Trevor Paglen’s multidisciplinary artistic practice – spanning photography, video, sculpture, and installation – is often based on intensive investigative research into state surveillance, military operations, and data collection. His groundbreaking work on machine vision uncovers and exemplifies the paradigm shift related to the status of images caused by constant and rapid technological development. Making invisible power structures and technology visible while critically questioning their influence in shaping today’s societies and environments is a central concern in Trevor Paglen’s work.

In the context of his solo exhibition Hide the Real, Show the False at n.b.k., Trevor Paglen, together with Hari Kunzru, Mark Pilkington, and Caroline Busta will discuss and offer further perspectives into topics of the exhibition such as mind control, deception and disinformation strategies, and psychological operations (PSYOPS) of the U.S. military.

Free admission

Participants

Caroline Busta is a Berlin-based writer and editor. Together with Lil Internet and Daniel Keller, Busta is co-founder and host of New Models, a media channel and community addressing the emergent effects of networked technology on culture. From 2014–2017 Busta was editor-in-chief of the critical art journal Texte zur Kunst and an associate editor at Artforum magazine in New York from 2008–2014. Busta regularly writes about art for catalogues and in magazine such as Artforum, Kaleidoscope or Highsnobiety. She regularly gives talks, most recently in the context of the Future of Critique Congress, Bundeskunsthalle Bonn / Akademie der Künste Berlin, The AA School of Architecture, London, or the University of California for Design and Media Arts, Los Angeles.

The writings of Hari Kunzru (*1969 in London, lives and works in Brooklyn/New York) explore the controversial legacies of colonialism and empire and the impact of today’s globalized world and powerful transnational corporations on the formation of individual identities. Kunzru (*1969 in London, lives in Brooklyn/New York) is the author of several novels, among others: Gods without Men (London: Hamish Hamilton, 2011), White Tears (Munich: Liebeskind, 2017), Red Pill (Munich: Liebeskind, 2020), as well as the short story collection Noise (London: Penguin Books, 2006) and the novella Memory Palace (London: V&A Publ., 2013). His short stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Guardian, London Review of Books, and Frieze, among others. Kunzru is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Public Library, and the American Academy in Berlin.

Trevor Paglen (*1974 in Maryland / USA, lives and works in New York and Berlin) has had numerous one-person exhibitions, including at San José Museum of Art, USA (2021); Fondazione Prada, Milan (with Kate Crawford, 2019); Barbican Centre, London (2019); Smithsonian American Art Museum (2019). Paglen’s work has also featured in numerous group exhibitions at venues such as Centre Pompidou, Paris; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago (both 2022); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2014); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2012); Tate Modern, London (2010).

Mark Pilkington (*1973 in London, lives and works in London) is a writer, publisher, curator, and musician with particular interest in the fringes of knowledge, culture. and belief. His book Mirage Men (New York: Skyhorse, 2010) and the homonymous documentary film (directed by John Lundberg, 2013), reveals the long history of UFOria and its parallels in little known tales from the murky worlds of espionage, psychological warfare and advanced military technology. Mirage Men suggests that the U.S. military and intelligence agencies have exploited, and at times fabricated, UFO folklore in order to deflect attention from classified aerospace projects and intelligence operations. Pilkington’s writing has also been published in numerous magazines, anthologies and exhibition catalogues, music and film liner notes including Documents of Contemporary Art: Magic, The Guardian, The Anomalist, Fortean Times, Frieze, Sight & Sound, The Wire, the Time Out Book of London Walks Vol. 2 and London Noir. Pilkington is founder of Strange Attractor Press and edits its anthology, Strange Attractor Journal.