AMP 2017: Claire Read -- AMP blog post

AMP BLOG POST, March 12, 2014

T R E V O R P A G L E N
-American artist, author, geographer, and researcher
-Interest in geography, outer-space documentation, science make aestheticized / pseudo science
-a fascination in covert military operations, celestial mechanics, and the relationship between science and aesthetics has led to artistic investigations of the themes. a collaborative synthesis of photography, engineering, sculpture and science has underscored projects like ‘the last pictures’ in which a gold-plated, micro-etched disc containing one hundred photographs of significant historical events was launched into space and the ‘non-functional satellite’ series, which reimagines orbital structures as visible but ephemeral art objects.
-these are very technically challenging works to make, and involve a lot of collaboration with people from a lot of different fields.

-Protocinema, Istanbul, 2013.

-"space sculpture," non functional satellite series with re-contextualized, refurbished objects to make a non-functioning satellite as a sculpture. exhibited in a vacant auto-repair shop.

-"I’ve spent many years researching, writing, and making art works about secret military and intelligence programs and institutions. I’ve looked at everything from secret airbases in nevada to “black” prisons in afghanistan. my main interest with this topic has to do with the politics and aesthetics of these institutions — what does an institution that is meant to be invisible look like? I mean that question very literally. moreover, what sorts of effects do secret institutions have on society at large?"

trevor paglen, prototype for a nonfunctional satellite (design 4; build 3), 2013 , san antonio, TX

-photography series from (in this case) 18 miles away from top secret government headquarters. he captures these photographs with the help of telescopes.

Since 1963, more than eight hundred spacecraft have been launched into geosynchronous orbit, forming a man-made ring of satellites around the Earth. These satellites are destined to become the longest-lasting artifacts of human civilization, quietly floating through space long after every trace of humanity has disappeared from the planet.
Trevor Paglen’s The Last Pictures is a project that marks one of these spacecraft with a visual record of our contemporary historical moment. Paglen spent five years interviewing scientists, artists, anthropologists, and philosophers to consider what such a cultural mark should be. Working with materials scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Paglen developed an artifact designed to last billions of years—an ultra-archival disc, micro-etched with one hundred photographs and encased in a gold-plated shell.
In Fall 2012, the communications satellite EchoStar XVI will launch into geostationary orbit with the disc mounted to its anti-earth deck. While the satellite’s broadcast images are as fleeting as the light-speed radio waves they travel on, The Last Pictures will remain in outer space slowly circling the Earth until the Earth itself is no more.

"The Last Pictures"

-Project done with CREATIVE TIME

https://vimeo.com/53655801