0:00:23.820,0:00:25.200
TREVOR PAGLAN: The title of this piece is

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A Prototype for a Nonfunctional Satellite,

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and the idea here is to take technology,

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take engineering, and use them[br]for the exact opposite

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of what they normally do.

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It's basically a giant balloon[br]that collapses into a very small cube.

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The whole thing[br]weighs less than a pound.

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You could put this on a rocket.

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It would go up into a low-earth orbit,

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and when you sent a signal[br]to it, it would inflate itself.

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You'd be able to see it[br]from the ground.

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It would look like a star[br]slowly moving across the sky.

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It would last a few weeks,[br]and then it would accumulate

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a lot of atmosphere drag[br]and burn up.

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It's a very temporary thing.

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Some objects are designed[br]to make patterns that shimmer,

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other ones that flicker.

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Other designs get bright[br]and then get dark again.

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What we're doing here today[br]is inflation tests.

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[ machine whirring ]

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Trying to understand what[br]these objects are physically

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as well as aesthetically.

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- Found a hairline here.

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- Yeah, there's one there.

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There's another one[br]over here too.

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I really do think of them[br]as post-minimalist sculptures

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inspired in large part

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by some very early spacecraft[br]that NASA built.

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-All right, cool.

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It was a very strange time[br]in the late 1950s, early 1960s

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where people were putting things[br]into space,

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but that language of spacecraft[br]hadn't really congealed yet.

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What was Sputnik?

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It was a metal ball

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that went, "Beep, beep, beep,[br]beep, beep, beep."

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There was really no point to it[br]other than to make it.

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NASA did a project[br]called Pageos,

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making big self-inflating balloons.

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These were communication satellites.

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You would be able to make a[br]transcontinental telephone call

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by relaying a radio wave

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to one of these reflective[br]satellites in the sky,

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and then the wave[br]would bounce back

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to somewhere else in the world.

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There was something else[br]that they wanted to do

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with these spacecrafts,[br]of course,

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which was make better maps[br]for nuclear weapons.

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A lot of artists at that time

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were looking at them[br]as aesthetic objects.

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Maybe they saw a world

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where we didn't have to[br]kill ourselves with nuclear war,

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we didn't have to use technology[br]to build a surveillance state.

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Maybe there was[br]a different direction.

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And that moment is something

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that I'm very much trying[br]to understand.

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We're standing here[br]on the southern border

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of a giant military range[br]about the size of Switzerland

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called the Nellis Range.

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Just to the west of here[br]is the Nevada test site,

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where nuclear testing[br]has been done

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over many, many decades.

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This is the center[br]for a lot of the drones

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that are flown by the air force,[br]as well as various parts

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of the military[br]and intelligence community.

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The base is right by the side[br]of a highway.

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I first found these drones[br]literally driving by,

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looking up in the sky and going[br]"Hey, what's that?"

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It's perfectly legal[br]what we're doing.

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You can photograph anything[br]that you can see with your eyes.

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We're standing on public land.

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On one hand, the United States[br]has massive secrecy apparatuses,

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but at the same time, it's also

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one of the most open countries[br]in the world.

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I grew up in the air force.

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It made me very comfortable[br]around military culture,

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that the military is a part[br]of what the United States is.

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I lived in Texas; Washington, D.C.;[br]several different places overseas.

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You're always being uprooted,

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but on the plus side,[br]you're always seeing new things,

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having a chance to see things[br]in a different way.

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I've been working as an artist[br]for my whole life.

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Ever since I was a little kid[br]and through high school,

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I've always worked[br]on creative projects.

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When I went to art school,[br]the way that art is taught

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at the graduate level[br]is very theoretical

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and comes pretty loosely[br]from literary theory.

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What is the rhetoric of an image?

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That never completely worked for me.

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I wanted to go further.

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Art is more than a series[br]of images that are disembodied.

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Art is objects that live

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in real places, economies,[br]spaces, architecture.

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I was looking[br]for a lot of different ways

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to try to find a language

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That would allow me to think[br]about what I was doing,

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and I ended up coming to geography.

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Geography is about everything.

