An Investigation into Trevor Paglen’s Drones Photographs, Military Targeting, and Looking Slowly

Abstract

The technology of unilateral remote warfare develops continuously, and with it, an ever-rising threat to human lives and freedom from an array of actors, mostly state powers, that seek to use oppressive force against civilian populations. Trevor Paglen is a political visual artist, whose project Drones represents military operations and resources in ways that recontextualize the processes of visual targeting enacted by military drones. Paglen’s work highlights the differences between human and machine vision and creates deliberate obfuscation that renders his photographs visually abstract. Following work by TJ Clark, Ariella Azoulay and Arden Reed, I approach Paglen’s photograph Untitled (Reaper Drone) in the form of a slow investigation that highlights durational viewing. Slowness in this form creates a conversation between myself and the image that acknowledges the temporal dimension of art-viewing and resists the unilateral gaze of the drone.