Images can make realities out of people and struggles - the reality we give them. Images really matter. — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
I pretty much made a conscious decision to make projects a lot of people can relate to. — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
I want to help develop a visual and cultural vocabulary around surveillance. — Trevor Paglen Help Copy Share Image
If you create a place where anything can happen, anything will happen. — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
Injustice drives me crazy! It really upsets me when I see politicians lying. — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
We humans have always looked to the sky as a sounding board for asking big questions about ourselves: Who are we? Where… — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
I really don't think art is good at answering questions. It's much better at posing questions - and even better at simply… — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
When we look at something that is alien to us, that is beyond our comprehension, what do we see but ourselves? — Trevor Paglen Alien Copy Share Image
In religion, symbols have always played a iconographic and ritualistic role. Different symbols might represent different theological ideas. — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
For me, there's something very romantic about going and looking at the stars and trying to photograph spy satellites. — Trevor Paglen Love Copy Share Image
Civilian law around aviation is much looser than those governing military. Civilian planes can basically fly wherever they want in the world. — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
I think mass surveillance is a bad idea because a surveillance society is one in which people understand that they are constantly… — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
I always start with the assumption that everything that happens in the world is actually in the world. It sounds like an… — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
Oftentimes, secrecy involves creating spaces that are outside of the law but are outside the normal channels of oversight. And I think… — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
'The Last Pictures' is meant to create a framework to think about the long-term effects of human civilizations and the transformations we've… — Trevor Paglen Change Copy Share Image
What I thought was fascinating about comparative religion was that these were the stories that humans have told themselves about where they… — Trevor Paglen Alive Copy Share Image
If you are a plane-spotter, and you are interested in the history of a particular aircraft, you know there are many documents… — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
In a democracy, the citizens are supposed to have all the power, and the government is supposed to be the means by… — Trevor Paglen Democracy Copy Share Image
In the late 19th century, Russian Cosmists such as Nikolai Fyodorov believed we need to go to space to collect all the… — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
I would say that the fundamental question of geography is about how humans shaped the Earth's surface and how we, in turn,… — Trevor Paglen Earth Copy Share Image
In the very near future, I guarantee that the pictures you post on social media will affect your credit rating, health and… — Trevor Paglen Future Copy Share Image
One of the kinds of things I'm consistently interested in is what the border between the seen and not seen is and… — Trevor Paglen Being Copy Share Image
In the traditional academic literature, secrecy is thought of as a set of bureaucratic operations - hiding files and hiding information, that… — Trevor Paglen Books Copy Share Image
I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we… — Trevor Paglen Epistemology Copy Share Image
What I'm trying to do is to get a glimpse into the secret state that surrounds us all the time but that… — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
I think that one of the most important things that art can do is give you a reason to look at something,… — Trevor Paglen Art Copy Share Image
I'm pretty cynical about the future, but I feel like that's not an ethical position for me to take. It's not okay… — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
People like to say that my work is about making the invisible visible, but that's a misunderstanding. It's about showing what invisibility… — Trevor Paglen Invisibility Copy Share Image
Religions have always adopted rich symbolic languages to signify the different aspects of their respective forms of faith and mythology. — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
When you look at the number of satellites, what they're doing and what they represent, it is really a vision of trying… — Trevor Paglen Dreams Copy Share Image
I can't imagine anything more beautiful on this planet than looking up at the stars and seeing a kind of artificial star… — Trevor Paglen Astronomy Copy Share Image
When you have an economically unequal society, you end up with huge swaths of society that are disposable, basically. — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
Nothing that you make in the world exists in isolation from the social and political and ecological dimensions of it. — Trevor Paglen Isolation Copy Share Image
It's productive and fun to try interpreting cave paintings, but ultimately, they can't teach us anything beyond what we imagine them to… — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
The NRO is like a secret twin to NASA. It's the U.S.' 'other' space agency. The agency is about as old as… — Trevor Paglen Existence Copy Share Image
I really do think of them as post-minimalist sculptures, inspired in large part by some very early spacecraft that NASA built. — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
It's common knowledge that most of the guys at Guantanamo are nobodies. Many were turned in by bounty hunters. — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
Every person who went into the space industry did so because they looked up at the sky and were fascinated by it… — Trevor Paglen Copy Share Image
Geosynchronous spacecraft will be among civilization's most enduring remnants, quietly circling Earth until the Earth is no more. — Trevor Paglen Civilization Copy Share Image
On one hand, the idea of sending pictures off into the vastness of space and time seems nonsensical. On the other, I… — Trevor Paglen Gesture Copy Share Image
