Thisisnotaglitch algorithms and anomalies in google architecture

Abstract

Big Data is increasingly deployed for the capturing, mapping, and analysis of the built environment. These layers of information are used to produce highly convincing representations of the built environment. This paper explores how these processes, specifically those deployed by Google Earth, are used to translate data into simulated environments with the goal of better understanding how designers might begin to produce physical constructs that provide resistance to accurate image capture and simulation. We first provide some examples of ways in which artists and designers have been approaching similar processes of image aggregation to produce new kinds of images that flatten time and hide formal specificity, then describe the processes by which one particular image aggregation engine (Google Earth) produces simulated three-dimensional environments. Finally, we present a case study in which we developed a strategy for interfering with these processes through the production reverse engineered physical prototypes.