Trevor Paglen and the Seeing Machines

Renowned American artist Trevor Paglen (Invisible: Covert Operations and Classified Landscapes, The Last Pictures) is our guest blogger on “Still Searching” till April 15. His topic: The world of seeing machines – from iPhones to facial recognition algorithms to automated military targeting systems and Automated Number Plate Reader (ANPR) imaging systems – and what they mean in terms of 21st Century photography.

One of Paglen’s initial assumptions is that without “question, the 21st Century will be a photographic century. Photography will play a more fundamental role in the functioning of 21st Century societies than 20th Century practitioners working with light-sensitive emulsions and photographic papers could have ever dreamed. So while in one sense photography might be ‘over,’ in another, it’s barely gotten going. And we haven’t seen anything yet.” Of course, this raises a whole series of questions, such as:
“If a traditional understanding of ‘photography’ is ill-suited to making sense of the 21st Century’s photographic landscape, then how do we begin to think about what ‘photography’ has become and is becoming?”
Or:
“How do we see the world with machines? What happens if we think about photography in terms of imaging systems instead of images?  How can we think about images made by machines for other machines? What are the implications of a world in which photography is both ubiquitous and, curiously, largely invisible?”

Answers and further pertinent questions on
www.blog.fotomuseum.ch