The Tijuana series consists of various Google map ‘street views’ shot from the turret of the Google Mobile as I randomly toured Tijuana via pin drops not long ago. It was a disheartening revelation that I felt could be turned spirited.
The pixel quality was so poor in this project that I used it as an advantage by enhancing the colors to magnifying the pixel squares. I populated each ‘documentation’ with my own characters and story, and in some ways, bringing joy to sorrow, hope to despair, reward to destitution. In a sense, pathetic - being someone hardly capable of weighing the breadth of the human condition in TJ from such a platform of advantage in California. But still, a heartfelt try. Everybody has a story, and so do places.
As a San Diego artist, I reach, but cannot grasp this great juxtaposition that is stationed literally at our back yard fence. I do find it a sobering testament - so easily available yet so purposefully avoided – that the notion of making art from such voyeuristic Google Street Map visits, fueled by a fascination over poverty and decay, a certain misery index for sure, could be unsettling. The comforts of the ‘other side’ frankly make such considerations moot, and an imposed obliviousness is the tallest wall in our border education. On the other hand, there is no reason to believe the inhabitants view it as such themselves, and likely have a similar outsider-in view of what it's like to have a life in American suburbia. There is only fifteen miles between the two metropolises, as the crow flies.
John Linthurst STUDIOVISTADELMAR, Oceanside Ca
Studio Vista Del Mar
Tijuana Street View.
John Linthurst - photographer/creator portfolio
write me at John@Studiovistadelmar.com.
The Tijuana Project was a completed the first weeks of January 2017. If I were to drive these streets myself, I could be assured; there may be intense moments of feeling completely lost and vulnerable. However, since each trip into the city was a virtual experience, riding in the self-operated turret of the Google Map Mobile, I could pick and chose the commands. And when I became boxed, I merely quit the location and returned to satellite. How disturbing.
On the ground is being completely intimate, and with over a dozen random pin drops, I found most these neighborhoods were in full decay….through the jaundiced eyes of a foreigner. So revealing. Such an artful journey, that I tried to share this exhibit with any takers who would let me set up, but failed. This page works when juxtaposed against the San Diego Cityscape Gallery One on this site – with the realization only fifteen miles separate the two metropolises….. As the crow flies.