural Landmarks on Google Maps

CultureNow

This Google Map is mapping the locations of history, art and architecture in the public realm. The project was started in New York, and has mapped a huge number of cultural locations in the city, but now also shows cultural landmarks across the USA.

It is possible to search the map by category (and there are a lot of them). So, for example, it is possible to refine a search for art galleries, museums or historic buildings etc. If you click on a map marker you can get more information about the listing.

Each listing also includes a list of other nearby cultural locations.

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The Rise of Graffiti on Google Maps

Red Bull Street View Art

Red Bull are using Google Maps and Google Street View to present a crowd-sourced map of street art from around the world.

Using the map you can search for graffiti directly from the map and click on the map markers to view a Street View image of the art. The site includes quick links to the 'most viewed' and the 'latest additions' to the map. There are also quick links to works by popular graffiti artists such as Banksy and Keith Haring.

Adding your own finds to the map is very easy. It just involves finding the right location on the map and dragging the Street View to grab the best shot of the street art that you wish to submit.

Graffiti Maps From the Archives

• StreetArtLocator - user contributed map of street art
• South Central LA Graffiti Map - graffiti in South Central, LA
• Graff Map - map of graffiti locations around the world

Via: Street View Funny

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Street View Drives Inside Art Galleries

Google Art Project

The Street View car has mounted the steps of some of the world's most famous galleries and driven around snapping over 1,000 of the greatest paintings of all time (OK, Google actually invented a new Street View trolley to grab these images).

The Google Art Project has used Street View technology to create virtual tours inside 17 of the world’s most acclaimed art museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA in New York, The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Tate Britain & The National Gallery in London, Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Click on the 'Explore Gallery' option for any of the listed galleries and you can enter the virtual Street View tour. As well as virtually walking the art galleries you can inspect the paintings up close. If you select an individual work of art you can then pan and zoom into the painting to view it in close detail.



The gallery Street View tours can also be explored directly from within Street View in Google Maps.

Via: Official Google Blog

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HTML5 Fractals in Google Maps

Julia Map

How can you not love Google when they continue to release amazing stuff like this Google Maps HTML5 Fractal Renderer?

Julia Map uses the HTML5 canvas with the Google Maps API to create Julia and Mandelbrot set fractals which you can pan and zoom into. When you zoom into the fractal the image is drawn on the fly in canvas.

In your exploring, when you come across images that blow your mind, you can grab the unique URL and share them with the world.

Via: Official Google Research Blog

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It's Street View but Is it Art?

The Nine Eyes of Google Street View


Artist Jon Rafman was so inspired by Google Street View that he put together this collection of images found by scouring Google Maps.

The collection showcases some of the beautiful images he has found but also exploers the more seedy side of life that can sometimes be found on Street View. Of course Jon Raffman isn't the first artist to be inspired by Street View.

Apres Garde

There are quite a few websites that collect fun and interesting finds from Google Street View. None of them however find quite so many beautiful shots as Apres Garde.

Matt Bucher recently wrote a guest post for Google Sightseeing explaining the rationale behind his personal choice of Street View images. He certainly does seem to have a good eye for the artistic shots captured by the Street View cameras.



I'm sure Apres Garde would be a great source of inspiration to the Street View artists out there. Such as Lehel Kovács, an Hungarian designer uses Google Street View as the starting point for his cityscapes.



Similarly, if you wish to take part in Bill Guffrey's Virtual Paintout I'm sure Apres Garde will get your creative juices flowing.


The Virtual Paintout is a blog that encourages the use of Google Street View as a resource for virtually travelling the world to find interesting locations and subjects to paint. Each month Bill sets a location and participants have to find an appropriate Street View from that location and paint the found image.

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Google Maps Collages

Jenny Odell's Satellite Collection

Graphic Designer Sarah Odell has created a series of beautiful digital collages using cut-out imagery from the satellite imagery on Google Maps.

The image above is made up of various cargo ships and other boats found on Google Maps. The other digital prints include collages of swimming pools, grain silos & water towers and square mile images from the Great Salt Lake.



Also See

• Apres Garde - Beautiful images found on Google Street View
• Lehel Kovács - Hungarian designer using Google Street View as the starting point for
• cityscapes
• Virtual Paintout - paintings inspired by Google Maps Street View

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Graffiti on Google Maps

Graff Map

Graff Map uses Google Maps to map graffiti locations around the world.

At the moment the map mainly shows graffiti in Melbourne, Australia. Users can submit their own locations to the map so hopefully the map will have wider coverage soon. Graff Map uses Street View where available to show pictures of the submitted graffiti but users can also submit their own photographs.

The developer of Graff Map has plans to add more functionality to the map soon, including, a top 10 list, voting, comments and tags.

Graffiti Maps From the Archives

• StreetArtLocator - user contributed map of street art.
• South Central LA Graffiti Map - graffiti in South Central, LA.
• Legal Walls - map of legal graffiti walls

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Finding Wall Mural Art with Google Maps

Mural Locator

The Mural Locator helps people locate murals around the world. The site contains a growing database of locations, photos, and documentation about murals and provides a handy Google Map so that you can quickly and easily find murals near your location.

The map uses marker clustering so you can tell at a glance how many murals are listed at a particular location. As you zoom in on the map individual murals are indicated with their own individual markers.

If you click on a map marker you can view a photograph of the mural and click through to get further details, such as the address and a description of the mural. If you know of a mural that isn't already listed you can submit its location by completing a short form.

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Google Maps on Canvas

Wish You Were Here

Megan Scheminske is an artist based in Portland, OR. Megan has produced two series of minimalist paintings, 'Wish You Were Here' and 'You Are Here', that are inspired by Google Maps. Megan even has a Google Map with photographs of the paintings in the 'You Are Here' series showing the locations they depict.

