“Looking out at the photographic landscape that surrounds us - the worl...” — Trevor Paglen Quote

Looking out at the photographic landscape that surrounds us - the world of images and image-making that we inhabit - it seems obvious that photography has undergone dramatic changes in its technical, cultural, and critical composition.

In the late 19th century, Russian Cosmists such as Nikolai Fyodorov believed we need to go to space to collect all the particles of all the people who had ever lived. Cosmism says going into space is going into the past.

We imagine going to the moon and planting a flag, going to an asteroid and mining, going to Mars and setting up a colony. And I think that expansionist mentality is very self-destructive, especially given the kind of precarious relationship we now have to the ecosystem here on Earth, because it allows us to imagine that Earth is disposable.

I want to help develop a visual and cultural vocabulary around surveillance.

A man's character never changes radically from youth to old age. What happens is that circumstances bring out characteristics which have not been obvious to the superficial observer.

I don't believe in the transformation myth, where if you have more success, life changes for you.

You learn to be comfortable in your own skin, and your body changes throughout life, so you can't sweat the small stuff.

I've done soap operas in New York, playing a continuing character who goes through changes and develops, but none of that has created the enduring interest that 'Twin Peaks' has.

It's not humanly possible for anyone not to go through changes. Change is a constant in everyone's life, even in mine. I have enjoyed the change at every stage of my life.