That’s where Mural Locator comes in. This database of murals aims to pinpoint the massive, colorful pieces of art in all their glory. Murals are submitted by users of the site, who just need to add the location, a short description and a picture.
There are similar sites out there, notably the more Europe-centric streetartlocator.com – but none that focus on such a specific type of art.
Mashing up murals
As you’d expect, the murals listed on Mural Locator are shown on a Google Maps mashup. Although you can zoom in on areas that interest you, there’s no way to search the map, which might become a problem once the number of murals increases.
And that’s the thing – at the moment, of the 500 or so murals listed, over 300 are spread across just a few major US cities. There are fewer than 20 in Central and South America, about 60 in Europe, and just a few dotted across South Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
Still, although numbers outside the US are low at present, there’s a pleasing diversity to the locations covered. For instance, there’s only a single African mural, but at least it’s there. And with every continent barring Antarctica covered, this could become a truly global resource for mural hunters.
Heaven for muralophiles?
Some of the benefits of this cool tool are immediately obvious. If you’re a mural enthusiast (A muralophile? A muralista?), you can look up murals in minutes. You could easily plan a walking tour of New York or San Francisco with the site.
In fact, Mural Locator is a site you should file in your bookmarks, right next to Graffiti Archaeology, another innovative tool which shows how graffiti has changed over time. After all, outdoor art is shaped by the weather. It can be blasted away or painted over at the whim of properly owners. And other street artists may make their own additions and changes.
More for the Mural Locator
There are lots of of exciting possibilities for Mural Locator. How about an augmented reality app for your iPhone which shows you how the mural in front of you has changed over time? A Google Street View tool to show you how a particular mural would look on the site of your own house?
Wherever the site’s creators decide to take it, the connection to the physical world around us should continue to make Mural Locator so interesting. It remains relevant, even when you’ve closed your browser and shut down your computer. So much so that even if you’re just a casual visitor to the site, you’ll soon be paying more attention to what’s around you.
Go on – why not head on over and upload the location of a mural in your home town or city?
June 21st, 2012 by Kris in
Architecture, Community, Geo-Location