The 'Wish You Were Here' project is six 12" x 12" paintings on canvas depicting compositions culled from Google Maps. Each "location" lies somewhere within the five boroughs of New York City. The locations for the paintings were chosen solely on the basis of their abstract aesthetics.

Also See

The Virtual Paintout

The Virtual Paintout is a blog that is encouraging the use of Google Street View as a resource for virtually travelling the world to find interesting locations and subjects to paint.

Each month a new city is chosen and artists can then use Google Street View to find a subject to paint.

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Replacing Google with Hand Drawn Maps

Mapplers

Mapplers is a great project to create an atlas from hand drawn maps. Currently the map consists of a hand-drawn map of Brisbane that has been made interactive with the Google Maps API.

The site wants to expand the map with user contributions. If you wish to add a contribution you need to e-mail in your hand-drawn maps to the site's creator but there are plans to allow users to upload maps themselves.

Via: The Map Room

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German Google Maps Mashup Round-up

Geopaint

Geopaint is a Google Maps mashup with the map as a canvas and your mobile phone as a brush. Geopaint periodically fetches your current location and connects the dots to create line paintings of your movements.

It is possible to change the colour and the size of your brush as you move around. As well as creating your own geoglyphs with Geopaint you can view the paintings created by others.

Although developed in Germany Geopaint is in English and whilst it was developed for mobile browsers you can access it from your desktop computer.

Wetterwolke.de

This site uses Google Maps to show the weather in Germany. It is possible to view the current weather and the predicted weather for the next two days.

Wetterwolke.de also includes quick links to zoom in and view the weather in different German cities.

Wanderservice Schwarzwald
Wanderservice Schwarzwald is a hiking map for the Shwarzwald region of Germany. The map shows the location of hiking trails throughout the region.

As well as viewing hiking trails directly on Google Maps the site allows you to view transit routes, tourism points of interest and other layers.

Innviertel-Hausruck

This Google Maps mashup is a great guide for visitors to south-east Germany. The map includes a huge number of selectable layers for you to find things to do and see in the region.

The layers include, restaurants, museums, parks, churches and many more.

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Australian Art Projects on Google Maps

Arts on the Map

The Australia Council for the Arts is currently funding nearly 200 companies in Australia. Arts on the Map provides a Google Maps and Google Earth browser plug-in portal to explore the different projects.

To explore the map you first select the type of art project you wish to explore and then the region of Australia that you are interested in. The relevant art projects for your search are displayed on the map with red kangaroo map markers.

An innovative feature of the map is the 'tour' feature. If you select the tour option the map will animate through your search results one by one.

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Street View - But is it Art?

Apres Garde

There are quite a few websites that collect fun and interesting finds from Google Street View. None of them however find quite so many beautiful shots as Apres Garde.

Matt Bucher recently wrote a guest post for Google Sightseeing explaining the rationale behind his personal choice of Street View images. He certainly does seem to have a good eye for the artistic shots captured by the Street View cameras.



I'm sure Apres Garde would be a great source of inspiration to the Street View artists out there. Such as Lehel Kovács, an Hungarian designer uses Google Street View as the starting point for his cityscapes.



Similarly, if you wish to take part in Bill Guffrey's Virtual Paintout I'm sure Apres Garde will get your creative juices flowing.


The Virtual Paintout is a blog that encourages the use of Google Street View as a resource for virtually travelling the world to find interesting locations and subjects to paint. Each month Bill sets a location and participants have to find an appropriate Street View from that location and paint the found image.

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Time Travelling with Google Maps

Museum of London - Street Museum

The Museum of London have created a great iPhone application to showcase hundreds of images from its collections.

You can use the included Google Map or use the iPhone's GPS to pinpoint your current location. You can then view images from the museum's collection that are in your vicinity. If you hold your iPhone up you can then look through the screen and see the historical image superimposed on the present day view.

The Creative Review have been testing the applications' augmented reality function. They have some truly astonishing screenshots of historical photographs overlaid on the modern view as seen through an iPhone.

This is probably the closest you will get to real time travelling until Dr Who drops in.

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GeoCoded Art on Your Mobile Phone

GeoCoded Art
Geocoded Art is a great website that is busy mapping the world's fine art paintings. When I first reviewed the site back in February I said I'd like to see the site available as a mobile phone application. Geocoded Art have contacted me to tell me that they are now available as a layer in the augmented reality platform Wikitude.

Currently only the 'Paintings of the Netherlands' is available but if you live in the Netherlands then you should definitely check this out. As I don't live in the Netherlands I can't get a screenshot of Geocoded Art in Action on Wikitude. However if you check out the video below and imagine the text on the phone is replaced with a painting you should have a good idea of what the Geocoded Art layer achieves.



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Legal Graffiti Walls on Google Maps

Legal Walls

Legal Graffiti is a simple Google Map to show the locations of legal graffiti walls around the world.

If you click on a wall's map marker the map zooms in on that location and loads the address of the graffiti wall. It is possible to search the map by location or simply zoom in on the nearest map marker to your home.

If you know of any walls that are missing you can add them to the map.


Graffiti Maps From the Archives

StreetArtLocator

StreetArtLocator is a user contributed map of street art. The user contributed examples are colour coded on the map under a number of different categories; graffiti, gallery, painting, stickers, stencil, sculpture and installation.

When you click on a tag an information window opens with a photo of the tagged art work.

South Central LA Graffiti Map
A place to view and share graffiti murals, pieces, and bombs in South Central, LA.

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