Virtual Globetrotting

After our class discussion I began to think about the ideas that media companies present to us about energy and the reality of what oil rigs look like and what people actually do on them.

It seems that in everyday life we are hidden from the realities of energy and their origins. In some ways, I feel that we take this for granted; especially when thinking about the idea of the object and all the processes oil has gone through in order to be part of materials such as plastics.

I found a website called virtual globetrotting, where people accumulate photos based on various topics; one of them oil rigs.

I also started becoming interested in the idea of maps and how the invention of the geological map completely changed the way we were able to detect possible oil.

Most of the oil rigs are fairly bad quality due to the fact many rigs are far out at see like this one near Norway.

However, I also found it really interesting to see this oil rig called the 'ocean america'. It really puts in perspective the scale of oil.

I then found a section under events called 'no longer there'

It is a collection of photographs that show objects, people, and architecture that have disappeared on bing maps or google earth. What interested me is the transitory nature of something like google earth and what happens to the old imagery as we keep updating it and the reasons behind this need for updating.

Here are some images which intrigued me:

A building affected by Hurricane Katrina before and after.

It makes you think about what happens to all the images that happened in the past - we are constantly updating our image of the world to its present state.

I then found a documentary from 1974 which shows the construction of an oil rig. It really was enlightening as it really closes the gap between oil and what is produced or fuelled by it.

http://ssa.nls.uk/film.cfm?fid=4209