In 2007 Google sent out an army of hybrid electric automobiles, each one bearing nine cameras on a single pole. Armed with a GPS and three laser range scanners, this fleet of cars began an endless quest to photograph every highway and byway in the free world.

A year after Google Street View was launched, Montreal-based artist Jon Rafman started collecting screen captures from the site - accidents and incidents never intended for public consumption, as well as moments reminiscent of the photographic styles of real photographers. The result is his ongoing series The Nine Eyes of Google Street View, part of which will be shown for the first time in the UK at the Saatchi Gallery.

 With its supposedly neutral gaze, the Street View photography had a spontaneous quality unspoiled by the sensitivities or agendas of a human photographer... capturing fragments of reality stripped of all cultural intentions. - Jon Rafman