Onformative find faces in landscapes seen from above in Google Maps

It’s common for people to imagine that they see faces made out of the shapes and folds of everyday objects: It seems to be a human trait that we like to see ourselves in the world around us. We look up at the clouds and imagine that we see the outlines of faces and body parts, and at night we convince ourselves that a rumpled item of clothing thrown over a chair is really a sinister grinning figure.

Onformative have taken this idea and applied it to literally everything around us, ie. planet earth. Their GoogleFace project uses an independent search agent hovering above the world to spot all of the hidden faces that emerge from the shapes created by rocky, textured landscape.

What’s so fascinating about the project is how some of the faces look so majestically recognisable and earthy, like mother nature peering out from the mountains, or an earth goblin frowning menacingly at the intruding satellite camera. Onformative describe the surprising results of their project: “Some of the detected images aren’t usable at all, as we are not able to recognise any face-like patterns within the detected images. Other satellite images, on the other hand, inspired our imagination in a tremendous, yet funny way. However the search goes on, as our diligent robot continues the investigation.”