Aram Bartholl’s (who I profiled for Gizmodo a while back) latest project “Map” converts the Google map markers into physical objects that can be moved around public spaces. Bartholl plays with the idea of relative positioning and size of the markers in physical space. From his description: “Interestingly each marker and even the speech bubbles with further information do cast a shadow on the map and satellite image. While zooming in the map the pixel size of the markers on the screen always stay at the same size. But if their size is seen in relation to their environment they shrink while the user does zoom in the map. This effect corresponds exactly to the phenomenon of Mr. Turtur, the illusionary giant of the children fantasy novel “Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver“ written by Michael Ende. The size of the rebuilt red Marker in reality corresponds to the size of a marker in the web interface in max zoom factor of the map.” Pretty nice hack which reminds me a bit of Argentinian artist Julian Gallo’s Real Google Maps pics which take a low tech approach to Google maps in these photos.