Sunday, December 6, 2015

From a strange planet - 10

Road webcam fascination

The silent pictures of Scandinavian traffic-webcams have a strange fascination for me. My previous outpourings of webcam obsession are here: part 1part 2part 3part 4part 5part 6 part 7part 8 and part 9I've  used video, fiction, literary criticism, art, topography and surveillance technologies to think through this window on far-away places.

Hypothesis
These webcam images are a modern equivalent of romantic landscape painting. And it's good to study the details. The key to the meaning is in the details.

Details and events
Sometimes (rarely) things happen in these far-away places. The images are so static and devoid of human action that anything is enhanced, however small it is. Noticing even minor events is strangely satisfying. See also part 7 for more events.

Especially if it's something exotic like reindeer, and more reindeer. Far away and close by.
 
 
Or foxes (probably) or cats?
 
But also when it's relatively banal like buzzards and crows.
 
Or even broken road-sign flapping in the wind.
And a garbage bin, waiting for the garbage-truck at the side of the road.
And more garbage bins and luggage (this sounds like an Ed Ruscha book-title).
 
 Travelers and passengers.
 
 Sheep, sheep and more sheep.
  
 
 And more walkers.
 
See if you can spot some new events! 

Sources:
http://webkamera.vegvesen.no/kamera?id=100080
http://webkamera.vegvesen.no/kamera?id=100109
http://webkamera.vegvesen.no/kamera?id=110409
http://webkamera.vegvesen.no/kamera?id=110411
http://webkamera.vegvesen.no/kamera?id=110414
http://webkamera.vegvesen.no/kamera?id=112323
http://webkamera.vegvesen.no/kamera?id=791209
http://webkamera.vegvesen.no/kamera?id=832796

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