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It allowed me to take ideas

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from visual theory[br]and cultural studies

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and incorporate them[br]into a larger landscape

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that could deal[br]with political economy,

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that could deal[br]with architecture,

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that could deal with space.

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In fact, that's what[br]the whole thing is about,

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was the production of space.

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A lot of works[br]that we now look at

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as being classic kind of[br]art landscape photography,

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people like Timothy O'Sullivan[br]Or Muybridge,

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Western photographers,

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you go to the National Archives

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and look up[br]those original photographs,

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they come in these giant reports[br]that say, you know,

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"Reconnaissance survey[br]of the American West,

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Department of War."

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These were not really meant[br]to be landscape photographs

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in the way that contemporary[br]landscape photographers work.

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These photographers were hired[br]by the Department of War

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to go out and document the West

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for reasons of surveying[br]and cartography and mapmaking

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but also for ideological reasons as well,[br]as a kind of claiming of the West.

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That's interesting to me[br]in that tradition,

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that relationship[br]between aesthetics and power

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and technology and ideology.

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Settlers, people from the Gold Rush

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described this landscape[br]using vocabulary

0:07:08.880,0:07:10.260
that they would use[br]to describe Hell.

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They talked about salt pillars, infernos,

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this very twisted and dangerous[br]and terrifying place.

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In terms of that tradition of[br]Western landscape photography,

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it's something that I think[br]about being in dialogue with.

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Perhaps it goes back[br]to that question of the West,

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this promise[br]of a certain kind of freedom,

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a horizon of possibility

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but one that has never been[br]without an extreme amount of violence.

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That was true[br]of the 19th century

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with the colonization of[br]the West and the Indian Wars,

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and it's true now, perhaps,[br]with the drone wars.

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Pretty much no matter where[br]a drone in the world is flying,

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there's a good chance that[br]that pilot is based in Nevada.

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They're flying combat missions[br]in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan,

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controlled from Nevada,

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so those spaces[br]are folded into one another

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in a very real way.

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You spend some time out there,[br]and you realize

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that there's little things[br]flying around

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that look like insects.

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Those are different drones[br]that are flown from Nevada.

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What's interesting to me about[br]photographing drones at all

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is continuing this exploration[br]of the relationship

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between seeing and technology[br]and aesthetics and politics.

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These are remotely controlled cameras[br]that have missiles attached to them.

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They're involved in assassinations[br]and that sort of thing.

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Looking at the drone in the sky,[br]for me,

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is perhaps a little bit[br]of an echo of Turner

0:09:03.960,0:09:04.920
looking at the train

0:09:06.900,0:09:09.060
in the famous painting[br]Rain, Steam, and Speed.

0:09:09.060,0:09:11.820
It's a very blurry,[br]very abstract image of a train,

0:09:12.496,0:09:15.540
but what was happening[br]at that moment in time

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was that trains were[br]some of the first examples

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of things that humans had made

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that moved faster[br]than your eye could see.

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And there's crazy stories,

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people being hit by trains

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that were traveling[br]at 30 miles an hour

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because they literally[br]could not understand

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what that speed meant.

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I'm trying to see[br]some of the objects

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that are radically transforming[br]the way

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that we understand and perceive[br]the world.

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In Muybridge, you find[br]this pulling apart of time,

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which gets picked up[br]by someone like Edgerton,

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who has famous photographs of a[br]bullet flying through an apple,

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really speeding up time.

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Edgerton then gets a contract

0:10:00.900,0:10:05.280
to photograph the early[br]atmospheric nuclear tests,

0:10:05.280,0:10:08.520
what a nuclear explosion[br]looks like.

0:10:09.420,0:10:13.440
To do that kind of photography,[br]the triggers for his shutters

0:10:13.440,0:10:16.680
are better than the triggers in[br]the nuclear weapons themselves,

0:10:16.680,0:10:19.440
so the trigger for the camera[br]becomes incorporated

0:10:19.440,0:10:20.760
into the nuclear weapon.

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A company starts called EG&G,

0:10:22.860,0:10:25.320
which is now[br]a major defense company.

