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I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

- Trevor Paglen
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Trevor Paglen
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Politics
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In a democracy, the citizens are supposed to have all the power, and the government is supposed to be the means by which the citizens exercise that power. But when you have a surveillance state, the state has all the power, and citizens have very little.

I don't put work in an art gallery because the next day I want people to march in the streets.

The Internet was supposed to be the greatest tool of global communications and means of sharing knowledge in human history. And it is. But it has also become the most effective instrument of mass surveillance and potentially one of the greatest instruments of totalitarianism in the history of the world.

Perhaps 'photography' has become so all-pervasive that it no longer makes sense to think about it as a discreet practice or field of inquiry. In other words, perhaps 'photography,' as a meaningful cultural trope, is over.

What started happening really quickly after 9/11 and the construction of this 'War on Terror' business is that I saw all kinds of parallels between the way that was being constructed and the way that prisons had been constructed since the early 1980s.

If we look in the right places at the right times, we can begin to glimpse America's vast intelligence infrastructure.

Image-making, along with storytelling and music, is the stuff that culture is made out of.

When people understand that they are constantly monitored, they are more conformist - they are less willing to take up controversial positions - and that kind of mass conformity is incompatible with democracy.

It's productive and fun to try interpreting cave paintings, but ultimately, they can't teach us anything beyond what we imagine them to be.

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I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we know.