In “The Other Night Sky,” Trevor Paglen’s new exhibition at Bellwether, dozens of American spy satellites are depicted as pricks of light in the sky. The show is a photographic appendix to Paglen’s most recent book, Blank Spots on the Map, of which an entire chapter is dedicated to the study of satellites (charting their courses, speculating on their sinister functions). Many of these Paglen has managed to capture on film using a powerful telescopic lens, and he offers them to us here, for our enjoyment and derision, as large glossy laminates. If Paglen’s book gives us “the geography of the Classified World,” his photographs chart its cosmography.
Trevor Paglen is a sort of cult hero among conspiracy theorists and dissenters. His books uncover and describe many of the government’s dirty little secrets, from Area 51 to international espionage. At the show’s opening, Paglen appeared muscular and lithe, in jeans and sport coat, the kind of guy you imagine can defend himself against physical attack without swallowing his gum. He seemed to know nearly everyone, and greeted them with adrenal enthusiasm. When someone asked him to explain a particular piece, he gave her a tour of the entire show; by the time I left he had led several expeditions around the gallery, and still looked inexplicably cool and un-mussed.
Most of the photographs are bright, ethereal, and efficiently titled. Nine Reconnaissance Satellites Over the Sonora Pass (2008) is a time-lapse image composed of dozens of concentric circles—all of which glow with near-neon intensity—and looks like a giant phonographic record caught mid-spin. Other pieces are less astonishing: Keyhole Improved Crystal from Glacier Point (2008) depicts an Optical Reconnaissance Satellite’s simple geometric journey across an Alaskan sky; the satellite’s course might easily be mistaken for the trail of a comet if it weren’t so anomalous and bizarre-looking.
While viewing Paglen’s photos, it’s often difficult to discern what is satellite and what is not: the former burn so faintly amid humongous clusters of stars and clouds of cosmic gas that it’s easy to pass over them completely. But Paglen demands our attention: we learn to decipher his photographs, scanning them for signs of mechanical intrusion. This can be fun, and indeed we feel as though Paglen is teaching us something new and useful. Keep your eyes trained on the sky.
Image: ‘MILSTAR 3 in Sagittarius (Inactive Communication and Targeting Satellite; USA 143)’ by Trevor Paglen. Courtesy Bellwether Gallery.
