Here is the invitation to my new exhibition Gooog opening on Wednesday at Tacit gallery, 312 Johnston St Abbotsford.

The work is derived from Google Earth images of highways and cities. This is the statement I sent the gallery:

Google Earth is a vast mapping and surveillance project. When combined with Google Street View, it is the most ambitious photography project in history.

This exhibition is part of my ongoing exploration of the limits of photographic representation. What interests me is not how Google Earth renders the planet’s surface accurately but how it abstracts it.

Through a simple mirroring process, the endless twisting and looping highways that criss-cross the planet become beautiful decorative designs, like tapestries or Persian carpets.

In a related project, Google’s overhead viewpoint renders some of the world’s tallest buildings as toylike, their immense structures consumed in a pattern of crystalline pixels.

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