[iDC] Activist Media Landscape

[Trevor Paglen]

The link to the full article is at:
http://www.sfbg.com/40/11/cover_plane.html
sorry for the confusion
t

Trevor Paglen wrote:
> Hi Everyone,
> 
> I just finished the first part of a project that I think somehow fits 
> into the discussion here. As some of you know, I've been researching and 
> making work about "secret" military bases for the last few years. As a 
> part of that project, I came across a number of documents about the 
> CIA's "torture jets" and also came into contact with worldwide networks 
> of "plane spotters." About 2 weeks ago, I hooked up with an 
> investigative journalist and we came up with this article:
> http://sfbg.com/
> 
> The thing that's important about this investigation is that we were able 
> to link at least one of the jets to a major public figure (something 
> that noone else has really been able to do). There's way more to the 
> story than made it into the weekly - I'll be explaining the whole 
> structure at lectures this spring.
> 
> Anyway, I think that somehow this project captures some of what Trebor 
> was talking about with 'public investigation' and distributed community 
> networks (of weird airplane spotter people) and so forth. But I have to 
> confess that I certainly haven't had much time to "dream" or relax or 
> anything lately. No sleep, and sometimes a good dose of nervousness.
> Anyway, hope you enjoy the piece. I've found that these kinds of 
> investigative models of 'art' can be very fruitful - both in terms of 
> creating works that foreground a radical 'means of production' and get 
> around the fetishistic ways that all of us sometimes ontologize (is that 
> a word?) artworks. The images from this project aren't online (yet), but 
> they really do act as a kind of evidence, and not in a theoretical way 
> but rather one that is far more immediate.
> 
> Great discussions on this list, keep it up!
> 

-- 
Trevor Paglen
--------------------------------------------------------
Department of Geography
University of California at Berkeley
507 McCone Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-4740

www.paglen.com