Trevor Paglen

I think of AI itself as a monster of capitalism.

— Trevor Paglen

Injustice drives me crazy!

— Trevor Paglen

I am not a journalist or an academic.

— Trevor Paglen

We didn't have to use technology to build a surveillance state.

— Trevor Paglen

Image-making, along with storytelling and music, is the stuff that culture is made out of.

— Trevor Paglen

For me, one of the jobs of an artist is to try to see changes taking place.

— Trevor Paglen

The world is constantly changing, and I feel like my job is to try to see how it is changing.

— Trevor Paglen

When we look up into the starry night sky, we tend to see reflections of ourselves.

— Trevor Paglen

What would the infrastructure of the Internet look like if mass surveillance wasn't its business model?

— Trevor Paglen

If you create a place where anything can happen, anything will happen.

— Trevor Paglen

I want to help develop a visual and cultural vocabulary around surveillance.

— Trevor Paglen

I always start with the assumption that everything that happens in the world is actually in the world. It sounds like an…

— Trevor Paglen

Civilian law around aviation is much looser than those governing military. Civilian planes can basically fly wherever they want in the world.

— Trevor Paglen

I think mass surveillance is a bad idea because a surveillance society is one in which people understand that they are constantly…

— Trevor Paglen

For me, there's something very romantic about going and looking at the stars and trying to photograph spy satellites.

— Trevor Paglen

In religion, symbols have always played a iconographic and ritualistic role. Different symbols might represent different theological ideas.

— Trevor Paglen

I think of my visual work as an exploration of political epistemology: the politics of how we know what we think we…

— Trevor Paglen

In the traditional academic literature, secrecy is thought of as a set of bureaucratic operations - hiding files and hiding information, that…

— Trevor Paglen

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

In a democracy, the citizens are supposed to have all the power, and the government is supposed to be the means by…

— Trevor Paglen

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

What I thought was fascinating about comparative religion was that these were the stories that humans have told themselves about where they…

— Trevor Paglen

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

In the late 19th century, Russian Cosmists such as Nikolai Fyodorov believed we need to go to space to collect all the…

— Trevor Paglen

Oftentimes, secrecy involves creating spaces that are outside of the law but are outside the normal channels of oversight. And I think…

— Trevor Paglen

“The private security industry feeds on itself, creating the conditions for its own growth. As unemployment rises, there's more work to be…

— Trevor Paglen

Show me what society that ever existed that did not use the tools that they had available. Ask any person from East…

— Trevor Paglen

Injustice drives me crazy! It really upsets me when I see politicians lying.

— Trevor Paglen

My dad was not one of these stereotypical military people - buzz-cut, rah-rah-rah.

— Trevor Paglen

“What we see strongly guides what we do: To an extent, we enact what we imagine.”

— Trevor Paglen

Images can make realities out of people and struggles - the reality we give them. Images really matter.

— Trevor Paglen

Anything humans can do in space, robots can do better.

— Trevor Paglen

I pretty much made a conscious decision to make projects a lot of people can relate to.

— Trevor Paglen

Creative projects are rarely the result of a single person's efforts.

— Trevor Paglen

It's not okay for me to behave as if I'm cynical about the future. Even if I am.

— Trevor Paglen

I believe that art can make relevant and progressive contributions to culture and society.

— Trevor Paglen

Technologically, it is not hard to launch an object into space. Emotionally, it has been difficult.

— Trevor Paglen

At extreme distances, there is essentially no such thing as depth of field.

— Trevor Paglen

Artists have historically understood images better than anyone else. This is what we do.

— Trevor Paglen

Do cave paintings mean anything? Not really, but I, for one, am happy to have them.

— Trevor Paglen