PITTSBURGH, PA.- Carnegie Museum of Art opened its major exhibition, Trevor Paglen: Opposing Geometries. This exhibition is part of the third iteration of the Hillman Photography Initiative (HPI), a CMOA project committed to exploring new ideas about photography. This cycle of the initiative, titled Mirror with a Memory, will also feature an interdisciplinary podcast series hosted by Martine Syms, launching in October, a scholarly publication, slated for December 2020, and free online programs taking place throughout the fall. Visitors to CMOA can purchase a timed ticket, which includes access to Trevor Paglen: Opposing Geometries.




With the development and advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), there has been a radical change in the way that surveillance systems capture, categorize, and synthesize photographs. Mirror with a Memory explores the many ways artists probe the intersections of photography, surveillance, and AI—their past, present, and future—to underscore concerns about implicit bias, right to privacy, and police monitoring embedded in corporate, military, and law enforcement applications.

The exhibition includes a new site-specific commission by Paglen as well as a sculpture that doubles as a Wi-Fi hotspot and the museum premier of photographs that reveal how AI analyzes and labels photographs of people and places. These works have been placed in three areas within the museum, inviting visitors to encounter Paglen’s interdisciplinary practice in different contexts.

The podcast series will be released over successive weeks beginning in October, with each episode spotlighting a different facet of the conversation around artificial intelligence, from biometrics to racial bias to navigating contact in a post-COVID-19 world. Hosted by Martine Syms, the series will feature other leading artists and thinkers in dialogue alongside relevant histories and insights from the public, unpacking the ever-increasing ways in which the collision of photography, surveillance, and artificial intelligence impacts everyone.

Trevor Paglen: Opposing Geometries is organized by Dan Leers, curator of photography, with Taylor Fisch, project curatorial assistant. Trevor Paglen: Opposing Geometries runs from September 4 through March 14, 2021.