ABSTRACT
The rise of surveillance and the changed nature of conflict have prompted new photographic application. Often creating their images by hijacking the technologies they are investigating, photographers reveal what hidden systems look like and how they permeate their lives. Trevor Paglen seeks to represent the facets of mass surveillance and data collection that do not have an obvious or tangible form. Paradoxically, many photographers make use of the very surveillance technology on which they are commenting in order to create their work. Paglen has used commercial satellite technology to track classified US drones, while Mishka Henner has used Google Street View to help locate the overt and covert sites that are the focus of his series Fifty-One US Military Outposts. In Henner's Dutch Landscapes he captures the colourful shapes that the Dutch government use to censor sites on Google's satellite imagery, while Paglen's images from space possess an abstract quality sometimes referred to as an 'astronomical sublime'.
