Sad State of Affairs

It's a sad state of affairs when someone can sit at a computer and take photos of others people's work and it's even sadder when they get recognition for it!

Brian Carey
http://briancareyphotography.com/

Unconvinced

Michael wolf is a true great, one of my idols and influences and a real talented visionary. But I just don't feel any artistic connection to this work. I don't mind how artwork is produced in general and we all borrow ideas and influence from other aspects in life, but the fact that the work has derived from someone else's camera (however accidental it may be in this case) in my view is not something that excites me. I just don't feel a connection to it's production.

Used to be a good photographer!

I didn't like wolf's approach at all til i read this interview over there http://www.seconds2real.com/2011/02/07/interview-with-michael-wolf/ it shows that he used to be a good photographer before he started wokring for the art world.

NEW PATH

its very obvious that mr wolf is trying to find a new revenue stream in the art world as money dries up in the press world! good luck to him but has nothing to do with photography .

jon rafman

this guy did it better and earlier

http://9-eyes.com/

sorry this link says more

http://googlestreetviews.com/

Art?

Maybe it's performance art. I just can't get behind this as mention-worthy photography.

WRONG!

Sorry this work is WRONG.
If I buy a copy of Romeo and Juliet and copy word for work the text and then pass it off as my own work. of I take a video camera into a screening of The Kings speech and sell it as my own movie I would be stamped on by the full force of the law.
Google should sue this guy with out question.

If I copy the front page picture from the TImes tomorrow can I sell it as my own work?

What is Art?

My definition, folks, but to become art something needs to be 1. Authentic (not copied), 2. Fresh (creative), 3. Complete (ready to hang, display or sell in whatever medium) and 4. Risky: do something a bit provocative to your chosen subject to create discussion.

This guy is none of the above

Artist or photographer ????

Its very interesting reading the comments so far , but i think some points are overlooked ? Surely Mr Wolf is not implying that he is a PHOTOGRAPHER in the purest sense of the word - but rather an ARTIST , who uses the camera as a small part of his creative process - as an artist he observes and comments , and he uses what ever way/medium the world is presented to him ( google's street view ) . As creative people , we are always evolving and changing with the technology of the times we are in , adapting our intentions and processes accordingly . Go back in history and you will see groups who rejected the cropping of images in any way , and rejected darkroom manipulation of any sort etc - yet we now accept it in our work which we call "pure" - yet we now reject images that are altered digitally in any way ( a youth street boxing image that had a small area removed in photoshop - that didnt in any way change the message or meaning of the shot ) - how long will it be when this sort of "manipulation" will be accepted . SO Mr Wolf , if he is honest about his intent and message and doesn't claim "authorship" to the original work but rather to the concept of presenting the world SEEN , i don't think there is a problem . I think its part of visual evolution , and i think in years to come we will be embarrassed by some of our comments and reactions to this work . Lets face it , if he didn't present this work , someone else would have - because more than anything , these images have been brought into the public domain and im really glad they have - that are fantastic presentations of the WORLD WE LIVE IN . Thank You Mr Wolf for that .

Artist or photographer ????

Its very interesting reading the comments so far , but i think some points are overlooked ? Surely Mr Wolf is not implying that he is a PHOTOGRAPHER in the purest sense of the word - but rather an ARTIST , who uses the camera as a small part of his creative process - as an artist he observes and comments , and he uses what ever way/medium the world is presented to him ( google's street view ) . As creative people , we are always evolving and changing with the technology of the times we are in , adapting our intentions and processes accordingly . Go back in history and you will see groups who rejected the cropping of images in any way , and rejected darkroom manipulation of any sort etc - yet we now accept it in our work which we call "pure" - yet we now reject images that are altered digitally in any way ( a youth street boxing image that had a small area removed in photoshop - that didnt in any way change the message or meaning of the shot ) - how long will it be when this sort of "manipulation" will be accepted . SO Mr Wolf , if he is honest about his intent and message and doesn't claim "authorship" to the original work but rather to the concept of presenting the world SEEN , i don't think there is a problem . I think its part of visual evolution , and i think in years to come we will be embarrassed by some of our comments and reactions to this work . Lets face it , if he didn't present this work , someone else would have - because more than anything , these images have been brought into the public domain and im really glad they have - that are fantastic presentations of the WORLD WE LIVE IN . Thank You Mr Wolf for that .

