Here today, gone tomorrow. The transient nature of street art means it can be at risk of being scrubbed out and lost forever to its legions of fans. But long after the paint has faded from the walls, technology can help preserve street art, so people can discover it wherever and whenever they like. In a new project launching today, we’ve partnered with street art experts to bring you 5,000+ images and around 100 exhibitions in the Google Art Project—telling a story of street art around the world.
Using Street View, you can also explore buildings with street art that are closed to the public, or that have already been demolished - such as the famed Paris 13 tower.
Explore all nine floors and 450 square meters of painted ceilings and walls of the now-demolished Tour Paris 13 building, immortalized with Street View.
Street art may be temporary on our walls and sidewalks, but its beauty and vibrancy live on, on the web. Take a look— you’re sure to be bowled over by the variety of the urban canvas.
Posted by Lucy Schwartz, Programme Manager, Google Cultural Institute & Julie Pottier, Marketing Manager, Google Cultural Institute
On the 70th day of the momentous D-Day Normandy landings, our Cultural Institute is launching two initiatives to commemorate: a G+ Hangout on Air with veterans and five new online exhibitions.
The Hangout with D-Day veterans will allow anybody, anywhere to hear direct from veterans on their D-Day experiences. It takes place live from the Caen War Memorial at 6 p.m. Central Europe time. French television journalist Gilles Bouleau will host and Caen Memorial historian Christophe Prime will lend his expertise. American, French and British veterans will participate. High school students from both the U.S. and France will join the discussion.
At the same time, we’re publishing online Normandy landings exhibitions from the Caen War Memorial and other Cultural Institute partners, including the U.K’s Imperial War Museum and Bletchley Park code breakers center, the George C Marshall Research Foundation and the US National Archives. The exhibitions include exciting, previously unshown video footage of the landing, letters from soldiers and the original assault plan. All told, 470 new documents and images are included.
Take some time to browse - and reflect on the sacrifices made to secure Europe’s freedom.
Posted by Sixtine Fabre, Associate Program Manager, Google Cultural Institute
Albrecht Dürer's masterpiece the Hare is a favourite Easter image, and today it serves as a model for chocolate bunnies. The Google Cultural Institute is celebrating this season by today releasing a gigapixel image of the Hare. Gigapixel images contain billions of pixels, that’s around 1,000 times more detailed than your average digital camera.
Albrecht Dürer: Hare, 1502,
The watercolor painting is extremely light sensitive -- so much so that the museum who owns it, the Albertina in Austria, only can show it to the public every few years. From now on, thanks to the Internet, everyone can experience the magic of Dürer's technique at the most incredible level of detail at any time.
Zoom to a detail on Google Art Project
Dürer painted the Hare in 1502, rendering the animal with an almost photographic accuracy that is extraordinary today as it was more than 500 years ago. It is the artist’s most famous study of nature and one of the finest in Western art. The hare’s fur spreads out in different directions and is spotted in light and dark patches. Dürer not only managed to create a detailed, almost scientific, study of the animal, but also used nuanced brushwork to paint the finest hairs of its coat, infusing the picture with warmth, light and life.
The animal’s watchful eyes, vibrating whiskers, and alert ears give the impression that the hare might hop out off the paper at any moment. An interesting detail to explore using the zoom feature is the the hare’s right eye which appears to reflect the interior of a room or form the shape of a cross. According to the Albertina curators, the image might be a reflection of the artist’s studio, or perhaps the Christian symbol of the cross which would lend religious significance to this image from nature. Take a look, and come up with your own ideas.
Posted by Simon Rein, Program Manager, Google Cultural Institute
Have you ever visited a city and wished that a local could share their insider secrets? Wouldn’t it be even better to be able to put on your headphones and listen to their advice while strolling? In France, together with Marseille radio journalist Julie de Muer, we’ve just launched a fascinating online experiment, called “Night Walk.”
Julie and several artists involved with local broadcaster Radio Grenouille created the project. Using her recording skills, Julie created “soundwalks”: audio tours that explain the history and hidden sights and sounds of the streets, with stories told by local inhabitants. Visitors just have to download a sound track and a Google Maps route from the Soundwalks website to travel in the steps of these unusual guides, through their stories and their sounds.
More than 40 soundwalks have been created and marked out on Google Maps. Since 2013, they have enabled more than 20,000 visitors to discover the southern French cities of Marseille, Aix-en-Provence, and Aubagne.
Creating the soundwalks has been quite a task. It has taken no less than four years of collective work exploring the cities, meeting new people, recording streets and sounds and putting together the interactive website.
Want to take a walk through the Marseille streets yourself? It's simple: follow an evening soundwalk around Marseille’s Cours Julien, with local musician Christophe Perruchi guiding you as you walk. See a graffiti artist at work. Listen to a jazz jam in one of the neighborhood’s bars, find the 35 “secrets” hidden in the neighborhood, discover a fire-eater or the city’s most surprising garage entrance…and enjoy!
