In 2008, an image of Carlo Zanni walking his dog appeared on the Google Street View of the street on which he lives. Zanni turned the surreptitiously captured image into a "self portrait" of our time, taken by an always watching camera eye without the subject's consent and available for everyone to see as part of an online map. In its exploration of time and space, the image brings to mind the futurist artist Giacomo Balla's painting Dynamism of a Dog on a Leash (1912). In late 2012 Zanni's self portrait vanished from Google Street View, and all that remains now is an empty street, highlighting the time-based and ungovernable quality of online self-representation.
(Christiane Paul, label of the installation for THE PUBLIC PRIVATE, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center at Parsons, an Exhibition Exploring the Impact of Social Media and New Technologies. February 7 – April 17, 2013)
Carlo Zanni is also the author of Self-Portrait With Friends, 2012