Trevor Paglen. Hide the Real, Show the False

About

Curators: Lidiya Anastasova, Anna Lena Seiser

Making invisible power structures and technology visible while critically questioning their influence in shaping today’s societies and environments is a central concern in Trevor Paglen’s multidisciplinary artistic practice. Spanning photography, video, sculpture, and installation, his work is often based on intensive investigative research into state surveillance, military operations, and data collection. His groundbreaking work on machine vision uncovers and exemplifies the paradigm shift related to the status of images caused by constant and rapid technological development.

Trevor Paglen’s exhibition with n.b.k. will present several new series exploring mind control, disinformation, and psychological operations (PSYOPS). The exhibition features a new video installation highlighting a testimony by former US Air Force counterintelligence officer Richard Doty, which will be on view for the first time in Europe. In the video, Doty recounts his efforts targeting UFO researchers as part of military disinformation campaigns and describes his relationship to a top-secret extraterrestrial technology program, which, he insists, remains active to this day. The topics of Doty’s ambivalent narration in the video are revisited and expanded upon by further works in the exhibition, as well as through research materials on US military operations (images, documents, memorabilia) and the broader concept of the politics of truth.