Okay, there’s no cats in sight, but turns out the Dutch Government’s in the habit of pixellating the satellite’s gaze, slapping geometric patterns across sensitive GSV-scapes. Which is the say, the New Aesthetic-ularity just might have arrived
“The freedom promised by the scrollable world of Google Earth, like most everything else, has its limits. A satellite’s gaze is anything but objective; on the contrary, its biases are frequent and pronounced, as Mishka Henner’s “Dutch Landscapes” makes clear. When Google launched its free satellite-imagery service in 2005, governments scrambled to censor protected regions and domains considered too sensitive for public consumption. Naturally, reasons of national defense were stated, and the sanctioned landscapes were hidden under a cloak of visual tricks that included distortions of every kind, from pixelations and blurring to cloning and burning. Interestingly enough, the filters differed from country to country just as the objects of censorship varied from military bases and nuclear facilities to royal palaces and cultural centers.“ (via What’s Hiding Under Those Goofy Geometric Patterns? - Design - The Atlantic Cities)
