WEBVTT 00:00:07.370 --> 00:00:11.990 [Trevor Paglen: Power & Perspective] 00:00:15.920 --> 00:00:19.880 [Griffin Editions, Photography Printing Studio] 00:00:19.880 --> 00:00:21.600 --[PAGLEN] We can just put them over here, if you... 00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:22.500 --[MAN] Okay. 00:00:30.040 --> 00:00:33.000 [PAGLEN] Yeah, there's a little bit of drama around this picture. 00:00:33.010 --> 00:00:34.160 We called up the NSA and said, 00:00:34.160 --> 00:00:37.390 "We're going to fly a helicopter over your headquarters—take pictures." 00:00:37.390 --> 00:00:39.309 Which is perfectly legal. 00:00:39.309 --> 00:00:41.629 They said, "We don't want you to do that." 00:00:41.629 --> 00:00:43.390 We said, "Well, we're not asking permission," 00:00:43.390 --> 00:00:46.390 "we're just telling you that we're doing this—and don't shoot us!" 00:00:46.390 --> 00:00:49.899 And the NSA sent a bunch of guys—I think seven guys— 00:00:49.899 --> 00:00:54.019 and posted them up at all different places in the airport to watch this flight. 00:00:54.019 --> 00:00:56.440 And I think they were making phone calls to the headquarters, 00:00:56.440 --> 00:00:59.329 having certain lights turned on and off. 00:00:59.329 --> 00:01:02.010 The woman who owns the helicopter had baked a bunch of brownies, 00:01:02.010 --> 00:01:03.859 and was actually driving around the little airport, 00:01:03.859 --> 00:01:07.179 like, playing "spot the NSA guys" and, like, feeding them brownies. 00:01:11.380 --> 00:01:15.860 One of the reasons why you typically actually don't see photographs of the NSA headquarters 00:01:15.870 --> 00:01:19.070 is because it's surrounded by trees. 00:01:19.640 --> 00:01:21.360 [NSA Headquarters, public domain image] 00:01:21.360 --> 00:01:25.480 There's only a couple of photographs, and they're the couple that everybody uses. 00:01:27.300 --> 00:01:28.300 --[MAN] I'm going to load this up. 00:01:28.300 --> 00:01:28.980 --[PAGLEN] Okay. 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. 00:01:37.240 --> 00:01:40.960 That perspective implies a, kind of, mastery over something. 00:01:40.970 --> 00:01:43.200 It implies that perhaps you can see this, 00:01:43.200 --> 00:01:45.420 and that it's transparent and we can understand it, 00:01:45.420 --> 00:01:49.500 and this is a, kind of, insignificant thing which is on the ground below us. 00:01:49.500 --> 00:01:51.380 [Mike Vorrasi, Senior Retoucher] 00:01:51.380 --> 00:01:52.790 --[PAGLEN] Whoa! [LAUGHS] 00:01:52.790 --> 00:01:55.100 --[VORRASI] So this is just me trying to do some... 00:01:55.100 --> 00:01:56.910 --[PAGLEN] What have you got going on there!? 00:01:56.910 --> 00:01:58.990 --[VORRASI] So the red channel was really bright, 00:01:58.990 --> 00:02:02.460 --so I was just, sort of, just blending in the blue channel a little bit. 00:02:02.460 --> 00:02:03.060 --And the same with the blue. 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, 00:02:06.450 --> 00:02:07.980 --then I was going to put that on a luminous. 00:02:07.980 --> 00:02:09.600 --[PAGLEN] The next one is your profile? 00:02:09.600 --> 00:02:10.120 --[VORRASI] Yeah, exactly. 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:10.880 --[PAGLEN] That's either your profile... 00:02:10.880 --> 00:02:12.620 --[VORRASI] That's in our profile right now. 00:02:12.629 --> 00:02:14.930 [PAGLEN] It does look like we're at a shopping mall. 00:02:14.930 --> 00:02:18.909 It seems like a very, kind of, normal kind of looking place. 