Trevor Paglen Interview: The Meaning of an Image

“Images are incredibly strange things that have no inherent meaning at all.” “Images are incredibly strange things that have no inherent meaning at all.” In this video, the American “ground-breaking investigative artist” Trevor Paglen discusses the significance of images, which he considers opportunities to think about how the world is changing. We all carry our […]

Trevor Paglen – The Last Pictures (2017)

Trevor Paglen is documenting the hidden operations of covert government projects and examining the ways that human rights are threatened in an era of mass surveillance. Trevor Paglen is a 2017 MacArthur Fellow. Paglen earned a B.A. in 1998 from the University of California at Berkeley, a Master of Fine Arts degree in 2002 from the School […]

Tony Oursler’s ‘template/variant/friend/stranger’ at Lisson Gallery

VIE, 2014 Wood, mounted photo print, monitors and media player 262 x 192 x 58 cm   The pantomime of big brother and the historical imperative to map individuality of the face for data usage comes at a time when our rights towards privacy and state sponsored collecting of data become a Orwellian theatre of […]

Challenging State Power and the Passivity of Citizens in ‘Covert Operations’

Nucelear Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility, Cherenkov Radiation, Hanford Site, U.S. Department of Energy, Southeastern Washington State, 2005/2007 @ Taryn Simon and courtesy Gagosian Gallery   “Whatever our personal weaknesses may be, the nobility of our craft will always be rooted in two commitments, difficult to maintain; the refusal to lie about what one knows and […]

INTERNET GOTHIC in Doug Rickard’s ‘N.A.’

 XZc7w, 2011 @ Doug Rickard   Horrorcore, a sort of contemporary American gothic, with all the inherent inversion of values.   INTERNET GOTHIC and Transcendentalism in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction By Owen Campbell, ASX, January 2015 In the preface of National Anthem Doug Rickard quotes Walt Whitman; in the coda he quotes Woodie Guthrie. […]

Anton Corbijn on Kohei Yoshiyuki’s ‘The Park’ series 1971–9

“The images are far more erotic than most porno photographs…”   By Anton Corbijn, for Tate, May 2010 I had not been aware of Kohei Yoshiyuki’s work until I saw a review of his series The Park about two years ago, which was accompanied by a photograph that caught my eye immediately. The infrared grittiness […]

New Frontiers with Doug Rickard and Joshua Chuang (2013)

Artist talk with Doug Rickard and Yale curator Joshua Chuang. The Photographic Universe II brings together a range of leading practitioners, scientists, theoreticians, historians, and philosophers to consider and reflect on current discussions in photography at a pivotal moment in its history. The unique format of the conference will consist of one-on-one conversations between two […]

Trevor Paglen at Metro Pictures (2013)

The Last Pictures Image 9: Migrants Seen by Predator Drone, U.S.-Mexico Border. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures. Trevor Paglen  at Metro Pictures February 7 – March 9 2013 By Vladimir Gintoff, ASX NYC, February 2013 Trevor Paglen has an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a PhD in geography from […]