Our Footprint in Motion...

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A view from above, spanning the spectrum of space and time... Timelapse is an interactive video that lets you explore the world as a mosaic of growth and decay. In these examples, we can visualize the effects of urban sprawl, infrastructure, development, erosion, deforestation and glacial decline. It's a fascinating and mesmerizing animation that captures the dynamic surface of our planet.

Our footprint is one of growth and decay. Observing the scope of these recordings really brings to light the consequences (both good and bad) humanity projects onto our natural environment.

The Earth is a living, breathing canvas that we humans have held our paintbrush over for tens of thousands of years. Few (if any) living creatures have ever wielded that kind of strength over such a vast and storied composition. For that reason, human impact is so tragically difficult to visualize. Until this past generation, we have been unable to fully see the entirety of our footprint from above. Satellite imagery has drastically changed this. Images like these timelapses provide us with powerful windows into the reality of our work.

Timelapse is a project by Google Earth and Carnegie Mellon University CREATE Lab's Time Machine Library. Using the data mined from 5 separate satellites orbiting the Earth, this mapping project compiled 3.95 terapixel global images into over 25,000,000 overlapping multi-resolution video tiles.

This massive library of visual information spans just 32 years of human history, from 1984 to 2016. Though - with this tiny glimpse of human history from above - we can see how heavy handed we are.

Geo-Oculi

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New perspectives like those revealed through orbiting satellites are very exciting to see. They represent totally new windows into the world around us. Throughout history, there have been several jolts of technology that have opened up perspectives just like this one. Over the next few weeks I'll be writing about just a few of these various jolts and their impact on the built fabric around us.

Here's one of my favorite quotes by French artist Fernand Léger on the impact that the railroad car window had on 19th century Parisian art and culture...

“If pictorial expression has changed, it is because modern life has necessitated it. . . . The view through the door of the railroad car or the automobile windshield, in combination with speed, has altered the habitual look of things. A modern man registers a hundred times more sensory impressions than an eighteenth-century artist. . . . The compression of the modern picture, its variety, its breaking up of forms, are the result of all this.” – Fernand Léger, 1914

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