Nine Eyes of Google Street View: Jon Rafman’s Exhibition Captures Stranger Side of Google

While many people use Google Street View to look at their own house, those willing to explore a little further could discover some truly fascinating images.

Canadian artist Jon Rafman has collected some of the oddest and perfectly timed images collect on Google Maps Street View for his latest exhibition at London's Saatchi Gallery entitled The Nine Eyes of Google Street View.

Rafman, 30, began virtually crawling across the world in 2008, a year after the launch of Google Maps. He would spend up to 12 hours a day looking at unusual moments captured by Google's cameras.

"It was destroying my body," he told the Independent, before beginning to take submissions from others once his collection went viral.

The fascinating collection of work includes perfectly timed moments of a butterfly floating past the camera to prostitutes working the streets of Brazil to corpses left by the side of the road.

The collection also features more than one snapshot of men baring their backsides to the passing Google car.

Technological tools

Rafman said: "I began an exploration of this new virtual world, and was fascinated by how powerfully Street View photographs can represent our contemporary experience, the conflict they can express between an indifferent robotic camera and man's search for connectedness and significance.

"The photos underscore the tension between an uncaring camera and man's need to interpret his experience. While celebrating and critiquing modern experience, the technological tools themselves show how they can estrange us from ourselves."

He added the images were "photographs that no one took and memories that no one has".

What differentiates Rafman's The Nine Eyes of Google Street View from other photographic exhibitions is that nearly all the work has not been edited. Even the Google Street View navigation tool has been left in the top-left corner of each photograph.

Rafman's Nine Eyes has previously been seen in Canada as a solo show and as part of a group show in Russia.

The Saatchi Gallery show runs from 26 July to 19 August. Click through for a collection of some of the work.