Satellite Collections, Google Maps Collage Art by Jenny Odell

195 Yachts, Barges, Cargo Lines, Tankers and Other Ships

Artist Jenny Odell makes digital collages out of satellite imagery from Google Maps in her series “Satellite Collections.” Each collage focuses on a particular theme: stadiums, container ships, parking lots, and so on. Odell has a number of other Internet-themed projects on her site, including a virtual cross-country road trip.

In all of these prints, I collect things that I’ve cut out from Google Satellite View– parking lots, silos, landfills, waste ponds. The view from a satellite is not a human one, nor is it one we were ever really meant to see. But it is precisely from this inhuman point of view that we are able to read our own humanity, in all of its tiny, repetitive marks upon the face of the earth. From this view, the lines that make up basketball courts and the scattered blue rectangles of swimming pools become like hieroglyphs that say: people were here.