1 00:00:07,370 --> 00:00:11,990 [Trevor Paglen: Power & Perspective] 2 00:00:15,920 --> 00:00:19,880 [Griffin Editions, Photography Printing Studio] 3 00:00:19,880 --> 00:00:21,600 --[PAGLEN] We can just put them over here, if you... 4 00:00:21,600 --> 00:00:22,500 --[MAN] Okay. 5 00:00:30,040 --> 00:00:33,000 [PAGLEN] Yeah, there's a little bit of drama around this picture. 6 00:00:33,010 --> 00:00:34,160 We called up the NSA and said, 7 00:00:34,160 --> 00:00:37,390 "We're going to fly a helicopter over your headquarters—take pictures." 8 00:00:37,390 --> 00:00:39,309 Which is perfectly legal. 9 00:00:39,309 --> 00:00:41,629 They said, "We don't want you to do that." 10 00:00:41,629 --> 00:00:43,390 We said, "Well, we're not asking permission," 11 00:00:43,390 --> 00:00:46,390 "we're just telling you that we're doing this—and don't shoot us!" 12 00:00:46,390 --> 00:00:49,899 And the NSA sent a bunch of guys—I think seven guys— 13 00:00:49,899 --> 00:00:54,019 and posted them up at all different places in the airport to watch this flight. 14 00:00:54,019 --> 00:00:56,440 And I think they were making phone calls to the headquarters, 15 00:00:56,440 --> 00:00:59,329 having certain lights turned on and off. 16 00:00:59,329 --> 00:01:02,010 The woman who owns the helicopter had baked a bunch of brownies, 17 00:01:02,010 --> 00:01:03,859 and was actually driving around the little airport, 18 00:01:03,859 --> 00:01:07,179 like, playing "spot the NSA guys" and, like, feeding them brownies. 19 00:01:11,380 --> 00:01:15,860 One of the reasons why you typically actually don't see photographs of the NSA headquarters 20 00:01:15,870 --> 00:01:19,070 is because it's surrounded by trees. 21 00:01:19,640 --> 00:01:21,360 [NSA Headquarters, public domain image] 22 00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:25,480 There's only a couple of photographs, and they're the couple that everybody uses. 23 00:01:27,300 --> 00:01:28,300 --[MAN] I'm going to load this up. 24 00:01:28,300 --> 00:01:28,980 --[PAGLEN] Okay. 25 00:01:30,720 --> 00:01:37,240 [PAGLEN] I generally don't like these so-called "bird's eye" or "God's eye" perspectives. 26 00:01:37,240 --> 00:01:40,960 That perspective implies a, kind of, mastery over something. 27 00:01:40,970 --> 00:01:43,200 It implies that perhaps you can see this, 28 00:01:43,200 --> 00:01:45,420 and that it's transparent and we can understand it, 29 00:01:45,420 --> 00:01:49,500 and this is a, kind of, insignificant thing which is on the ground below us. 30 00:01:49,500 --> 00:01:51,380 [Mike Vorrasi, Senior Retoucher] 31 00:01:51,380 --> 00:01:52,790 --[PAGLEN] Whoa! [LAUGHS] 32 00:01:52,790 --> 00:01:55,100 --[VORRASI] So this is just me trying to do some... 33 00:01:55,100 --> 00:01:56,910 --[PAGLEN] What have you got going on there!? 34 00:01:56,910 --> 00:01:58,990 --[VORRASI] So the red channel was really bright, 35 00:01:58,990 --> 00:02:02,460 --so I was just, sort of, just blending in the blue channel a little bit. 36 00:02:02,460 --> 00:02:03,060 --And the same with the blue. 37 00:02:03,060 --> 00:02:06,450 --The blue was a little heavy, so I just sort of was blending back in to see, 38 00:02:06,450 --> 00:02:07,980 --then I was going to put that on a luminous. 39 00:02:07,980 --> 00:02:09,600 --[PAGLEN] The next one is your profile? 40 00:02:09,600 --> 00:02:10,120 --[VORRASI] Yeah, exactly. 41 00:02:10,120 --> 00:02:10,880 --[PAGLEN] That's either your profile... 42 00:02:10,880 --> 00:02:12,620 --[VORRASI] That's in our profile right now. 43 00:02:12,629 --> 00:02:14,930 [PAGLEN] It does look like we're at a shopping mall. 44 00:02:14,930 --> 00:02:18,909 It seems like a very, kind of, normal kind of looking place. 