Jenny Odell - Satellite Collections & Signs of Life

Jenny Odell was the first Google Maps artist I cae across when doing this project and admittedly I didn't really feel towards her work in the beginning. It was only at a much later date in my project that I came across her again and decided to put my mind aside and learn a bit about her work. Just from looking at these images you can see how much time and dedication has been put into the whole series!

Signs of Life, 2012
These images are mainly concentrated on structures of business and advertising all cropped out of their surroundings and placed on a blank background with other fellow signs. I felt that she aimed to prove how the structure can be easily overlooked and the only thing that gets any notice is of course the advert, that is until it is peeled away and the next one is in place. These adverts could be placed on any street, sidewalk, building, cows behind.. you name it and yet the first thing that will click in the human mind is what the sign is representing, for example the MacDonald's trademark 'M' or the Shell symbol for the Shell gas station groups.

Satellite Collections, 2009-2011
Theses are all prints that Odell herself has collected and cut out from Google Satellite View. I read somewhere that she stated the satellite view Google now provides us with is one which we were never ment to see. She continues "But it is precisely fro 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" she says they mark our having been here and I can't say I disagree with her.

Only after reading Odell's own explanations of her work did it completely click with me and then I began to enjoy it and see it in a whole new light!

Here are just a small few of her works;