Invisible (Signed Edition): Covert Operations and Classified Landscapes

by Trevor Paglen

Covert Operations and Classified Landscapes is Trevor Paglen's long-awaited first photographic monograph. Social scientist, artist, writer and provocateur, Paglen has been exploring the secret activities of the U.S. military and intelligence agencies--the "black world"--for the last eight years, publishing, speaking and making astonishing photographs. As an artist, Paglen is interested in the idea of photography as truth-telling, but his pictures often stop short of traditional ideas of documentation. In the series Limit Telephotography , for example, he employs high-end optical systems to photograph top-secret governmental sites; and in The Other Night Sky , he uses the data of amateur satellite watchers to track and photograph classified spacecraft in Earth's orbit. In other works Paglen transforms documents such as passports, flight data and aliases of CIA operatives into art objects. Rebecca Solnit contributes a searing essay that traces this history of clandestine military activity on the American landscape.

Genres: Photography, Art, Counter Culture, American History, Nonfiction, Military Fiction

Hardcover

First published August 30, 2010

About the author

Trevor Paglen is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer whose work deliberately blurs lines between social science, contemporary art, journalism, and other disciplines to construct unfamiliar, yet meticulously researched ways to see and interpret the world around us.

Paglen's visual work has been exhibited at Transmediale Festival, Berlin; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA); Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams; the 2008 Taipei Biennial; the Istanbul Biennial 2009, and has been featured in numerous publications including The New York Times, Wired, Newsweek, Modern Painters, Aperture, and Art Forum.

Paglen has received grants and commissions from Rhizome.org, Art Matters, Artadia, and the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology.

Paglen is the author of three books. His first book, Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights (co-authored with AC Thompson; Melville House, 2006) was the first book to systematically describe the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program. His second book, I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me (Melville House, 2007) an examination of the visual culture of “black” military programs, was published in Spring 2008. His third book, Blank Spots on a Map, was published by Dutton/Penguin in early 2009. In spring 2010, Aperture will publish a book of his visual work.

Paglen holds a B.A. from UC Berkeley, an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Geography from UC Berkeley.

Paglen lives and works in Oakland, CA and New York City.

Reviews

[Nat]

Turn to page 71, where there are pictures of two nearly identical patches for space shuttle mission STS-38. Each patch features two space shuttles, both pictured from head on, one on top of the other, with a sunburst behind each. The patch on the left has a white shuttle in front of a yellow sunburst on top, and a gray shuttle in front of a gray sunburst underneath. The patch on the right has the gray shuttle/sunburst on top and the white shuttle/yellow sunburst underneath.

Here is Paglen's description of these patches:

"NASA produced these patches for Space Shuttle mission STS-38, which lifted off from Cape Canaveral on November 15, 1990. The mission was to insert a classified SDS communications spacecraft, code named QUASAR, into orbit. On the 'public' program patch, the white shuttle is on top, shadowed by a gray inverse image. According [to] NASA's description of the patch, 'the top orbiter...symbolizes the continuing dynamic nature of the Space Shuttle Program. The bottom orbiter, a black and white mirror image, acknowledges the thousands of unheralded individuals who work behind the scenes...this mirror image symbolizes the importance of their contributions'.
"STS-38 actually deployed two spacecraft. One was the QUASAR SDS spacecraft, which was a highly classified payload. The QUASAR deployment, however, also served as a cover story for an even more secret spacecraft, called PROWLER. PROWLER was a small, stealthy spacecraft designed to maneuver through the geostationary belt and to intercept and inspect other satellites. According to journalist Robert Windrem, PROWLER could accurately maneuver within a foot of target spacecraft, collecting information about size, radar cross section, mass, and operational details. In tests, PROWLER is reported to have shut down U.S. communication spacecraft undetected, proving the viability of stealthy anti-satellite (ASAT) operations.
"As Dwayne Day first reported, just as STS-38 carried two payloads, there were in fact two patches for the mission itself. The 'secret' patch was an inversion of the public patch. On the secret patch, the shadow shuttle was on top, signifying the shuttle's true mission".

I find that kind of sneakiness intoxicating. And the sinister/goofy mission patches that Paglen reproduces in this book (and that appear in his earlier book I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me) are evidence that I'm not the only one that these kinds of project have that effect on.

Another jolt comes from an ornate "challenge coin" (apparently members of military units carry these things and can be challenged to produce them; if you don't have yours, then you have to buy everyone a round of drinks): The coin is for the "Blackhats", a classified test flight group stationed at Groom Lake (Area 51) in Nevada. On the back of the coin is a cloud with eyes shooting a lightning bolt at a Soviet red star, with 5 "stars" (they look more like fleurs-de-lis) on the left and one on the right (for Area 51). To the left of the cloud is an outline of an F-117 stealth fighter, to the right is an outline of a B-2 stealth bomber, and above the cloud is an outline of...some weird boomerang-shaped thing---possibly "a reference to a still classified airframe".

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book to be discovered with an open mind. His visions of exposure are bit blurry. Unlike Frederic Chaubin who gives us a Christal clear look at the "Cosmic Communist Constructions" leaving nothing to a possible misinterpretation. Maybe on purpose, Paglen keeps us thinking and guessing. He leaves more questions open than giving us answers. Again, that is just my opinion.

[Benito Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anthropologist Carolyn Nordstrom, in her magisterial ethnography Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century, writes about how “the politics of invisibility” are not accidental: “it is created, and created for a reason… the modern state is as dependent on shadow economies and warzone profits as it is on keeping those dependencies invisible to formal reckoning.” This retrospective collection of Paglen’s photography – of military spacecraft orbiting the Earth, secret airfields in Nevada (looking eerily like Ansel Adams’ famous moonrise photograph), blurry photocopies of fake IDs of CIA officials involved in extraordinary rendition -- is both incontrovertible testimony and a reversal of the hierarchy of photographic power: it is now us who sees the workings of the state laid bare, made terrifyingly visible.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of photographs represents part of the hidden operations of the US military: reconnaissance satellites, meteorological satellites, code names, unit patches. It requires a studied eye. Also, the contrast between the views provided by Pagan's camera at a modest distance and the sharply defined images taken by the satellites serves to suggest to the reader what the citizenry may know as opposed to what the government can discover, not a reassuring contrast, considering the all of the government's information gathering is either wasted--9/11, used for lies--WMD in Iraq, or, perhaps someday, helpful. One thinks of the history of the CIA, Garden of Ashes.

It is Rebecca Solnit's essay, "Invisible Wars," that helps to sharpen one's vision.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This topic is super fascinating to me and yet I was underwhelmed by the book. I think it's mostly a format problem - many of the pictures just aren't that interesting all on their own. Paglen does interesting and important work, though, and I was much more impressed by watching this talk that he gave: https://media.ccc.de/v/30C3_-_5604_-_...