Artists stage street scenes to lurk in Google maps

I don't get it

I found this article today. It peaked my interest. Mainly because it occurred in my hometown of Pittsburgh, PA.

PITTSBURGH — Anyone using Google's Street View map feature to scan one downtown Pittsburgh street is bound to do a double-take.

Two 17th century swordsmen doing battle? An escape from a building using knotted sheets? A laser zapping a Steelers fan and a Cleveland Browns fan, rendering them love-struck and about to embrace?

[snip ...]

Google really did capture those scenes when it sent a car equipped with cameras down Pittsburgh's Sampsonia Way in May to take photographs for its online maps. But these images and most of the other scenes caught on Sampsonia were staged by artists Ben Kinsley and Robin Hewlett. The two set out to explore the boundaries of the real and virtual worlds after Pittsburgh became included in Street View.

So I went to Google Maps and typed "Sampsonia Way Pittsburgh, PA" in the address field. Here is a screenshot.



I don't get it. Maybe I'm just a stupid redneck from Western PA and don't have any art sense, but it just looks like a random street in Anytown, USA to me.

I mean you have a school, some trees, Wilford Brimely strangling a guy, a fence, some buildings ... Nothing special, and certainly not anything I would call "art". I feel cheated.