Value Judgements

There are so many assumptions and problematic notions in some of these comments (its 'wrong' its 'not photography' etc). Well why not? It IS photography (.i.e taken with a camera - that's the only definition! ) SO what is 'right'? Pictorial cheesy pictures of sunsets and rivers? No offense, but we have moved on from 1947 and now we have to use whatever mechanism/strategy is available. The films you mention are all AUTHORED. Google is a mechanism. Its not an author. As for the definitions of what is art. Have any of the critics studied this to degree or masters level? Probably not. Gilles Peres pointed a camera at a TV execution during the 1979 Iranian revolution. He was commenting on the fact that he could not get access to these event so made the work about a westerner (french man) lost in Iran and unable to make work. Ironically the work produced was supurb and was a turning point in photojournalism and said more about that event and the photographers role in it (or not in it!) than any other piece of photojournalism that I have ever seen. The picture wasn't actually made by him it was made by a camera. What's the difference between that and Wolf's approach?. Its a rhetorical question, because there isn't any difference. My book shelf is full of Peress etc but there aren't any 'good' photographers who are 'right' according to popularist notions and definitions of what photography is - because there definitions are uninformed and outmoded. Sorry to upset people but embrace ideas and the lie that is photography.

Great work !!!

The guy just moved it to another level, he has inquisitive mind and great openness to what he's doing. Of course you don't have to accept it but then just go ahead and continue taking nice beautiful pictures. He's great photographer and also great artist. He proved both ways instead of only one. He's done something new and opened a dialog which is the way to move forward. These people who commented like "sad, wrong, etc." couldn't have done anything similar and new and if we ask them we would all have to shoot something nice and beautiful . This project is about an idea and concept and shows the freshness and ingenuity of his state of mind.

www.slaven.info

Astounding Idea

I find the outrage about this work very silly. By playing with the medium in this fashion, Wolf is doing something incredibly interesting: he is taking the most globally accepted norm of what it is to create a photograph (the actual physical use of a camera) and removing it from the equation.

As a result, we see other, less tangible elements of photography isolated and considered independently of the camera. The focus here is on composition and choice of subject.

People should be deriving inspiration from these images. If you consider the google street view van as the ultimate unthinking photographer, Wolf transforms these, literally, thoughtless snapshots into compelling social documents. This is a powerful way to highlight the core qualities of a true photographer.

Being a photographer is not about how expensive your kit is, it's about what story you choose to tell with an image. I can guarantee you I get one hundred times more enjoyment and inspiration out of these images than I do from a thousand identikit 20 megapixel country sunsets.

Finally, I find it insulting for people to class it as "art, not photography". It suggests that the two are mutually exclusive, which is insulting to both terms. Stop being so blinkered and look at what you can learn from images like this.

Complex discussion

Art/photography has always been in a state of flux. There are those that fall in with convention and those that test the boundaries and, in doing so, create progression, new ways of working and as importantly generate discussion. I personally feel Michael falls into the latter category. The work highlights a number of complex and multi layered issues. The 'sad state of affairs' is a two sided coin. On the one hand you have the discussion around Michael's strategy, on the other there is the interesting point that we have in our midst a company that has the finances/power and technology to actually carry out the street mapping exercise and, to a degree, claims our streets/vistas as their own....that's just for starters. Wheel in the fact that most, if not all, of the process was mechanised and we could be in for a long night :-)

Relevant work

Those of you who critique this work as not "crafted" photography are being shortsighted and missing the point. When photography was a new art, the painters complained that it was automated idiocy, lacking soul, push button art. We have since convinced the art world that this is not the case. Is it really the act of holding the camera that makes the photographer the artist? Is it the push of the button that makes the image ours? Any aerial photographer would surely argue over this point. What Wolf is saying, is that we are in such a constant state of surveillance that he can access any camera remotely and shoot from an office some distance away. If anyone should be able to grasp this concept, it should be you Brits. This is a brilliant project in conception and execution, and if a group of artists such as ourselves, that regularly uses 10 times the computing power of the Gemini space program to create a simple jpeg of our cat in a window can't grasp that photography IS technology, then we are a sad lot indeed.

street view material

The problem is that M. Wolf isn’t an honest person. When in a another interview he explains that « until then I haven’t been aware of anyone’s work – it was when I put my work up on my website that friends send me a few links, e.g. to Jon Rafman. » (http://www.seconds2real.com/2011/02/07/interview-with-michael-wolf/), it is hard to believe, because you can clearly see that he used images found by Jon Rafman and others. Have a close look at his FY serie and you will see that many of his images could be created because some did the job for him. Have a look at the following links : http://9-eyes.com/archive http://www.artfagcity.com/2009/08/12/img-mgmt-the-nine-eyes-of-google-street-view/ and look on which websites M. Wolf pointed his camera.

May be M. Wolf will need some more material for his future series, so let’s help him and recommend some fine links : http://dreamview.tumblr.com/ http://lafrecciaferma.wordpress.com/ http://buchr.tumblr.com/

M. Wolf is certainly an artist, but he’s a very lazy one.

Yawn

As photography, it's dull. As art, it's dull. Let natural selection take its course.