Posted by Chloe Broughton, Product Marketing Manager, Paris
Some documents are drilled deep into the fibre of country’s identity, but few citizens actually get to see the originals. In the Netherlands, the 1814 Constitution turned the country into a constitutional monarch and is considered to be the basis of the country’s modern government. Now, partnering with Dutch National Archive and the National Committee for the Kingdom's Bicentenary, we are making the original available to the public in a new Google Cultural Institute exhibition on the Bicentenary of the Dutch Constitution.
The Dutch constitution is only the latest part of our wide Constitute project, providing searchable access to 187 constitutions, ranging from the Afghanistan to Zambia. Tagged passages of each constitution with a topic — “right to privacy” or “equality regardless of gender” — allow users to find relevant excerpts on a particular subject. Want to view results for a specific region or time period? You can limit your search by country or by date using the buttons under the search bar.
The new Dutch exhibition marks the 200th anniversary of the Dutch Constitution, making it one of the oldest constitutions still in existence, second only to the American Constitution. The National Committee for the Kingdom's Bicentenary marked this exceptional and festive anniversary as the perfect occasion to organise its second national event, the Constitution Festival.
In addition to the Dutch Constitution, the exhibition includes eight other important documents, ranging from the 1839 Treaty of London separating the Netherlands and Belgium to the 1854 Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Posted by Mark Jansen, Head of Communications, Google Benelux
For the first time, the Google Cultural Institute has been given ‘access all areas’ to one of the world’s most famous Opera Houses: the Palais Garnier in Paris, the setting for The Phantom of the Opera.
Our indoor Street View images feature exquisite detail and allow anyone in the world to tour 11 floors (and 3.7km!) of the Palais Garnier. You can now experience virtually what it’s like to be on stage, backstage, in the rehearsal rooms, the costume room, a hidden lake or even on the roof of the Opéra building, overlooking Paris’ skyline!
In our second installment from the Paris Opéra House, we bring you what we think might be the world's first multi-billion pixel image of a ceiling - it's certainly the first one to be captured by our team!
Marc Chagall’s masterpiece in the Opéra Garnier in Paris sits 18 meters above the auditorium seating, with specific light conditions and a concave shape, making it one of our biggest technical challenges to date.
In his riotously colourful modernist work, Chagall pays tribute to the composers Mozart, Wagner, Mussorgsky, Berlioz and Ravel, as well as to famous actors and dancers. And if you look carefully you might even be able to spot famous characters such as Carmen, or the discreet signature of the artist, 18 metres from the ground.
Finally, the Opéra has produced an online exhibition called Le Chemin des Etoiles, with portrait photos and information about more than 80 of its star dancers over the last 74 years.
Posted by Sixtine Fabre, Program Manager, Google Cultural Institute
Think “Saudi Arabia,” and one thing probably comes to mind - oil. But the desert kingdom is also remarkable for another reason - its love of YouTube. In 2013, the average Saudi Internet user watched three times as many videos per day as the average U.S. user. Saudis aren’t just watching: more and more are producing video content and building businesses.
These successful Saudi YouTube content creators recently gathered for a seminar in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. In the course of a day, they compared their experiences, learned how to create viral Arabic language videos and received tips on how to make money with their online shows.
No cinemas exist in Saudi Arabia, explaining part of the online video phenomena. The Internet allows room to tackle issues often avoided by foreign run TV stations - and permits satire in a way unavailable elsewhere in the Kingdom. A recent hit by UTURN spoofed the popular “First Kiss” video, showing various men performing the locally traditional “touching of the nose” embrace in a humorous manner.
“Eish Elly” has won more than two million subscribers and more than 200 million views by discussing, and often poking fun at everyday life in the Kingdom. One show, for example, tackled the issue of child care. As the show’s producer says, “we promote harmony, honesty and halal,” discussing issues that “only a Saudi would understand only something a Saudi would talk about.”
Other YouTube Saudi productions tackle issues previously neglected in the local media. UTURN runs a show called Salemha which teaches English by using clips from popular Hollywood movies. Noon Al Niswa and SenTube focuses health and fitness. Ana wa Heya (Him and Her), pits men against women to debate social issues of Saudi culture. Stretching the boundaries of the possible sometimes provokes surprising reaction, When UTurn put a woman on air for the first time, for example, many viewers responded with curses.
As elsewhere, light entertainment including music and games are popular. Saudi video gaming channels such as D7oomy999, Saudi Gamer and Zpad receive widespread attention not just in the Middle East. Music also can contain a serious message: TELFAZ11’s Alaa Wardi’s “No Women No Drive” song, chanted in an acapella version mixing Arabic and Western musical styles, raised awareness about Saudi women fighting for the right to drive.
The Saudi YouTube phenoma is creating a strong new businesses thanks to our online partnership program. UTURN has garned 14 million subscribers for its shows. It sells advertisements and splits the revenue with YouTube. Additional revenues come from multinationals such as Unilever who sponsoring shows and paying for product placement.
