Thanks to technology, a picture doesn’t have to be a snapshot. Panoramic features on cameras let you fit more of the scene in a single frame, and Google Street View goes one step further, often making you feel as if you’re there, complete with the ability to look up, down, and all around.
One artist is bringing this immersive, 360° feel to paintings. Working with the Google Maps API, Raul Moyado Sandoval is creating interactive other worlds, similar to that of a Google Street View scene, but with brushstrokes and paint rather than giant backpack-mounted lenses.
“By using Google Maps technology It is possible to expand the dimensional limits of traditional painting, by inserting a pictographic reality into a new virtual platform that goes beyond the sites captured photographically by Google,” writes Sandoval on his website. He also includes a brief description of how he actually goes about making the artworks.
With an iPad version on the way (which will use the device’s motion sensors to automatically move the canvas), Sandoval has thoroughly combined his childhood passions of art and technology.
In an interview with Mexico’s National Council for Culture and the Arts, Sandoval says “painting has always been a powerful tool to represent imaginary worlds and spaces under its own aesthetic and personal recognition. Google Street View is making everyone register through photography. I’m making a record of my inner world through painting.” (Spanish translation by Google.)
Explore Sandoval’s interactive painting here