No murals, no Google!

The Data center Mural Project

by Valentina Ieva
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Four muralists, Jenny Odell, Oli-B, Fuchsia Macaree, Gary Kelley, reimagine the facades of Google Data Centers!

 

This is the project

 

"Whether it’s sharing photos, searching the web, or translating languages, billions of requests are sent to ‘the cloud’ every day. But few people know all this information flows through physical locations, called data centers. Because these buildings typically aren’t much to look at, people usually don’t, and rarely learn about the incredible structures and people who make so much of modern life possible.

To begin to change that, we created the Data Center Mural Project: a partnership with artists to bring a bit of the magic from the inside of our data centers to the outside.

Eventually, we hope to bring the project to more locations around the world. Check back for updates along the way" (Joe Kava, VP Google Data Centers).

 

Oklahoma is a vital home to this data center, which serves large portions of the West and Midwestern regions of the United States. On its wall, digital artist Jenny Odell has created collages made up of imagery collected from Google Maps. Each focuses on a different type of infrastructure found in our world today.

Jenny searches satellite images for man-made objects, like circular farms, and cuts them out with her stylus to create abstract collages.

Up close, the details and intricate shading of each image is visible. From afar, it’s the bird’s-eye view that can only be seen in a plane.

Jenny Odell is a digital artist who uses Google Maps satellite imagery to create abstract collages. Those images make their way to her artwork Mayes County through data centers.

 

 

This Belgium-based data center facility serves Google users spanning Western Europe, as well as other locations around the world. Local street artist Oli-B has painted its walls with an abstract interpretation of ‘the cloud,’ consisting of elements specific to the community, data center site and its employees.

Street artists, like Oli-B, are used to big canvases, but in this case, it took a team with paintbrushes, rollers and many cans of paint to finish this wall. 

It may start with a sketch by Oli-B, but it takes a team to transform the Google data center in St. Ghislain into a vibrant mural.

 

 

The St. Ghislain, Belgium data center wall goes from a blank canvas to a colorful mural by Oli-B in this timelapse video.

 

 

Dublin mural by Fuchsia Macaree and Council Bluffs by Gary Kelley are coming soon. Stay Tuned!

 

All images courtesy: google.com

datacentermurals.withgoogle.com

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    • Valentina Ieva

      Valentina Ieva

      Architect

      Bari / Italy

      Laureata in Ingegneria edile-architettura, giornalista per professione, web writer per diletto. Amante di architettura, design, fotografia e libri di carta. Dipendente dai social, Instagram e InstaStories su tutti. Affamata di vita, viaggi e storie da scoprire. Qualunque forma d'arte mi affascina da sempre e non posso pensare una vita senza: emozioni forti, immaginazione, buona musica, cucina pugliese, sole e gatti. Per dirla con le parole di Battiato, non potrei vivere senza: ‘un soffio al)