Watching the Watchers

The Bay Area artist Trevor Paglen calls himself an experimental geographer. For one project, Paglen has been tracking secret government spy satellites and taking photos of them.
Paglen’s art begins with rigorous research online, combing through government documents, sorting through data sets, talking to other hobbyists online. Although he’s interested in the satellites for political reasons (he has concerns about government secrecy), he says as an artist, it’s about understanding the world above him: “How do we come to terms with a landscape that has been constructed in such a way to be invisible to us?”
Reporter Lisa Katayama caught up with Paglen on the roof of his loft in West Oakland.
Paglen’s work is on view as part of the exhibition After the Gold Rush at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, through January 2, 2012.
(Originally aired: December 17, 2010)  
  
Slideshow: Trevor Paglen’s Photographs