The work of Trevor Paglen (born in 1974 in the United States) is not photographic as such, but the exhibition he is holding at Metro Pictures in New York closely touches on the issue of representation. Inspired by eminently contemporary problems, such as information mining and mass surveillance, Paglen’s relationship to the image is deliberately devoid of any aestheticism. The photographer is interested in images created by the accumulation of other images, that is, in the image of all images: his research is both political and philosophical. The works featured at Metro Pictures fall into two categories: images formed by and images created for algorithms (there is, of course, some overlap between the two categories).
The project Adversarially Evolved Hallucinations, for example, is a series of images generated using a database trained to recognize images depending on a more or less whimsical classification (such as “monsters,” “dreams,” or “American predators,” which includes portraits of Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook!). Using the different sets of images assembled by the artist, an algorithm will then produce a sort of archetype. The final image is a meta-image: it contains all the others. While it is possible to detect some familiar forms — and the titles of the works are a clue — these forms all tend toward ephemerally colored abstraction.
The same procedure is applied in Fanon (Even The Dead Are Not Safe) Eigenface which is a reproduction of the face of the philosopher Frantz Fanon generated by a facial recognition program: the portrait has been created by and for the machine. The facial features are recognizable and yet blend into gray and beige nuances. There is something terrifying about this both sublimated and essentializing image: this is how machines see us.
The work of Trevor Paglen is highly conceptual, and it is the uncanny quality of the images that makes them so captivating. The fantasy of an acheiropoieton (an image made without the use of human hand) and the madness of an objective world without people, undoubtedly contribute to the fascination exerted by the exhibition. The approach is alchemical; there is an aspect of an impossible quest and the result is almost awe-inspiring. One leaves the exhibition in a strange, somewhat feverish state of mind. The viewer is stimulated intellectually but the images resonate as if they were only advertisements.
Hugo Fortin
Hugo Fortin is a New York-based writer specializing in photography.
Trevor Paglen, A Study of Invisible Images
September 8 to October 21, 2017.
Metro Pictures
519 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
USA