0:10:25.320,0:10:29.040
There's a very interesting[br]and very messy history

0:10:29.040,0:10:33.900
of seeing, of technology,[br]of militarism and weapons

0:10:33.900,0:10:35.030
that are conflated

0:10:35.030,0:10:37.620
in 19th-century[br]landscape photography.

0:10:38.700,0:10:42.360
This question of representation[br]and technology

0:10:42.360,0:10:43.800
and politics and ideology

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has always been a part[br]of the history of art–

0:10:47.617,0:10:51.540
Leonardo da Vinci,[br]Roman mithraic mysteries.

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In terms of the limits of the way[br]that we often talk about art,

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we fail to recognize[br]the production of images or art objects

0:11:03.360,0:11:06.780
has everything to do with[br]what is going on in a society.

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What I'm doing here is[br]collecting badges and patches

0:11:15.240,0:11:19.140
for secret military projects.

0:11:20.700,0:11:25.380
This question of how to represent that[br]which must not be represented

0:11:25.380,0:11:27.840
is one of the oldest questions in art.

0:11:28.800,0:11:32.640
Most religious art in many, many[br]different traditions

0:11:32.640,0:11:34.320
has to do[br]with exactly this question.

0:11:35.580,0:11:38.520
The image of the fish, the lamb,[br]these are images

0:11:38.520,0:11:42.120
that would be understood[br]by other Christians

0:11:42.120,0:11:43.140
during the Roman Empire

0:11:43.140,0:11:46.380
but would not mean anything to[br]somebody who was an outsider.

0:11:47.520,0:11:51.360
United States Air Force[br]aerospace medicine, AFFTC,

0:11:51.523,0:11:53.683
That means[br]Air Force Flight Test Center,

0:11:54.126,0:11:59.580
worn by the doctors[br]who service pilots at Area 51,

0:11:59.580,0:12:03.540
which is kind of the famous base[br]that doesn't exist in Nevada.

0:12:04.240,0:12:07.740
The little slogan that they have[br]is "Better care nowhere,"

0:12:08.183,0:12:10.560
so there's all kinds of jokes[br]going on.

0:12:11.940,0:12:16.800
The figure of the dragon[br]usually means

0:12:16.800,0:12:19.620
a so-called signals intelligence satellite,

0:12:19.620,0:12:20.880
or an eavesdropping satellite.

0:12:20.880,0:12:24.000
It just collects cell phone calls,[br]any kind of radio transmission

0:12:24.000,0:12:25.980
emanating from the surface[br]of the earth.

0:12:25.980,0:12:27.960
It's a giant antenna.

0:12:27.960,0:12:29.340
It's the size[br]of a football field.

0:12:29.340,0:12:30.600
They look like umbrellas.

0:12:31.136,0:12:36.240
That stretched-out[br]circular antenna in these icons

0:12:36.240,0:12:38.160
translates into the image[br]of the dragon

0:12:38.160,0:12:40.260
with its wings outstretched,

0:12:40.260,0:12:44.100
and it looks like it's a star[br]joining a collection of other stars,

0:12:44.100,0:12:46.260
So it's satellite[br]that is joining a collection

0:12:46.260,0:12:47.160
of other satellites

0:12:47.160,0:12:50.520
that have some kind of[br]secret reconnaissance mission.

0:12:54.600,0:12:57.180
What are all the things[br]that are going on around us

0:12:57.180,0:13:00.720
that influence our lives,[br]our political culture,

0:13:00.720,0:13:02.040
you know, our culture at large

0:13:02.040,0:13:04.500
and yet which are invisible?

0:13:05.280,0:13:07.200
What are the things in orbit

0:13:07.200,0:13:10.080
that influence what goes on[br]on the surface of the Earth

0:13:10.080,0:13:13.920
but are also, in a very literal[br]sense, unearthly?

0:13:19.500,0:13:22.860
There's a small group of amateur astronomers[br]around the world

0:13:22.860,0:13:25.920
that every night go out[br]and look for things

0:13:25.920,0:13:28.680
that "aren't there" in the sky.

0:13:28.680,0:13:31.200
And over dozens of years,[br]they've put together

0:13:31.200,0:13:34.800
a kind of alternative catalog[br]to the night sky.

