Google Carpet (image above) a ‘real’ space / ‘virtual’ space intervention by Robert Sollis was shown at The Great Exhibition 2007 Royal College of Art Summer Show which I popped up to London to see.

The work was actually located outside in Kensington Gardens by the exit to the show and I remember dashing past in the rain wondering why somebody had put carpet tiles on the grass where there was a signpost telling people not to walk on the grass. It was a shame but I think most people did the same as there seemed to be no blurb anywhere about it.

About a month later I stumbled across Robert’s website and read about the work, the emails he sent to Google about the exhibition and its relocation (the reason for the work) and subsequent attempt to correct Google Maps. Unfortunately Google Maps does not seem to have picked up the physical marker but the attempt and its documentation is worth a look.

Slightly older but along similar lines is Map (image above, video below) by Aram Bartholl.

The project “Map” questions the red markers of the location based search engine Google Maps.

The web interface of Google Maps uses small graphical icons to show location related search results on a map in an alphabetical order. On each new search ten red markers (A – J) known from the analogue world find their new position automatically within milliseconds. Interestingly each marker and even the speech bubbles with further information do cast a shadow on the map and satellite image. While zooming in the map the pixel size of the markers on the screen always stay at the same size…

Bartholl’s final constructed marker corresponds to the size of a marker in Google Maps at the maximum zoom of the map.

These works relate back to some thoughts I had a few years ago and an article I wrote about Google and art (Google and Art: A commercial / cultural new media art economy?). While that all related to intervening on Google the search engine to generate new online and screen based work (keeping it all in the ‘virtual’) these combine a progressive mix of ‘real’ disciplines (installation, sculpture etc.) with ‘virtual’ cultures discussing the reversing relationship between the two (how once the ‘real’ impacted the ‘virtual’ and now the return on the ‘real’).

For similar work see Hello World!.