In “Telescopes,
Transparency, and Torture: Trevor Paglen and the Politics of Exposure,” Karen
Beckman discusses the photography of Trevor Paglen, which often function as a
comment on political and human rights issues. Beckman believes Paglen’s photographs
“Through the
blurry representation of buildings, bodies, planes, and indeterminate
landscapes,” cause the viewer to question, “what exactly such images at and of
the limit of photography can or do show us to consider what political
difference an awareness of this questions might make.” Paglen explains, “Rather
than trying to find out what’s actually going on behind closed doors, I’m
trying to take a long hard look at the door itself.”
In other words,
what I believe Paglen is doing is examining what it is that is blocking viewer,
the public, from what is being hidden from us or us. Therefore, it’s not
necessarily always most important what is “behind closed doors” but instead
what it is exactly it is that is acting as the door. Paglen does this through the
formal aesthetics of his photographs which help act to better understand the
ethics and politics “beyond evidence in a moment where ambiguity and otherness
constitute two of the targets of the war on terror.”
No comments:
Post a Comment