Here I am in Slidell Louisiana. It is seven in the morning and beams of sun are crawling across the folds in my Motel 6 duvet like over-anxious children on Christmas morn. I rose bright eyed and bushy tailed, even skipping the complimentary breakfast buffet which would, under normal circumstances, be a nearly unpardonable sin.
I was so eager that morning not so much in anticipation of the beignets at Cafe Du Monde, the muffulettas at Central Grocery, or the Po' Boys at Domilise's, though being a big fan of food I was excited about all those things as well. What I really wanted was to see Pontchartrain Drive as I had seen it a few weeks prior, on my 17" computer screen. Would it be as breathtaking as I imagined it would be?
The truth is that it was almost exactly how I expected it to be. So much so, in fact, that when I stood along the roadside taking pictures (on a spot I had scouted in Google no less), I had a very profound sense of deja vu. I am revisiting this place. The smells, the feel of the wind, the glint of the sun on those corrugated steel pieces of scrap along the dock, yes, this is all terribly familiar. And why is that? Is Google Street View just that good?
No. Google Street View is just that mediocre (visually speaking). A virtual drive through Street View is banal the way week-old memories of a car window view are banal. In sum, it gets it just right. Those pixelated, blurry at top and bottom images foster that same "I need to get the hell out of this car" feeling that would otherwise only come with cramped legs, a sweaty backside, and a Mike and Ike + Twizzlers + Corn Nuts + Cherry Coke induced stomach rot. Sweet and terrible wander lust!
This afternoon I decided I'd put Street View to a little test and bike the Tour de France from my office chair (Lance Armstrong-like, I alternate the ass muscles I use for sitting, thus allowing unprecedented output). I didn't get very far. Actually, I got distracted really quickly and ended up jumping all over France and Italy. Anyway, here are the results.
Incidentally, about a year ago I discovered this on Google Earth a bit south of Australia. I'm not a very spiritual person, but the image moved me. I will be damned if that isn't a hand (inlet) cradling a human heart (island).
Beyond being extremely neat and quasi-supernatural, the capability to be the panopticon you love so well has profound implications. Of course there are privacy and surveillance issues at stake. More philosophical questions also emerge such as "what does it mean to live in a world where the distinction between public and private (or, the very idea that there is a distinction at all) is being eroded at the molecular level?" What happens when we are gigapanning and recording and surveying every inch of visible space in real-time 24/7? DVRs and increasingly sophisticated data storage and capture devices make us more demanding consumers and different kinds of social beings. How far will this "frenzy of the visible," this will-to-knowledge take us? Reversal is not possible, or even desirable, but I wonder what sorts of questions we need to be asking ourselves, as individuals, to prepare us for this brave new world?
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