Artist Trevor Paglen will present work from his project, “The Heavens Above”, which is about the relationship between visuality, democracy and Ted Molzcan. Molzcan has spent the last 17 years trying to track a ‘stealth’ spy satellite using the basic tools of Newtonian physics. He has been continually thwarted in his efforts by the National Reconnaissance Organization (NRO), which has specifically targeted him as a “detection threat” to the classified payload.

Trevor Paglen is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer working out of the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. His work involves deliberately blurring the lines between social science, contemporary art, and a host of even more obscure disciplines in order to construct unfamiliar, yet meticulously researched ways to interpret the world around us.

Paglen’s first book, Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights (co-authored with AC Thompson; Melville House, 2006) was the first book to systematically describe the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program. His second book, I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me (Melville House, 2007) an examination of the visual culture of “black” military programs, will be published in November 2007. He is currently completing his third book, entitled Blank Spots on a Map, which will be published by Dutton/NAL/Penguin in late 2008/early 2009.

Image courtesy of Trevor Paglen