ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses two oppositional spatial concepts—premised on the thrill of surprise and the perverse protraction of terror—which are a distantly familiar legacy from the Romantic longitudinal Sublime. It focuses on the dark energy of cyberspace which has released reams of venting private information—rage, voyeurism, self-advertising, surveillance, dissipation, and retail lust—into world. Photographer Trevor Paglen's bravura photographs—part of an exhibition, The Octopus, at London's Photographers' Gallery—document the extent and ubiquity of government intelligence and military surveillance. These voguish abstractions, composed of Hogarthian wayward lines, lead the eye on a grim chase. Thin streams of lucent color streak across a glittering black sky with the paradoxical result that clandestine activity is flaunted in a blaze of spectacle. In the organ version, the water level and, consequently, the starting frequency of all pipes is determined by timed intervals that open the inflow valves, so the water levels of the pipes are in balance with the central reservoir column.
