2014, C-Print, 45.72 cm x 65.58 cm

Copyright: Trevor Paglen
Courtesy of: the Artist, Metro Pictures, New York; Altman Siegel, San Francisco

Paglen says that these photographic works began as concept for expanding his interest in surveillance. America‘s politics of surveillance and their corollary institutional logic are an invisible yet official secret. But these images demonstrate that such invisible worlds powerfully dominate the actual world in which we live. Paglen has made these images publicly available on his website, for anyone to download and use free of charge. The huge hidden systems of the U.S. intelligence agencies are shrouded in an aura of mystery and fear, but the artist has made these photographs accessible to anyone. In so doing, Paglen makes paradoxical use of the logic of the states and individuals who build structures of surveillance.

2016, C-print, 121.9 cm x 160 cm

Copyright: Trevor Paglen
Courtesy of: the Artist, Metro Pictures, New York; Altman Siegel, San Francisco

The Other Night Sky is a project to track and photograph obscure objects that orbit the Earth, moving across the invisible sky.

Paglen, who traces communication cables linking the east coast of the U.S. and Europe, speaks of the undersea political and military power that clearly exists but remains invisible to us. His photographs seem to reveal coastal landscapes, warm-hued beach scenes and calm seas. But we remain unaware of the massive data traffic flowing through the cables buried in the sea bed in these seemingly tranquil scenes. Paglen investigates systems of mass surveillance and control in the intermediate areas between what we see with our eyes and what governments or the military actively hide from us. The time- and space-transcending communication systems that emerged with the development of the internet spoke of a bright future where the world would become freely connected as a unified whole. Through his photographs of invisible surveillance systems and control, Paglen reveals the contradictions produced by this convenience.

Copyright: Trevor Paglen
Courtesy of: the Artist, Metro Pictures, New York; Altman Siegel, San Francisco

The photographs appearing in the video are used to train AI networks to recognize individuals, faces, gestures, relationships and emotions. Known as a training library, this collection is not for people but a repository of images designed by machine in order to train machines. Paglen focuses on the way images are no longer created for humans but by machines in order to operate machines. They input image data from the objects, feelings and characters habitually perceived by humans, and create new images. These forms are strange and shocking, appearing like monsters, or ghosts. When we see the outcome of these data games, and when we recognize the ways and processes by which they are produced, we find ourselves asking whether technological development is unquestionably a positive thing. What, Paglen asks, are we watching? He makes us realize that in order to understand the world as seen by machines, we must completely discard our perspectives as humans.

2013, Mylar, steel, 487.68 cm x 487.68 cm

Copyright: The Artist and MCASD
Installation view: Trevor Paglen: Sites Unseen, Museum Of Contemporary Art, San Diego, USA

Developed in collaboration with aerospace engineers, Prototype For a Nonfunctional Satellite is a small, lightweight sculpture. If placed into low Earth orbit 360 miles above our planet, it would be inflated by CO2 cartridges to become “a sculpture in the sky,” appearing in the dark sky as a slowly moving, flickering star. It would remain in orbit for approximately three months, before burning up upon reentry through the atmosphere. The nonfunctional satellite is thus not a permanent, fixed devices but a romantic gesture. Like a type of atmospheric art, it was the first satellite to be created with no regard for military, commercial or scientific gain.

Copyright: Trevor Paglen
Courtesy of: the Artist, Metro Pictures, New York; Altman Siegel, San Francisco

Autonomy Cube is a sculpture designed to be housed in art museums, galleries, and civic spaces. The sculpture is meant to be both “seen” and “used.” Several Internet-connected computers housed within the work create an open Wi-Fi hotspot called “Autonomy Cube” wherever it is installed. Viewers can use the hotspot and search the Internet with freedom via Tor, a network that guarantees anonymity. Paglen introduces this work as a partial criticism of invisible surveillance structures within museums. Unbeknown to themselves, viewers looking around an exhibition are exposed to CCTV cameras. By imagining how to apply a directly opposing logic of this structure of museum surveillance, Paglen created this work as a way of keeping museum viewers around the world informed of each other’s state of connection.
*Tor Network: A type of free software that guarantees online anonymity and the evasion of censorship. Its origins lie in the United States Naval Research Laboratory. The core principle of Tor, “onion routing,” was developed in the mid-1960s by the Lab’s employees, mathematicians and computer scientists, with the aim of protecting U.S. intelligence communications online.

