https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkhZKaltQu8

Video: Google Maps: Hyperlapse Around the World (2017)

In the world today it is arguable that information is becoming more commonly absorbed through a rapid succession of images. In this video created February 8^th 2017 Lebanese born Italian graphic artist ‘IDEANDO’ AKA Matteo Archondis utilizes the power of Google Earth’s mapping data fusion of US Geological Surveying, satellite imagery, and 45-degree aerial imagery to capture 6 European sites, 5 places in North America, and 2 in Asia. They are captured in 3305 screenshots using a frame-by-frame technique. This representational style is not unlike that of the Eameses’ multiscreen introduced at the 1959 American Exhibition in Moscow  (Colomina, 2007, pg.15-20) that forces the viewer to selectively absorb information from the densely concentrated amount of geographical images being shown, arguably a skill that the millennial generation has more naturally adopted from the technology of the World Wide Web. It also plays with the idea of scale similar to the 1977 Eames short film ‘Powers of Ten’ in the use of ‘zooming’ inward and outward throughout this virtual Earth. These realms of technology, representation, and scale in the context of this video question the idea of a map as icon. An icon of how the 21^st century uses a map on a daily basis, and how technology can start to 3-dimensionally inform the ways maps are used and understood around the globe.

Works Cited:

Beatriz Colomina, “Enclosed by Images: The Eameses’ Multimedia  Architecture,” Grey Room 2 (2001): 6-29.

Powers of ten, 1977. Dir. Charles Eames and Ray Eames. Prod. Charles Eames and Ray Eames. By Elmer Bernstein and Philip Morrison. Pyramid Films, 1977. Powers of Ten (1977). Eames Office. Web. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0>.

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