The saying goes that art is in the eye of the beholder. But what if the art is a man with 99 cell phones creating a traffic jam?
That’s just what Berlin artist Simon Weckert did on the mostly empty streets in Berlin. Google Maps gives us all a real-time traffic view via crowdsourcing — we all sign on for a level of location monitoring while using Google Maps. They track how fast our phones are going down roads in our cities… basically Google assumes that cell phones are there because they are with drivers inside cars!
Slow-moving phones = gridlock.
The Washington Post quotes him as saying, “People are trying to think about, and start to talk about, what does it mean to use those services in everyday life? And how they shape our everyday life and how, more generally, they shape our everyday society.” And it really does make you stop and wonder… we are all so dependent upon technology these days, is it possible we are overly dependent?
You can watch Weckert’s video below and be sure to sound off in the comments about this artist’s statement on technology.
Featured image via Unsplash | Denys Nevozhai