0:13:34.800,0:13:38.700
By taking observations[br]from these amateur astronomers,

0:13:38.700,0:13:41.460
you can model the orbits[br]of spacecraft

0:13:41.460,0:13:44.280
and predict exactly where[br]it will be in the night sky.

0:13:45.840,0:13:48.180
Satellites have to follow[br]Kepler's Laws

0:13:48.180,0:13:49.380
of Planetary Motion,

0:13:49.380,0:13:53.460
and so there's a real contradiction[br]in the sense that the military can make

0:13:53.460,0:13:54.720
all the secret stuff[br]that they like,

0:13:54.720,0:13:57.780
but they can't invent[br]secret laws of physics.

0:14:01.080,0:14:04.200
I want to– let's figure out[br]what time sunset is gonna be.

0:14:09.780,0:14:14.400
Sunset is gonna be at 7:50,

0:14:15.420,0:14:22.380
so I want to look at satellites[br]that are gonna begin, let's say,

0:14:23.134,0:14:25.980
between 8:45 and 11:45 tonight.

0:14:27.420,0:14:28.980
And here I got my list.

0:14:29.880,0:14:34.020
These are all the classified spacecraft[br]that will be in the sky this evening,

0:14:34.020,0:14:35.880
many of which won't be visible.

0:14:36.480,0:14:42.540
I'm just going to take a screenshot[br]of this trajectory and save it.

0:14:42.540,0:14:44.100
This basically[br]is going to give me a map

0:14:44.100,0:14:46.380
of what this spacecraft[br]is going to do.

0:14:46.380,0:14:48.420
And then I'm gonna put it[br]in a shot list,

0:14:48.420,0:14:51.000
and I'm going to say,[br]"Okay, at 9:10,

0:14:51.000,0:14:53.100
"We want to be looking[br]at this part of the sky

0:14:53.100,0:14:55.260
and for this satellite."

0:14:56.820,0:14:58.920
This is actually[br]what is gonna take the pictures.

0:14:58.920,0:15:03.540
This is a very simple, standard,[br]boring camera

0:15:03.540,0:15:05.400
with an off-the-shelf lens.

0:15:06.840,0:15:09.360
Sometimes I'll shoot[br]under cloudy skies

0:15:09.360,0:15:11.640
or hazy skies or clear skies.

0:15:11.640,0:15:15.840
I really try to incorporate[br]a wide spectrum

0:15:15.840,0:15:19.380
of atmospheric conditions into[br]the photographs that I take.

0:15:28.080,0:15:31.020
There's a very long tradition[br]of looking at the night sky.

0:15:32.400,0:15:34.440
The night sky[br]is a cultural mirror.

0:15:34.440,0:15:38.160
Going back to the Babylonians[br]or Greeks or you name it,

0:15:38.160,0:15:41.940
people have looked to the sky[br]for answers to the big questions.

0:15:42.500,0:15:44.280
Who are we?[br]Where have we come from?

0:15:44.280,0:15:45.060
Where are we going?

0:15:45.060,0:15:48.060
And that was true[br]of Babylonian astrologists

0:15:48.060,0:15:50.880
trying to figure out the future[br]based on the movement of the planets,

0:15:50.880,0:15:53.040
And that's true[br]of contemporary scientists

0:15:53.040,0:15:55.080
using things[br]like the hubble space telescope

0:15:55.080,0:15:58.740
to try to see the beginning of time[br]and the limits of the universe.

0:15:59.580,0:16:03.780
It's taking that trope[br]and twisting it around a little bit

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and looking at the sky.

0:16:04.920,0:16:08.040
But instead of seeing[br]some kind of divine future,

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we see military things.

0:16:11.160,0:16:13.020
we see surveillance machines.

0:16:15.480,0:16:18.240
The revolution that is happening[br]in perception right now

0:16:18.240,0:16:22.560
has to do with machines[br]seeing for other machines.

0:16:22.560,0:16:27.060
Humans are designing machines[br]and software to see for us,

0:16:27.900,0:16:28.740
and that's new.

0:16:29.650,0:16:35.520
It's something I'm just trying to[br]understand how to see, I guess.