Octopus, manifesting the remote visiting presence

Trevor Paglen, 

Octopus, 2020

mixed media (medium TBC)
dimensions variable (dimensions TBC)

Exhibition Copy

INSTALLATION

No. 75950.EC

format of photography: digital, 
name of photographer: Damian Griffiths, 
date of photography: 10/09/2020

It’s hard to know how much we will be represented through cameras rather than in person in the future. Our ‘camera presence’ is not only increasingly accepted but becoming a norm. Trevor Paglen has used his “Bloom” exhibition at Pace Gallery as a platform to integrate a further virtual work. “Octopus” allows online visitors not only to experience the exhibition, using a portal connected with different cameras through which it is possible to see both the artworks and present visitors, but it also allows for remote ‘presence’. Authorising their personal webcam to be streamed into the gallery, faraway visitors appear on specific monitors distributed throughout the space. This dual condition, seeing and being seen in the gallery, creates a consensual bidirectional access, recreating the sharing of public/private spaces in video communication.

 

Trevor Paglen – Octopus