The Vine

Jon Rafman is a new-media artist and curator of Nine Eyes, a collection of photos culled from Google’s massive (and, to some, controversial and intrusive) Street View project. However you feel about the privacy issues, these raw images—in Rafman’s words, “unspoiled by the sensitivities or agendas of a human photographer”—are a fascinating, snapshot archive of our times.

Rafman’s full collection spans the comic and tragic, profound and prosaic, beautiful and bizarre. A handful of my favorites are below.

In a similar vein, from a different source, there’s also this charming and clever short video.

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^ Paved with good intentions.

^ Now that’s vernacular architecture.

^ Freeze this moment in time. They don’t get much better than this.

^ Not everyone appreciates the all-seeing eye.

^ Is anything photographed in Paris not romantic?

^ This one simultaneously lifts and breaks my heart. A makeshift, sidewalk residence decorated with a little girl’s dreams. Add walls and I could be looking at my daughter’s bedroom.

^ Party on, Wayne. Party on, Garth.