Chinese People in Google Street View谷歌街景里的中国人

Chinese People in Google Street View is based on images found in Google Street View across China. These scenes were not all produced through a standardised official mapping process. A significant number were uploaded by users, which allowed many places beyond regular roads and vehicle routes to be recorded: fields, village lanes, temples, peri-urban zones, and other everyday spaces with little conventional touristic value.

From these dispersed street-view images, I extract figures, scenes, and details, then reorganise them into a broader image of China. The people in these pictures are often unaware that they have entered a global mapping system. They stand in front of houses, walk along rural paths, remain beside temples, or simply pass by the camera by chance. It is precisely these unintentional appearances that transform street view from a tool of geographic information into an informal record of everyday life.

Unlike photojournalism or documentary photography, street-view imagery usually lacks a clear authorial intention or central event. It is made for navigation, location, and spatial recognition, yet it inadvertently preserves how ordinary people inhabit the world. By cropping and rearranging these images, I try to assemble a more layered and complex picture of China from a vast and fragmented digital archive.

The work considers how digital mapping records reality, and how people and places are incidentally absorbed into that system. What originally appears as background information becomes, through renewed attention, an important clue to understanding society, space, and everyday experience.

《谷歌街景里的中国人》取材于谷歌街景中的中国图像。这些画面并不完全来自标准化的官方街景拍摄，其中相当一部分由用户自行上传。正因如此，除了城市道路和常规交通路线之外，一些车辆难以进入的地方也被保留了下来：田间地头、村庄小路、佛堂寺庙、城乡结合部，以及大量缺乏明确旅游价值的日常空间。

我从这些分散的街景图像中截取人物、场景与细节，重新组织成一组关于“中国面貌”的图像。画面中的人们往往并不知道自己进入了一个全球地图系统：他们站在门前、走在乡间、停留在庙宇旁，或只是偶然经过镜头。正是这些无意留下的身体和场景，使街景不再只是地理信息的补充，而成为一种关于日常生活的非正式记录。

与新闻摄影或纪实摄影不同，街景图像通常缺少明确的作者意图与事件中心。它们服务于导航、定位和空间识别，却在无意中保存了大量普通人的存在方式。我通过截取和重新排列这些图像，试图从庞杂、零散的数字资料中拼出一个更复杂、更具层次的中国图景。

这件作品关注数字地图如何记录现实，也关注被地图系统偶然纳入的人与地方。那些原本只是背景的信息，在重新观看之后，成为理解社会、空间与日常经验的重要线索。