UNINCORPORATED

“The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own.”

Susan Sontag, On Photography, 1977

Jacob Street / NE 87, Whiteclay, Nebraska, USA

GOOGLE STREET VIEW 2013

Click on Image to open link in Google Maps

Whiteclay is a small settlement at the border between South Dakota and Nebraska. The tiny town is crossed by one single asphalt road, the NE-87. Population is 10, as of the latest population census (2010). The legal or administrative status of Whitelcay is 'unincorporated.' In the United States, this typically characterizes remote, outlying, sparsely populated or uninhabited areas.

For ages, this would be the place where people come for alcohol. The selling and consumption of alcohol has always been prohibited on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation, which is only a few miles away. The main village of the reservation is within walking distance. Selling booze has become a lucrative business model for liquor shop owners in Whiteclay, where drinking is allowed.

People would come here and never leave. They'd become homeless, and literally drink themselves to death in the filthy streets of that tiny town. For the Pine Rigde residents, Whiteclay is of course a tragedy. Reportedly, most families lost someone to that place.

NE 87, Rushville, Nebraska, USA

GOOGLE STREET VIEW 2012

On Google Street View Whiteclay is mislabeled Rushville, even though on Google Maps it appears under its real name. In that area, there's no traffic, no tourism, no business other than four or five local beer stores.

Strange enough, the camera-equipped Google cars passed through the town over and over again. First time in October 2008, then in May 2012, then again in August 2013 and, finally, in 2021. Four times in a bit over a decade, that's as much coverage as the one given to a metropole like Philadelphia.

Not only did the Google cameras cover Whiteclay's main street; they explored all the nooks and crannies of the side streets, capturing groups of stranded people hidden in the backyards of shacks or under trees.

The evil that blights the Pine Ridge community in the "unincorporated" town of Whiteclay is exposed in broad daylight on Google Street View with the frightening effectiveness of surveillance capitalism.

"My team is obsessed with understanding everything there is to know about the real world"

Jen Fitzpatrick, Vice President GEO, Google

Horizon - Going Beyond the Map, 2016

Westover St. Rushville, Nebraska, USA

GOOGLE STREET VIEW 2013

Jacob Street, Rushville, Nebraska, USA

GOOGLE STREET VIEW 2013

Jacob Street / NE 87, Rushville, Nebraska, USA

GOOGLE STREET VIEW 2013

Westover St, Rushville, Nebraska, USA

GOOGLE STREET VIEW 2013

Capture d’écran 2022-06-07 à 18.21.38.png

Jacob Street / NE 87, Whiteclay, Nebraska, USA

GOOGLE STREET VIEW 2013

NE 87, Rushville, Nebraska, USA

GOOGLE STREET VIEW 2012

Before visiting Whiteclay alias Rushville on Google Street View, I had passed through the town by car. That was in the summer of 2010.

Upon arrival, I didn't have a clue about what was going on there. Normally, larger groups of homeless people can be seen in big cities. But in a vast, empty, rural area, this is quite unusual.

As I was in the region for a photo inquiry, my first reflex was to take pictures at burst speed. Just like Google, I took the shots from the car, while my sister was driving. Several times, we drove up and down the NE-87 that divides the town.

"To photograph people is to violate them", Susan Sontag wrote.

When checking the photos I'd taken that day, I perfectly got what she meant. I had the feeling I had robbed the last dignity of the people laying dead-drunk by the side of the road.

Can we, should we, show everything? This is a dilemma that probably each documentary photo-reporter has faced one day. In other words, the delicate question of the legitimacy of showing suffering people.

Finally, I decided to never show my images of Whiteclay.

Instead, I started to dig deeper into the labyrinth of vision machines and surveillance images. How to interpret Google's Whiteclay footage in the light of geospatial intelligence? Are these images even analyzable? Should we see them as accidental documents of human misery in a remote area of the world? Is there a voyeuristic dimension here? These are some of the question this project raised.

Jacob Street / NE 87, Rushville, Nebraska, USA

GOOGLE STREET VIEW 2021

NE 87, Rushville, Nebraska, USA

GOOGLE STREET VIEW 2021

Epilogue

In 2021, Google Street View gathered evidence indicating that things eventually changed in Whiteclay. The beer stores all seem closed now. Many have been torn down. Half of the town has become a deserted landfill.

At the north entry of town, on the side of South Dakota, the words HOPE have been written on an abandoned truck.

At the south entry, on the Nebraska side, a nursing home was built.

Unincorporated

Methodology: GEOINT, OSINT, spatial analysis

Forum: Webplatform