Addictive online video carousel of views from windows around the world provides an escape during coronavirus
- The brainchild of a Singapore couple, WindowSwap soon grew from showing videos friends took from their windows to those of contributors from over 100 countries
- The website’s video carousel transports viewers to places around the world, from the Brooklyn Bridge to a Shanghai tower to clucking hens in a Hawaii garden
The window next to my working space overlooks a chikoo tree favoured by noisy bulbuls and babblers.
The bedroom window overlooks the neighbour’s backyard, which has three mango trees, a jackfruit tree and a gooseberry tree that are visited by soulful Asian koels, mynahs and the occasional drongo or kite. But these are fleeting visitors, and for much of the day, these views in Bangalore, India, are boring.
The same cannot be said for the everyday views to be found at WindowSwap. The addictive website invites the viewer to gaze out through the curtains from somewhere else in the world. If you do not press a button to hurry the process along, after about 10 minutes, the view switches to another person’s window.
There is no indication of what is coming; the magnificent Brooklyn Bridge segues into a clutch of clucking hens in a garden in Hawaii, followed by Swiss peaks and meadows, which give way to a red double-decker bus sweeping past a London window, and then a striking sunset silhouetting Istanbul’s skyline.
A crowdsourced project, WindowSwap is the brainchild of Singapore-based couple Sonali Ranjit and Vaishnav Balasubramaniam.
