1,376 Cylindrical Industrial Buildings by Jenny Odell

Hi y'all. Jen's about to be Austin-bound, so it's Sara filling in. We'll take a virtual trip alongside her by satellite, Google satellite to be specific, courtesy of San Francisco-based artist, Jenny Odell.

As we fly over the grand swath of United States sprawling between New York and Texas, we'll spot several cylindrical industrial buildings, probably too many to count. But, as she did in her other ever-popular prints—195 Yachts, Barges, Cargo Lines, Tankers, and Other Ships, 144 Empty Parking Lots and 125 Swimming Pools—Jenny's arranged and tallied images she's scavenged while virtually zooming over the earth. This time she's culled towers, tanks and silos, neatly organizing them to form the image you see above (not to be confused with what you might see below, if we were, actually, airborne): 1,376 Cylindrical Industrial Buildings.

On seeing Jenny's prints in real life: they're stunning. And, depending on their scale, they change. Viewing a smaller print next to a larger one is a bit like scrolling in and out on a Google map—as you get closer, the images get bigger, and the pixels and bits of information making up the picture start to fall apart. The towers and silos (or ships or swimming pools) shimmer and blur, becoming more and more like the mirages they are: ephemera from a specific and brief but indeterminable period of time—copied and pasted (permanently recorded) by Jenny before being updated (and changed) by satellite, again, and again.

When talking about* her very-related-to-virtual-travel, Travel By Approximation and satellite series, Jenny notes that there's something satisfying and reassuring about fixing pieces of information in place, creating a stable world within one that's constantly changing. And, thanks to her, we're all along for the ride.

* Jenny's clip starts 13 minutes into the video.