The first "Road" picture, Road to Singapore (1940), was such a success that four more were made in the 1940s, another in 1953, and the last in 1962.
Yet, the installation isn't just a photographic slideshow Vallet turns the Street View stills into a mesmerizing motion picture road trip.
Every lasting liberal reform, such as the abolition of capital punishment, is matched by some footling essay in trivial modernity such as picture road-signs, half a metric system, a hideous coinage, Toytown postage stamps.
Picture roads overrun with tents, rubble, pedestrians and peddlers; tap-tap taxis stopping suddenly, dump trucks coughing black exhaust, few stoplights, 99-degree heat, no air-conditioning, dust, beggars and angry drivers blaring horns.
In some pictures, roads leading to San Marcos appeared to be entirely blocked by landslides.
Photographers love taking pictures on road trips, especially in America.
The images it yielded had already changed from news to history, and from illustration to art, as seen in the dozens of pictures in "Road to Freedom," at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.
Representative Issa created a Web site where people can post pictures of road signs touting projects financed by the $787 billion economic stimulus package; he says the signs are little more than expensive propaganda, costing taxpayers $192 million.
Pictures like "Road Trip," "Waking Up in Reno" (opening early next year) and "Joy Ride" don't fret about the pointlessness of their characters' journeys; the sheer frivolity of what Huck Finn would call lighting out for the Territory is pretty much taken for granted.
If you want to take in the view of the Olympic Stadium in rather swankier surroundings, you could go next door to Forman's, pictured, (Stour Road, Fish Island E3, 020-8525 2365, formans.co.uk) a new-ish bandand restaurant from H Forman & Son, who have been smoking salmon locally since 1905.
Now, the movie enters its road picture phase.
