News/Research

Alum Trevor Paglen on Artsy

30 Jan, 2018

Alum Trevor Paglen on Artsy

William Silva Reddington's a short film featuring Paglen's work considers the impact of surveillance on art.

"The Future of Art" meditates on what the future of art will look like? How will the role of art evolve in an increasingly digital, global, and image-saturated world? Artsy explores where artistic output is headed and reflects on the role of tradition in an age of rapid technological advancement, and discuss the potential impact of this new work—from intimate drawings to cutting-edge buildings—on the audiences of the future.

About the Film

“Art can ask us to question our own common sense, and in doing so allow us to imagine what different worlds might be like,” says artist and MacArthur Genius Trevor Paglen. Blurring the boundaries between art, science, and journalism, Paglen’s work exposes often unsettling realities of our world today, particularly in relation to the surveillance state and the use of data.

His projects cast aside traditional artistic media. Previously, he has taken viewers on a diving expedition to witness the international internet cables that the NSA taps. In 2018, he’ll bring his practice into space, launching the first satellite to function purely as an art object. But, for as much as Paglen focuses on cutting-edge tech and the proliferation of visual culture, the future of art he imagines remains firmly rooted in art forms of the past.

Watch the video here.