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[Trevor Paglen: Power & Perspective]
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[Griffin Editions, Photography Printing Studio]
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--[PAGLEN] We can just put them over here,
if you...
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--[MAN] Okay.
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[PAGLEN] Yeah, there's a little bit of drama
around this picture.
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We called up the NSA and said,
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"We're going to fly a helicopter over your
headquarters—take pictures."
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Which is perfectly legal.
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They said, "We don't want you to do that."
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We said, "Well, we're not asking permission,"
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"we're just telling you that we're doing this—and
don't shoot us!"
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And the NSA sent a bunch of guys—I think
seven guys—
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and posted them up at all different places
in the airport to watch this flight.
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And I think they were making phone calls to
the headquarters,
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having certain lights turned on and off.
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The woman who owns the helicopter had baked
a bunch of brownies,
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and was actually driving around the little
airport,
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like, playing "spot the NSA guys" and, like,
feeding them brownies.
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One of the reasons why you typically actually
don't see photographs of the NSA headquarters
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is because it's surrounded by trees.
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[NSA Headquarters, public domain image]
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There's only a couple of photographs, and
they're the couple that everybody uses.
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--[MAN] I'm going to load this up.
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--[PAGLEN] Okay.
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[PAGLEN] I generally don't like these so-called
"bird's eye" or "God's eye" perspectives.
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That perspective implies a, kind of, mastery
over something.
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It implies that perhaps you can see this,
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and that it's transparent and we can understand it,
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and this is a, kind of, insignificant thing
which is on the ground below us.
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[Mike Vorrasi, Senior Retoucher]
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--[PAGLEN] Whoa! [LAUGHS]
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--[VORRASI] So this is just me trying to do
some...
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--[PAGLEN] What have you got going on there!?
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--[VORRASI] So the red channel was really
bright,
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--so I was just, sort of, just blending in
the blue channel a little bit.
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--And the same with the blue.
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--The blue was a little heavy, so I just sort
of was blending back in to see,
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--then I was going to put that on a luminous.
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--[PAGLEN] The next one is your profile?
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--[VORRASI] Yeah, exactly.
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--[PAGLEN] That's either your profile...
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--[VORRASI] That's in our profile right now.
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[PAGLEN] It does look like we're at a shopping
mall.
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It seems like a very, kind of, normal kind
of looking place.
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And I struggle with that, because on one hand,
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the extent to which the NSA's tendrils are
in our everyday lives,
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perhaps this perspective is at odds with that.
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But what I like about the perspective in this
particular instance
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is that it puts you in the situation where
we can look at a building like this and,
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to some extent, perhaps imagine that in fact
these are civic institutions,
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and that you, as a member of the public,
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should be able to exert the same kind of power
over this institution
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that we can symbolically do by looking at
a photograph shot from this perspective.
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--[PAGLEN] Cool, so we'll save some variations
on this one for next time,
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--and let's see, like, back on that Reaper
image...
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--[VORRASI] Oh, yeah.
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--[MAN] You want that up there?
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[PAGLEN] This is about as big as it gets for
me.
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There was only a couple of things that I've
done at this size.
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So, I was just shooting, like, directly into
the sun with the four-by-five camera.
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The idea for it actually came from a Turner
painting called "Angel in the Sun".
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These drones are called Reapers, so this is
"The Reaper in the Sun".
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--[PAGLEN] Cool. So this is the range of stuff
that we're looking at...
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[PAGLEN] One of the advantages of using, like,
traditional kind of film
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in a situation like that is that you can do
weird stuff
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like over-expose a photograph, shooting directly
into the sun,
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and still have some wiggle room--
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have something to play with.
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--[PAGLEN] Like, I wonder if there's, like,
a magenta ring around here,
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--or if it's just like my eyes doing stuff.
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--You know what I'm talking about?
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--[VORRASI] Yeah.
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--[PAGLEN] Yeah, it's super weird!
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[PAGLEN] We've done tons of stuff where we
put two prints right next to each other,
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and then we're like, "Oh, the one on the right.
Oh, it's cooler or whatever."
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And then we'll shift them back over, and then
we're like,
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"Oh, the one on the right!" [LAUGHS]
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--[VORRASI] Yeah, yeah! No, definitely.
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--Even, like, putting white magnets as opposed
to black magnets...
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--So, I'm just, like, "If we could just cut
down on some variables, like,"
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--"we can kind of concentrate on what is changing,
and how to, like, address those things."
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[PAGLEN] In the sky, there traditionally is
a promise of, kind of, openness,
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or a kind of freedom.
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But the sky itself has been turned against us.
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The drone is just the punctuation mark.
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--[VORRASI] The drone looks great.
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--[PAGLEN] Yeah.