Developed by the Pittsburgh-based artists Ben Kinsley and Robin Hewlett to address the issue of surveillance, the project Street With A View has become an integral part of the Google image archive. Together with the inhabitants of Sampsonia Way in Pittsburgh, the two artists staged collective performances and actions in May 2008 when the Google Car drove through the neighbourhood: a 17th-century sword fight, a gig by a garage band and a big parade with a brass band and majorettes. These actions now form part of the digital maps of Sampsonia Way made available by Google Maps and can therefore be seen on the Internet.
The Street With A View is an ironic comment by the two young artists on the idea of access to reality through mass-media images. Users of Google Maps can have the impression that they have seen (and therefore know) the streets of Paris, New York or Pittsburgh without ever having set foot there. With their series of collective performances and actions, Kinsley and Hewlett create an analogy between their carefully planned and coordinated artistic events and the equally fictitious reality presented by Google. As images cannot replace direct, physical experience, they always constitute a reconstruction, if not indeed manipulation, of the real world, but one that we are led to regard as real in today’s media-driven society. According to Paul Virilio, the representation of reality in an image then becomes a reality in turn, but of lower degree. The image has replaced the word, thus creating a visual truth that has become the contemporary language most used and of most importance in the globalized world.

Robin Hewlett & Ben Kinsley (USA, 1980; USA, 1981)

The online Street View service of Google Maps has offered three-dimensional digital maps making it possible to take “virtual walks” in the centres of various cities throughout the world for about three years now. These are based on photographic material from a panoramic camera attached to the roof of a vehicle actually driven at slow speeds through the city streets. The footage is then assembled to create a visual representation of the city that can be used interactively. The service has given rise to heated discussions about the right to privacy and the reproduction of the images, both of individuals and of entire neighbourhoods. It has been seen as a further step towards the total surveillance of cities and citizens.