Copyright: Trevor Paglen
Courtesy of: the Artist, Metro Pictures, New York; Altman Siegel, San Francisco

The growing importance of drones in American military strategy has made them a key source of inspiration in Paglen‘s work. From the artist’s perspective, drones are an important element in redefining vision and distance. Artists have actively recorded the use of drones in war for the past several years. The growing ubiquity of technology and its increasingly intimate relationship with politics has made it harder to grasp its most basic infrastructures. These technological developments show that it has become harder for us to interpret and take action towards the invisible surveillance structures that control us. Drone Vision delivers a “drone‘s eye view” from the perspective of a drone operator. Paglen introduces it as a reflection of his deep interest in an environment in which “secrecy, responsibility and endless war” pursue ever more perfect technology.

2017, Dye sublimation print, 152.40 cm x 121.92 cm

2007, C-print, 152.40 cm x 121.92 cm

Copyright: Trevor Paglen
Courtesy of: the Artist, Metro Pictures, New York; Altman Siegel, San Francisco

The Other Night Sky is a project to track and photograph obscure objects that orbit the Earth, moving across the invisible sky.
Paglen describes the sky as not just a wide, free expanse but a place where the structures of electronic devices such as drones and satellites coexist. Space flight was developed “to deliver nuclear missiles to the other side of the planet,” and would not have been invented were it not for the historical conditions of nuclear arms and the Cold War. In The Other Night Sky, Paglen scours the night sky in search of objects such as old satellites, discarded spacecraft and space debris. He tracks spaceships, investigates their orbit, and takes their pictures using a camera mounted with a computer-guided telescope. When all goes to plan, the result is a skyscape covered with a pattern of small lines. These are the traces of the satellites previously invisible to us.

2009, Vinyl, Variable installation

Copyright: Trevor Paglen
Courtesy of: the Artist, Metro Pictures, New York; Altman Siegel, San Francisco

As the security realm expands into the cybersphere, Paglen‘s research has come to include various aspects of the way governments handle information. Code Names is a list of words, phrases, and terms that designate active military programs whose existence or purpose is classified. These include lists of information compartments and Pentagon “Special Access Programs.” The lists show more than 4,000 code names used by the National Security Agency (NSA) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) for surveillance programs.

2013, Twenty fabric patches, framed, 304.80cm x 30.50cm

Copyright: Trevor Paglen
Courtesy of: the Artist, Metro Pictures, New York; Altman Siegel, San Francisco

Military culture is filled with visual language consisting of symbols and insignia that signify everything from various unit and command affiliations to significant events.
Military communities produce patches as part of their visual language, symbolically identifying their wearer‘s job, projects and program affiliation, achievements and place within the military hierarchy. These internal military identities and symbols, along with the programs, projects, places and entities of defense industry insiders, build unique political aims and systems. These deeply-hidden secrets, symbols and insignia evoke the realms of secret groups and societies following mysterious religions throughout history. Through such symbols, Paglen allows us to compare how secret groups within the military today create their own shared cultures.

Copyright: Trevor Paglen
Courtesy of: the Artist, Metro Pictures, New York; Altman Siegel, San Francisco

Taken deep in a forest in West Virginia, this photograph depicts a classified National Radio Quiet Zone. Taken as a long exposure in the light of a full moon, the work shows a vast area in Maryland. Here, radio transmissions are severely restricted and use of the internet is impossible. Through a largescale surveillance system that captures electronic telemetry signals that escape into space, bounce off the moon and are reflected back to Earth, the artist records the experiments that jeopardize human rights and the operating systems hidden in government-run projects. By searching for the invisible secret strategies of military institutions creating spaces of darkness, and their traces, Paglen reveals the unseen.
*National Radio Quiet Zone: An area in which radio transmissions are restricted in order to protect radio telescopes and communication stations from radio interference. Located in a sparsely populated region, it is regulated by federal law.