google street art view

'google street art view' aims to document google street view representations of graffiti, murals, and other street art


created by red bull energy drink manufacturers and brazilian ad agency loducca,
'google street art view' aims to document the existence of works of street art as captured by google street view
in the form of a searchable, multimedia map that users help to create.



'google street art view' look at a piece in tokyo, japan


the crowd-sourced website lacks the image clarity and clean functionality of the recently released 'google art project'
(previously covered in the designboom article 'google art project'), but the interactive 'street art view' map
nonetheless provides a broad and instantly updatable record of street art pieces captured by google street view.
a small information box to the screen's upper right includes the title, artist, and exact location of the work,
when known by the user who has added that location.

with twitter and facebook sharing built-in, the map is also integrated to provide flickr thumbnails of geotagged photographs,
particularly helpful for an art form that is often ephemeral as works are taken down or painted over.



the default map view, highlighting works of street art


the fact that the website is designed to interface with google street view records is both limitation and opportunity.
while the information and flickr images can be updated in realtime, the map itself does not,
which creates the possibility for the site to act as an inscribable archive,
even as its decreases its functionality as search tool for the purpose of locating street art in the physical world.

in addition to the clickable google map, the web interface features a search function,
which returns street art works whose title or artist matches the search term;
a dropdown menu that provides instant access to the works of a handful of renowned graffiti artists;
and 'latest additions' and 'random art' image bars, providing a way to browse through works.



a submitted work, artist details unknown, in denver, colorado, USA



many of the works can be zoomed in on to considerable detail



here, not only a graffiti piece but also presumably the artists at work, one of the unintentional points of interest in reappropriating google street view for this purpose


via artinfo