Artist Lecture: Trevor Paglen

I knew I was in for an interesting lecture when one of the first things out of Trevor’s mouth  was, " I am ok with being video taped, but it is not to appear anywhere on the internet."  I had seen from Trevor's website that his work involved secretive government felicities and activities. I would consider Trevor’s work to be about secrets, logistics, and seeing.   The most interesting thing about his talk to me was that he was trained as a geologist.  He talked a lot about how money shapes to earth and that by looking at government documents you can find line items on the budget that clue you in to front companies. Trevor said, “we have to become astronomers.” In talking about black holes, he mentioned “can’t see it but you can indirectly see it by what’s around it.”  He laid this out as the basis for his research.  In regard to logistics he talked about front companies in particular flight companies that had global clearances.  He talked about how by following flight records you can start to pin-point where secret activities take place. It was abundantly clear throughout the lecture that he had done tons and tons of research to figure this all out. I think that my favorite part of the lecture might have been when he talked about the symbology of the military.  He cited many examples of patches of secretive projects and explained some of their meetings.  I think what I enjoyed most out of this lecture was that it wasn’t a straight forward artist lecture. It was almost more of a research presentation with  artwork scatter through out.  Tervor commented that he would rather present fragments that don’t really add up to anything than be like conspiracy theorists who draw conclusions with insufficient information.  I think this really helped me to enjoy his work to a greater degree because I was given the freedom to make my own judgments.

1. What legal issues are involved with photographing government activity?
 
Besides the fact that you are only allowed within a certain distance of the secret facilities, there are no real legal issues.  He said that he didn’t really have any concerns. What he is doing is not illegal.

2. How much time do you spend researching and how much information is available to the public about the locations you have photographed?

It didn’t necessarily seem that there was any information about the particular facilities besides knowing that they were government operations.  I think a big part of the excitement for Trevor is doing the research to find the locations.