45 00:02:18,909 --> 00:02:21,569 And I struggle with that, because on one hand, 46 00:02:21,569 --> 00:02:26,560 the extent to which the NSA's tendrils are in our everyday lives, 47 00:02:26,560 --> 00:02:29,680 perhaps this perspective is at odds with that. 48 00:02:30,450 --> 00:02:34,569 But what I like about the perspective in this particular instance 49 00:02:34,569 --> 00:02:41,239 is that it puts you in the situation where we can look at a building like this and, 50 00:02:41,239 --> 00:02:45,109 to some extent, perhaps imagine that in fact these are civic institutions, 51 00:02:45,109 --> 00:02:48,299 and that you, as a member of the public, 52 00:02:48,299 --> 00:02:52,900 should be able to exert the same kind of power over this institution 53 00:02:52,900 --> 00:02:58,560 that we can symbolically do by looking at a photograph shot from this perspective. 54 00:03:04,080 --> 00:03:06,620 --[PAGLEN] Cool, so we'll save some variations on this one for next time, 55 00:03:06,620 --> 00:03:08,980 --and let's see, like, back on that Reaper image... 56 00:03:08,980 --> 00:03:10,260 --[VORRASI] Oh, yeah. 57 00:03:17,040 --> 00:03:18,380 --[MAN] You want that up there? 58 00:03:19,320 --> 00:03:21,120 [PAGLEN] This is about as big as it gets for me. 59 00:03:21,129 --> 00:03:24,420 There was only a couple of things that I've done at this size. 60 00:03:24,420 --> 00:03:30,640 So, I was just shooting, like, directly into the sun with the four-by-five camera. 61 00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:36,020 The idea for it actually came from a Turner painting called "Angel in the Sun". 62 00:03:38,240 --> 00:03:42,680 These drones are called Reapers, so this is "The Reaper in the Sun". 63 00:03:49,080 --> 00:03:52,360 --[PAGLEN] Cool. So this is the range of stuff that we're looking at... 64 00:03:52,370 --> 00:03:56,230 [PAGLEN] One of the advantages of using, like, traditional kind of film 65 00:03:56,230 --> 00:03:58,930 in a situation like that is that you can do weird stuff 66 00:03:58,930 --> 00:04:04,099 like over-expose a photograph, shooting directly into the sun, 67 00:04:04,099 --> 00:04:05,200 and still have some wiggle room-- 68 00:04:05,200 --> 00:04:06,599 have something to play with. 69 00:04:09,100 --> 00:04:11,379 --[PAGLEN] Like, I wonder if there's, like, a magenta ring around here, 70 00:04:11,379 --> 00:04:13,200 --or if it's just like my eyes doing stuff. 71 00:04:13,200 --> 00:04:14,680 --You know what I'm talking about? 72 00:04:14,680 --> 00:04:15,439 --[VORRASI] Yeah. 73 00:04:17,100 --> 00:04:17,920 --[PAGLEN] Yeah, it's super weird! 74 00:04:17,930 --> 00:04:20,720 [PAGLEN] We've done tons of stuff where we put two prints right next to each other, 75 00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:23,389 and then we're like, "Oh, the one on the right. Oh, it's cooler or whatever." 76 00:04:23,389 --> 00:04:24,650 And then we'll shift them back over, and then we're like, 77 00:04:24,650 --> 00:04:27,139 "Oh, the one on the right!" [LAUGHS] 78 00:04:27,139 --> 00:04:28,879 --[VORRASI] Yeah, yeah! No, definitely. 79 00:04:28,879 --> 00:04:31,560 --Even, like, putting white magnets as opposed to black magnets... 80 00:04:31,560 --> 00:04:35,539 --So, I'm just, like, "If we could just cut down on some variables, like," 81 00:04:35,539 --> 00:04:39,680 --"we can kind of concentrate on what is changing, and how to, like, address those things." 82 00:04:41,340 --> 00:04:44,780 [PAGLEN] In the sky, there traditionally is a promise of, kind of, openness, 83 00:04:44,780 --> 00:04:47,200 or a kind of freedom. 84 00:04:49,060 --> 00:04:52,040 But the sky itself has been turned against us. 85 00:04:52,520 --> 00:04:55,040 The drone is just the punctuation mark. 86 00:04:58,660 --> 00:04:59,460 --[VORRASI] The drone looks great. 87 00:04:59,460 --> 00:05:00,240 --[PAGLEN] Yeah.