Private Satellite Images Used to Investigate War Crimes

Something on the PBS Newshour last Thursday caught my attention. A private company, Digital Globe, has obtained satellite images that document the destruction of a village in an area of Sudan where no journalists are allowed. The images were made public online by the Satellite Sentinel Project. The celebrity George Clooney actively supports both the Satellite Sentinel and Digital Globe. The story points out that commercial satellite imaging entities can make information available that until recently was the sole province of governments. Unfortunately it does not explore the ethical implications. They imply that digital globe is just giving the information away for the good of humanity. Commercial (and government) satellite images are very expensive to produce, and a discussion of what the Satellite Sentinel Project paid for the images, or what Digital Globe typically charges their clients, would have been interesting. The piece could have brought up the issues of personal privacy (there seems to be no place on the globe now that is not being photographed), and the privileged status of the information: who is obtaining it and for whom? But maybe I ask too much. The report was particularly interesting to me because I am taking a remote-sensing class, wherein we are learning how to interpret satellite data, and a class in ethics and philosophy in geography, where we recently discussed celebrity activists.

My Google Earth Street View Experiment

I was very impressed with Jon Rafman's collection of Google Earth street view image captures (here). My first response was "Oh man I have got to try that." Up late for two nights, the house is a wreck and I am way behind on school work. But this project has a geographical and artistic component, so I justify (rationalize?) it as being part of my status as a lifetime learner. But really I am just a Google Street View addict trying to one-up an established artist.

By no means do I think my images are as riveting and interesting as Rafman's. In two days since I started I have explored Tallahassee, the Florida Panhandle, the Atchafalaya River corridor in southern Louisiana, Stuttgart, San Luis Potosi Mexico, Northwestern Canada and Lisbon. I get a kind of rush when exploring, looking at all the cameras on the screen lined up like beads: so much to find! So many unexplored niches, so many places no one has ever seen...world here I come!

I do in fact believe that most of Street View is unseen. The images are fed into the system and processed in batches. Among the viewers, there are probably very few like Rafman and myself, that is, trolling for images to capture and re-present as art.

What is the point? I try to stay away from slum-tourism. Rafman presents a lot of prostitutes and people with guns. I am collecting my images with the knowledge that Rafman has already done it. I am trying to capture something a little different, but really just trolling for anything that can be viewed as an interesting composition. And if I happen upon somebody with a gun, it is definitely going in the collection.

Rafman has some interesting commentary on his website, I encourage you to poke around over there.

And without further ado, here is my two days worth of Google Street View (click inside any image for a larger format version):




A house for a car. Humans enter in rear.






Yin and yang.








Notice parrot in cage on counter.




Man with camera looking directly at camera. In Stuttgart, the GE camera person takes the unit off the car and walks around. And they don't blur faces.