The artist I chose for this week is Trevor Paglen. He is an American geographer and photographer whose work runs along with surveillance and data collection. I had no previous knowledge of any of his work and had no idea who he even was, but after looking through his work it grabbed my attention. He photographs distant military facilities, capturing extreme telephoto images of stealth drones. His images of the night sky trace paths of information-gathering satellites. One of his most impactful projects is on artificial intelligence and how the government looks at us and watches us. Creepy right? So he took it a step farther and spied on the military which is not really aloud. We all know that our phones, cameras, and other devices are always listening and watching but what do they actually see? Paglen was able to create pieces that show what artificial intelligence sees and produces. This is so interesting to me because I’ve always wondered if computers actually understand what they are actually seeing. How can a bunch of electronic pieces distinguish a human from a table or something else? Through his AI work, we can see the scoping and framing that goes into it and what the outcome is. Which is really cool and different. All of his work has a kind of futuristic feel to it which makes it stand out to me more than a lot of other photographers, also the use of science and surveillance is fascinating.
This is Not Art 