Friday, November 20, 2015

From a strange planet - 9

Road webcam fascination

The silent pictures of Scandinavian traffic-webcams have a strange fascination for me. My previous outpourings of webcam obsession are here: part 1part 2part 3part 4part 5part 6 part 7part 8I've  used video, fiction, literary criticism, art, forensic science and surveillance technologies to think through this window on far-away places.

Long term changes - longitudinal analysis
Because I've followed the webcams since 2013 I'm able to compare before- and after images and I'm able to notice both sudden and gradual changes. This time-wasting activity is strangely relaxing and satisfying. Maybe other people feel this when solving Sudoku puzzles.

Privacy enhancements
Some camera views have been obscured. I cannot look into some gardens anymore and cannot watch people stepping into the bus. Instead I see a nice Malewich-like abstract landscape intervention. This has its own charm.
And just for fun I searched the camera on StreetView, to get another view of the scene. Would I recognize the scene if I saw it from the non-camera viewpoint?
Who did it - not me!
I wonder if this privacy enhancement was a spontaneous action of the Norwegian road authority (Vegvesen) or if someone complained about invasion of privacy. Maybe they saw my weblog? (Wish I was so popular!)
And again a view of the camera for this scene, with the camera and a much more primitive shelter. And a Google camera that photographed it's own shadow while photographing a camera:
Tree cutting
And sometimes trees are cleared, revealing a deeper and wider view of the (non-) landscape. It was this tree that first drew my attention to this place. Now it's gone. And tire-tracks disappear spontaneously without human intervention.
And again I found the camera. Looking on Streetview I saw that this road runs along a fjord, I've been loking at this scene a whole year long and I never suspected it. And the box on the right is not for selling stuff, it's just a garbage bin.
Three minor changes. Otherwise nothing much changes in these far-away places.

Hello world!
Is there anyone reading this blog who lives near these places? Then we could do a live performance. (But I fear no one from Norway reads this blog. If  you do ... contact me at urbanadventure at xs4all dot nl.)

Sources:
http://webkamera.vegvesen.no/kamera?id=110414 + StreetView
http://webkamera.vegvesen.no/kamera?id=112323 + StreetView
http://webkamera.vegvesen.no/kamera?id=100080 + StreetView

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