GeoGOOOOOO - Icons on maps

Icons dominate the modern maps completely and with the comic style Google simplifications of symbols our ives have become very ordinary. There are currently some 166 Google standard symbols available in Google Earth and 91 in Google Maps. Of course there are projects to symbolise our worlds, where you an find replacements and additional material for Google Earth and Maps.


Image taken from Google Earth / Set of icons preinstalled with the software.

This domination of everyday live orientation has lead to some surprising and funny projects and reactions. One was the real world Google Maps location marker and now one that I just found as an online project by the artist collective Jodi.
'Jodi, or jodi.org, is the duo of the artists Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans. They started creating artworks for the Web, later they also turned to software art and artistic computer game modification. Now, they have been in what has been called their "Screen Grab" period, making video works by recording the computer monitor's output while working, playing video games, or coding.'
Their website globalmove.us is a portal to the wold of mapping with Google Maps and Google Earth, a spinning, twirling and hopping approach. If previously the icons made you feel ridiculous this is heaven. It is a very fascinating visualisation?animation using web based mapping tools , on the other hand it is quite annoying and without context that one could start making sense of what is going on on the screen. In the end it really shows how these tools manipulated our daily experience. I like it.


Image taken from globalmove.us / A animated drawing on Google Maps on random locations. Click the image for the animated version.

The work I like best really are the rotating circle locations on Google Earth this definitely makes you feel dizzy after a while!


Image taken from globalmove.us / A map connecting and circling round structures in Brussels on the map. click image for the animated version. Click HERE for additional cities.