Scenes of Secrecy: Visual Studies on Suspicion, Intelligence, and Security

October 16, 2008–January 4, 2009
Porch Gallery and University Gallery

Talk by Trevor Paglen and reception: October 16, 5:30 p.m.
At this moment of polarizing conflict on the complex frontiers of global war, security defines and mobilizes the defense of peoples and territories against insurgency and invasion. Scenes of Secrecy takes part in the growing public scrutiny of covert methods employed by states and other bodies to gather and control intelligence — methods, from surveillance and censorship, to detention and torture, that often prioritize security over human rights and even human life.

The works featured in this exhibition employ photography, video, and simulation to visualize the dual modality of secrecy and exposure in which intelligence flows, locally and globally. They represent hidden locations — remote military bases, local airfields, prisons, internment camps, private homes and vehicles – alongside hidden identities: of intelligence operatives, terror suspects, detainees, and ordinary people unwittingly under surveillance. They invite us to see places, persons, and activities concealed or monitored in the name of security — and to recognize our complicity both in wanting to see, and in not seeing.

Contributors:

William Noland is a photographer, video artist, and sculptor based in the Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies at Duke University.

Trevor Paglen is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer based in the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley.

North Carolina Stop Torture Now is a grassroots coalition of individuals representing themselves and a diversity of faith, human rights, peace, veteran, and student groups across the state.

This exhibition is part of an assemblage of collaborative projects exploring political secrecy and transparency, taking place on the Duke University campus in 2008-09 and including an interdisciplinary conference, a film series, a theater production, and undergraduate classes. These projects have been organized by Elizabeth Anne Davis and colleagues through the Department of Cultural Anthropology and the Human Rights Center at Duke University, and sponsored variously by the Provost’s Common Fund, the Visual Studies Initiative, the Arts & Sciences Research Council, the Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation, the Film/Video/Digital Program, the Department of Theater Studies, the Franklin Humanities Institute, the Visiting Artists Series (Department of Art, Art History & Visual Studies), the Duke-UNC Robertson Collaboration Fund, and the Center for Documentary Studies.



Looking at monitors, Belmont Racetrack, Elmont, New York. 1994. Photographs by William Noland.





banner image:

Partial view of the Lyndhurst Gallery, one of four exhibition spaces at CDS. Photograph by Christoper Sims.


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