logo

Say thanks by supporting us!

Our website is made possible by displaying online advertisement to our visitors. Please consider supporting to us by disabling your ad blocker.

Processing...

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

- Trevor Paglen
logo
Author:
Trevor Paglen
Tags:
Work
Misunderstanding
People
Related Quote
Show all

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.

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.

Showcase
Show all

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.

People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility looks like.