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.

Trevor Paglen

Categorized in : Knowledge World History Internet

Art is more than a series of images that are disembodied. Art is objects that live in real places, economies, spaces, architecture.

Trevor Paglen

space real art

I really do think of them as post-minimalist sculptures, inspired in large part by some very early spacecraft that NASA built.

Trevor Paglen

sculpture inspired thinking

For a time, people were getting arrested for photographing the Brooklyn Bridge. So to me, what it meant to do photography also changed. There was a new kind of politics to it - something that was very aggressive and dangerous - and a presumption that it would reveal some kind of truth or evidence.

Trevor Paglen

brooklyn-bridge photography bridges

The U.S. generally wants to solve problems with coercion. That's kind of the default way the American state wants to try to solve problems. So there are many parallels between that: mass incarceration, mass surveillance, and militarism.

Trevor Paglen

kind problem trying

To go and photograph an airbase is not only to photograph something but it is to insist on one’s right to photograph. You’re flexing that right.

Trevor Paglen

flexing photograph

Perhaps someday in the distant future, dinosaurs may once again rule the Earth. If they ever learn to watch the stars, then maybe they will find our ruins in the sky.

Trevor Paglen

stars sky watches

When you have an economically unequal society, you end up with huge swaths of society that are disposable, basically.

Trevor Paglen

The switch has been built. Maybe you trust Barack Obama not to throw that switch, and maybe you trust George Bush not to throw that switch, but as we look towards the future, we see inequality becoming more and more acute. We're seeing more and more protests against cops and this kind of thing. We're also seeing more and more natural disasters. We're seeing more and more environmental insecurity.

Trevor Paglen

environmental insecurity kind

Injustice drives me crazy! It really upsets me when I see politicians lying.

Trevor Paglen

upset crazy lying

I'm pretty cynical about the future, but I feel like that's not an ethical position for me to take. It's not okay for me to behave as if I'm cynical about the future. Even if I am.

Trevor Paglen

ethical cynical okay

The dead spacecraft in orbit have become a permanent fixture around our planet, not unlike the rings of Saturn. They will be the longest-lasting artifacts of human civilization, quietly circling Earth until the Sun turns into a Red Giant, about five billion years from now.

Trevor Paglen

orbit civilization years

When we look up into the starry night sky, we tend to see reflections of ourselves.

Trevor Paglen

see look sky night

I can't imagine anything more beautiful on this planet than looking up at the stars and seeing a kind of artificial star moving through the night sky.

Trevor Paglen

stars sky beautiful night

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.

Trevor Paglen

you democracy government power

Anything humans can do in space, robots can do better.

Trevor Paglen

anything better robots space

I think the automation of vision is a much bigger deal than the invention of perspective.

Trevor Paglen

think automation perspective vision

Digital surveillance programs require concrete data centres; intelligence agencies are based in real buildings. Surveillance systems ultimately consist of technologies, people, and the vast network of material resources that supports them.

Trevor Paglen

buildings intelligence real people

We imagine going to the moon and planting a flag, going to an asteroid and mining, going to Mars and setting up a colony. And I think that expansionist mentality is very self-destructive, especially given the kind of precarious relationship we now have to the ecosystem here on Earth, because it allows us to imagine that Earth is disposable.

Trevor Paglen

think moon earth relationship

I really don't think art is good at answering questions. It's much better at posing questions - and even better at simply asking people to open their eyes.

Trevor Paglen

eyes good people art

I would say that the fundamental question of geography is about how humans shaped the Earth's surface and how we, in turn, are shaped by the ways in which we have shaped the Earth's surface. So, for me, geography was just a set of tools that allowed me to ask these kinds of questions and to try to think through them.

Trevor Paglen

try think me earth