00:02:18.909 --> 00:02:21.569 And I struggle with that, because on one hand, 00:02:21.569 --> 00:02:26.560 the extent to which the NSA's tendrils are in our everyday lives, 00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:29.680 perhaps this perspective is at odds with that. 00:02:30.450 --> 00:02:34.569 But what I like about the perspective in this particular instance 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, 00:02:41.239 --> 00:02:45.109 to some extent, perhaps imagine that in fact these are civic institutions, 00:02:45.109 --> 00:02:48.299 and that you, as a member of the public, 00:02:48.299 --> 00:02:52.900 should be able to exert the same kind of power over this institution 00:02:52.900 --> 00:02:58.560 that we can symbolically do by looking at a photograph shot from this perspective. 00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:06.620 --[PAGLEN] Cool, so we'll save some variations on this one for next time, 00:03:06.620 --> 00:03:08.980 --and let's see, like, back on that Reaper image... 00:03:08.980 --> 00:03:10.260 --[VORRASI] Oh, yeah. 00:03:17.040 --> 00:03:18.380 --[MAN] You want that up there? 00:03:19.320 --> 00:03:21.120 [PAGLEN] This is about as big as it gets for me. 00:03:21.129 --> 00:03:24.420 There was only a couple of things that I've done at this size. 00:03:24.420 --> 00:03:30.640 So, I was just shooting, like, directly into the sun with the four-by-five camera. 00:03:31.200 --> 00:03:36.020 The idea for it actually came from a Turner painting called "Angel in the Sun". 00:03:38.240 --> 00:03:42.680 These drones are called Reapers, so this is "The Reaper in the Sun". 00:03:49.080 --> 00:03:52.360 --[PAGLEN] Cool. So this is the range of stuff that we're looking at... 00:03:52.370 --> 00:03:56.230 [PAGLEN] One of the advantages of using, like, traditional kind of film 00:03:56.230 --> 00:03:58.930 in a situation like that is that you can do weird stuff 00:03:58.930 --> 00:04:04.099 like over-expose a photograph, shooting directly into the sun, 00:04:04.099 --> 00:04:05.200 and still have some wiggle room-- 00:04:05.200 --> 00:04:06.599 have something to play with. 00:04:09.100 --> 00:04:11.379 --[PAGLEN] Like, I wonder if there's, like, a magenta ring around here, 00:04:11.379 --> 00:04:13.200 --or if it's just like my eyes doing stuff. 00:04:13.200 --> 00:04:14.680 --You know what I'm talking about? 00:04:14.680 --> 00:04:15.439 --[VORRASI] Yeah. 00:04:17.100 --> 00:04:17.920 --[PAGLEN] Yeah, it's super weird! 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, 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." 00:04:23.389 --> 00:04:24.650 And then we'll shift them back over, and then we're like, 00:04:24.650 --> 00:04:27.139 "Oh, the one on the right!" [LAUGHS] 00:04:27.139 --> 00:04:28.879 --[VORRASI] Yeah, yeah! No, definitely. 00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:31.560 --Even, like, putting white magnets as opposed to black magnets... 00:04:31.560 --> 00:04:35.539 --So, I'm just, like, "If we could just cut down on some variables, like," 00:04:35.539 --> 00:04:39.680 --"we can kind of concentrate on what is changing, and how to, like, address those things." 00:04:41.340 --> 00:04:44.780 [PAGLEN] In the sky, there traditionally is a promise of, kind of, openness, 00:04:44.780 --> 00:04:47.200 or a kind of freedom. 00:04:49.060 --> 00:04:52.040 But the sky itself has been turned against us. 00:04:52.520 --> 00:04:55.040 The drone is just the punctuation mark. 00:04:58.660 --> 00:04:59.460 --[VORRASI] The drone looks great. 00:04:59.460 --> 00:05:00.240 --[PAGLEN] Yeah.