A pier, according to Stephen Dedalus, is a disappointed bridge. By the same logic, perhaps a map—or in this case, a geographical imaging system—is a disappointed world.

At HilLobrow, we’ve documented the uncanny time/space elisions of Google Earth before. Covering similar territory, the artist and programmer Clement Valla’s Postcards from Google Earth, Bridges accesses a kind of surreal sublime. His found images of twisted, digitally-damaged infrastructure are like an unholy alliance between Robert Moses and Giorgio de Chirico.

Brilliantly, Valla turns these smeared highways, foreshortened towers, and interrupted spans into postcards—souvenirs from a world where the logic of catastrophe is normative. Check out the whole exhibit, as well as Valla’s other work, at his web site.