The most unusual book received this month. Its title: American Google Ghosts. The author is: Nicolas Baudouin. the text:
This series of screenshots illustrates a chapter of my research on post-photography and the possibility of taking photos without a camera. It is, of course, from the Google’s Street View platform, which allows you to navigate the streets of many major cities around the world using a map displayed on a computer screen and thus discover, like a stroller, those “decisive moments” systematically captured approximately every 20 meters by the 360° camera installed on the roof of a Google car. But the robot photographer doesn’t choose what it photographs, and it is therefore the “stroller” sitting in front of his/her screen who is responsible for composing images from these billions of dormant decisive moments.
Around the 2010s, Google offered retailers a special advertising service that allowed a 360° camera to enter their premises to photograph them, thus allowing Internet users to visit the premises without having to leave their home. These businesses were identified on the map by a colored dot.
This is how, over the course of several months, I built up this corpus of images, alternating between bird’s-eye views taken from the roof of the car driving by and more intimate views taken by a photographer inside the shops specifically for these advertisements. In both cases, it often happens that people passing by chance on the sidewalk or in the shops are photographed, and it is therefore to protect their identity that Google systematically “blur” their faces, thus transforming them into ghosts.
The 66-page book featuring 65 photos is self-published and can be browsed in its entirety by following the link https://www.blurb.fr/books/12400257-american-google-ghosts
It is available for purchase online through the same link or by contacting me directly through my website www.nicolasbaudouin.fr
