So far and yet so close (2014)

“So far and yet so close” (Faraway, So Close) presents a series of portraits captured on Google Maps, using a software feature that allows you to see, side by side, a view of exactly the same point both in Street View and from the Satellite. The people I meet are <away> from me because they are on the other side of the world, and because they are seen from kilometers away from the eye of the satellite, they are <close> to me because I can look them in the eyes in the photo from street level. They are shot while they realize to be seen, and in somehow they look at us.

from “Internet Drones” – group show curated by Kamillia Kart
“In the printed work So far and yet So Close (2014 – ongoing) by Marco Cadioli, people pictured in remote corners of the world by the lenses of Google Earth car are compared with the images of Google Earth satellite, where the gaze of the satellite becomes the obscured expression of the people that are inadvertently framed by Google’s cameras. The artist introduces for the first time the human element in one of his works, picturing a “drone ethnography”, a different way of staring and look at the world constantly mediated by devices and algorithms. ”

all the shots here: http://sofarandyetsoclose.tumblr.com/