David Hanauer's Worldwide Carpets: Artist Uses Google Earth To Make Area Rugs (PHOTOS)

If you've ever flown around in Google Earth, you'll begin to notice patterns; the way suburbs look eerily the same, or the way large cities are diminished from sky scrapers to just the shapes of their rooftops. These patterns are something that artist David Hanauer caught on to, taking the virtual vantage point and printing it onto area rugs. He said in an interview with German news organization Deutsche Welle that the rugs are meant to imitate contemporary Persian rugs. Like the Persian variety, the Google Earth rugs focus around a central point and repeat patterns. To achieve this effect, each rug has one aerial shot repeated four times, mirroring one another to have the same center.

"In the visual sense, our eyes are not trained to see things from above," Hanauer said in the interview. "So if you suddenly get this aerial view, it takes time to see what it's suppose to be."

This sort of visual trickery is somewhat of a consistent theme in Hanauer's work. "The Living Structure" is a rectangular, hollow structure constructed of 12 pieces of wood. What looks like a simple box is actually multifunctional and can be used as a desk, kitchen table, laundry basket or DJ stand.

Though his Worldwide Carpets started as a student project at Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design in Germany, they have since turned into a lucrative product. Now, Hanauer sells the rugs, priced per size.

Click through below for a slideshow of Hanauer's "Worldwide Carpets:"

Watch below for a video of Hanauer and his work: