Power & Perspective
Trevor Paglen
In this episode, Trevor Paglen discusses two recent photographs at Griffin Editions—a printing studio in New York City. Photographed from the inside of a helicopter, National Security Agency (2013) shows the agency’s rarely-seen headquarters in Fort Mead, Maryland at a “bird’s-eye” perspective.
“I generally don’t like these so-called ‘bird’s-eye’ perspectives,” says Paglen, seeing its value instead as a means to suggest empowerment by the general public over institutions such as the NSA.
Inspired by J. M. W. Turner’s painting, The Angel Standing in the Sun (1846), Reaper in the Sun (2013) depicts a drone aircraft flying above a military base in the Nevada desert. “In the sky, there traditionally is a promise of openness or freedom; but, the sky itself has been turned against us,” says Paglen, who describes the drone as the “punctuation mark.”
More information and creditsSee also: Trevor Paglen at Creative Time Reports, February 2014
Featured artists
About the artists
Trained as a geographer and photographer, Trevor Paglen makes the invisible visible by documenting the American surveillance state of the 21st century. He photographs distant military facilities, capturing extreme telephoto images of stealth drones; and turning his vision to the night sky, he traces the paths of information-gathering satellites. Mapping the ways in which the convergence of aesthetics, industrial design, and politics influence how we see and understand the world, he shows us images that go beyond straightforward journalistic documentation, giving voice to shifting ideas of the landscape of the American West, humankind’s place in the cosmos, and the surveillance state.
How are artists answering the question: What is America today? Historical markers continue to shape the discourse of the new-normal and artists are responding with powerful works that are representative of the times. This playlist showcases how artists are responding to the dynamic nature of the United States and its parallels.
