About the Work

Code Names
part of an on-going series of works begun in 2001
Total Run Time: 30:00

Trevor Paglen’s Code Names exists as a list of words, phrases and terms that designate classified military programs. These include classified exercises and units, intelligence programs, information compartments and Pentagon “Special Access Programs.” Installed in downtown Syracuse, Code Names functions as a meditation on language and advertising whose product is foreign to the general population. The contents of the piece become metaphors for the unknown and ask the audience to ponder what exactly they mean.

About the Artist

Paglen is an artist, writer and experimental geographer whose work deliberately blurs lines between social science, contemporary art, journalism and other disciplines to construct unfamiliar, yet meticulously researched, ways to see and interpret the world around us. His visual work has been exhibited at Transmediale Festival, Berlin; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA); the 2008 Taipei Biennial; and the Istanbul Biennial 2009. It has been featured in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Wired, Newsweek, Modern Painters, Aperture and Art Forum. Paglen has received grants and commissions from Rhizome.org, Art Matters, Artadia and the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology. He is the author of three books, and holds a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in geography from UC Berkeley. Paglen lives and works in Oakland, Calif., and New York City.

For more information on Paglen’s work, visit the artist’s website at: paglen.com