Arabic content on the web represents just three percent of the total digital content online—yet Arabic speakers make up more than 5 percent of the global population. YouTube in Saudi Arabia is helping close this gap—helping local talents get discovered, express their opinions and start their own businesses. In Saudi Arabia, the Internet is moving the country far beyond oil.
Posted by Haisam Yehia, Head of YouTube Online Partnership Program, Dubai
The Belgian city of Mons becomes a European capital of culture next year, ushering in 12 months of festivities. One of Google’s two major European data centers is located just down the road from the city, making us a major local investor and employer. It is only natural that we want to help put some sparkle into the city’s ambitious capital of culture plans.
At today’s press conference launch of the Mons 2015 program, we launched something special and sparkling - new Indoor Street View images. Street View cars and trikes captured new imagery of some of Mons’s most famous buildings - both their exteriors - and for the first time, their interiors. These include the splendid Grand Place, including the inside of the the City Hall, the Collégiale Sainte Waudru, and the BAM art museum.
Mons is an architectural treasure. The canonesses of the Sainte Waudru religious community began their first church in 1450 and the Brabant Gothic style church remains of the most beautiful buildings in Mons. Inside, the exceptional Treasure of Sainte Waudru houses a precious collection of gold and remarkable 16th-century alabaster statues from the artist and Mons resident Jacques du Broeucq.
The historic city centre is dominated by the Grand Place and its remarkable City Hall. Commissioned by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, famed architect Matthijs de Layens designed the imposing edifice.
Throughout the coming year and a half, we’ll continue to support the Mons 2015 adventure, in particular by working with our longtime partners, the Mundaneum archive. More than a century ago, two visionary Belgians envisioned the World Wide Web’s architecture of hyperlinks and indexation of information, not on computers, but on paper cards. Their creation was called the Mundaneum.
The Mundaneum plans an exciting “Mapping Knowledge” exhibition. Together, we are bringing high-level speakers to the city to explore Internet issues. Our own chief Internet evangelist and “father of the Internet” Vint Cerf recently visited and presented his vision of the future to a packed audience at the city’s 600 seat Manege Theater. Mons’ time on the big stage of European culture promises many more exciting events.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Community Relations, Europe
Today we’re celebrating a series of "firsts" at our Cultural Institute - our first Nigerian partner, our first Pakistani partner, and our first Native American partner.
Nigeria's Pan-Atlantic University is presenting its collection of rare historical documents and photographs that tell the story of Nigeria’s formation as a colony. A second exhibition documents through rare photographs Lagos's transformation from a cosmopolitan colonial trading center to West Africa’s largest metropolis.
Colonial Lagos
Modern Lagos
Our first partner from Pakistan is the Citizen’s Archive. Its exhibit documents the emergence of new media after the country’s independence in 1948. During this period, traditional art forms were revived on radio and television, with series that addressed issues such as the role of women.
Pakistani TV medical drama from the 1980s
Mashantucket Pequot Museum's collection encompasses 20,000 years of Native American history. Its eye-opening exhibition on Neetôpáwees (pronounced nee-top-a-wees) means “Little Friends” in the Mohegan-Pequot language.
In the exhibition, we discover dolls from the past 125 years, and their myriad uses: as medicine dolls, possessing healing and protective powers, important tokens of exchange and respect between Northeastern Native American tribes, and interactive, educational toys. The dolls’ stories and meanings are as varied as their origins, design, and materials.
Two Indian dolls on exhibit
Posted by Lauren Nemroff, Program Manager, Google Cultural Institute
More than a millenium before the birth of the European Union, a style of architecture and art spread across the continent. It was called Romanesque and it emerged almost simultaneously in Spain, France, Italy, and Germany with sufficient unity to be considered Europe’s first common international art style.
Celebrating this achievement, our Cultural Institute just has launched launch a new, virtual exhibition, called “Origins of Romanesque: the Birth of Europe.” Curated by the Santa María la Real Foundation, it presents 26 iconic expressions of Romanesque beauty, explaining their social, political and cultural context. More than 100 guests attended the launch event in Madrid, featuring the president of the Foundation, José María Perez Peridis and the President of National Heritage as speakers.
Monestaries and abbeys led the way in spreading Romanesque constructions. In Spain, Romanesque cathedrals, churches, monasteries, cloisters and chapels mark the famed Camino de Santiago pilgrammage route.
Elsewhere in Europe, abbeys in Fulda,Lorsch, St. Gallen and Bobbio arose in the 11th century and became beacons for the new style, as did Europe’s first universities, beginning with Bologna in 1088.
Beside exploring Romanesque buildings, the new online exhibition includes drawings, photographs, films and video about Romanesque Europe.
We hope this present exhibition is only the first of a series, exploring other a series of exhibitions on life and art in Europe from Roman to modern times. Our goal is help everyone learn about and enjoy the beauties from the past.
Posted by Barbara Navarro, Director of Institutional Relations and Public Affairs Google
