Aesthetics Of Exclusion

When two StreetView cars almost kiss

Article

Since 2005 several companies, such as Google, Microsoft, Baidu and Kakao (Daum), started to develop systems to digitally map urban and rural areas across the world, using various types of vehicles and cameras to create 360° views, creating a growing visual urban archive. In Amsterdam we stumbled across two StreetView cars who documented each others existence. One, a Google StreetView car, has captured a StreetView car of the municipality of Amsterdam. When governments enter the StreetView 'market', they show us that the archives they create could be under democratic control and for example, accessible for all. While the API{1} of Google StreetView will cost money, the one of the city of Amsterdams is of free use. And while Google limits the access to older documented years, the ones of the municipality are always to be retrieved.

References
  1. A set of functions and procedures allowing the creation of applications that access the features or data of an operating system, application, or other service.