Trevor Paglen

Anthropologist Carolyn Nordstrom, in her magisterial ethnography [b:Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century|72724|Shadows of War Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century (California Series in Public Anthropology, 10)|Carolyn Nordstrom|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170818458s/72724.jpg|70396], writes about how “the politics of invisibility” are not accidental: “it is created, and created for a reason… the modern state is as dependent on shadow economies and warzone profits as it is on keeping those dependencies invisible to formal reckoning.” This retrospective collection of Paglen’s photography – of military spacecraft orbiting the Earth, secret airfields in Nevada (looking eerily like Ansel Adams’ famous moonrise photograph), blurry photocopies of fake IDs of CIA officials involved in extraordinary rendition -- is both incontrovertible testimony and a reversal of the hierarchy of photographic power: it is now us who sees the workings of the state laid bare, made terrifyingly visible.… (mais)

A vanity project with an interesting premise--what If we were all gone and all that was left orbiting the earth were satellites? The author created a time capsule and chose 100 photos to be etched in silicon to be deposited in a satellite to represent us. Nice premise--think back to Carl Sagan and Nasa's addition to rockets such as Voyager to give a hello.

But I found the choice of photos to be a joke--literally. In the intro there is talk that it is ludicrous to think that any "other" coming across our rockets would have the same mathematics and be able to interpret our images and maps. The author mentions one sort of puzzling drawing in the caves of Lascaux. And so I assume based on this he and others gathered together a most random set of 100 photographs. Nothing really iconic or organized in any fashion.

Rosetta Stone this is not. Modern art, yes.

I did want to add that I do like Paglen's other projects on Black Ops.… (mais)

Commemorative coins, patches, mugs and other ephemera from the shadowy world of US military aviation and aerospace

In From the Archives of Peter Merlin, Aviation Archaeologist, multidisciplinary artist Trevor Paglen (born 1974) collaborates with Peter Merlin, a former NASA archivist, on this new artist’s book featuring a photographic inventory of objects from the aerospace historian’s archive of research culled from military bases such as Area 51.

Featuring images of challenge coins, patches and commemorative mugs from within these bases, as well as debris recovered from the surrounding crash sites, the book presents both a social and technological investigation into the US government’s secret aviation history from the atomic age to today's drone wreckage.

The symbols and texts featured on these objects that celebrate covert missions range in character from goofy to sinister, though their actual meaning may never be fully explained to the public. In addition to photographic images, the book includes an essay by Paglen as well as in-depth captions of the archive’s inventory, offering context for this history and addressing the present-day ramifications of these military advancements across the realms of communication, surveillance and warfare.… (mais)