Jackson Pollock was our first satellite imaging device

Apple's download site is offering a free widget that displays satellite images from Environment Canada. The kinds of pictures that you can view with this widget or with Google Earth, put me in mind of the most intense experience I have ever had of a work of art.

It was October 2001 and I was in New York, at the Museum of Modern Art, to be exact. For some reason, I sat down on a bench in front of a Jackson Pollock painting--I don't recall the name of it. At first, as I looked at it, all I saw was a chaotic surface. Then, as I continued to look, the piece took on a depth, an infinite depth it seemed. At some point I had the sensation that the room had pivoted and that I was hovering over the painting, viewing it from space. The longer I looked, the more I felt drawn into its cavernous depths. Finally, I had to pull back, back to earth, to reality, to myself.

It would be absurd to say that Pollock “anticipated” Google Earth, but I don't think it is farfetched to think that he created something that appeals to a seemingly innate need people have to look at things from a different angle and to learn more about the world by putting it in a new context.

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