Artist/Maker | |
Place of origin | |
A mounted C-print photograph showing a series of buildings. A car park and yellow lights surround the buildings.
Category | |
Object type | |
Title | Headquarters of the National Security Agency, Fort Meade, Maryland
(assigned by artist) |
Materials and techniques | |
Brief description | 'Headquarters of the National Security Agency, Fort Meade, Maryland' Trevor Paglen, 2014 |
Physical description | A mounted C-print photograph showing a series of buildings. A car park and yellow lights surround the buildings. |
Dimensions | - Height: 47.5cm
(Note: framed)
- Length: 70.5cm
(Note: framed)
|
Style | |
Copy number | |
Gallery label | - This object sits in the "Data and Communication" section of the Design 1900-Now gallery, opened June 2021
Making the surveillance state visible
Trevor Paglen took these photographs of US
intelligence agencies from a helicopter, using a
camera fitted with telescopic equipment. He was
motivated by Edward Snowden’s leaking of highlyclassified intelligence documents revealing the
digital surveillance of citizens across the globe in
2013. The images form part of Paglen’s effort ‘to
develop a visual and cultural language around
surveillance’.
Photographs revealing surveillance infrastructure
‘Headquarters of the National Security Agency, Fort
Meade, Maryland’ and ‘National Geospatial-Intelligence
Agency Headquarters, Springfield, Virginia’, 2014
Photographed by Trevor Paglen, USA
C-prints
Purchased through the Design Fund
Museum nos. CD.7, 9-2017
- From The Future Starts Here
These photographs are of three of the largest US intelligence agencies. Much
of their activities were unknown to the public until August 2014 when Edward
Snowden leaked classified documents outlining their inner workings. Three
months later, the artist Trevor Paglen hired a helicopter to photograph the
agencies’ buildings, releasing the images as creative commons. As Paglen
says, ‘If we look in the right places at the right times, we can begin to glimpse
America’s vast intelligence infrastructure’.
C-print
V&A: CD.7,8,9-2017
Trevor Paglen
2014
PHOTOS REVEALING THE SURVEILLANCE STATE
Top to bottom:
NGA Headquarters
(Springfield, Virginia)
Trevor Paglen
2014
NRO Headquarters
(Chantilly, Virginia)
Trevor Paglen
2014
NSA Headquarters
(Fort Meade, Maryland)
Trevor Paglen
2014(May 2018)
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Credit line | Purchased by the Design Fund |
Subject depicted | |
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Accession number | |
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Suggest feedbackRecord created | July 16, 2015 |
Record URL | |