A Google Tree

‘A Google Tree’ is a joint proposal by Certain Measures, Clement Valla and Typico GmbH.

‘A Google Tree’ is a life-sized fabricated tree plucked from the ubiquitous software Google Earth. Not quite a replica, the tree is a copy of a copy-a physical experience created from an unreliable digital proxy. It represents a mechanized attempt to capture nature-namely a common tree species at risk for extinction. It also highlights the result of a highly automated process engineered by Google in which data and photographs are parsed and recombined to reflect back to us a navigable 3D world. While Google’s apparatus can deliver within seconds a planetary view of our everyday life, the resulting images often produce uncanny details. Deceivingly simplistic, these diagrammatic surfaces represent the mediation and labor of sophisticated machine vision processes that many of us are not aware of.