Man In His Domain

With Orbital Relector, the artist has created one of the first-ever space sculptures. What it reflects might change the way you view the cosmos — and your fellow earthlings

- Zach Sokol

“There’s no such thing as a civilian space program, and there never will be,” Trevor Paglen says with a resigned laugh. It’s early October, and we’re talking in an office at New York University’s AI Now Institute, where the 44-year-old is an Artist Fellow. But lately he’s been spending time in Nevada, working on one of humankind’s first works of fine art to be displayed in the infinite gallery of space.

Space is having a moment, in ways Paglen finds both troubling and inspiring: Elon Musk has launched a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket equipped with a Tesla; more than 600 customers have paid upward of $200,000 each for a seat on Virgin Galactic’s commercial spaceflight; President Trump has announced his socalled Space Force (designed to ensure “American dominance in space”). Just as it was in the 20th century, modern space exploration is a springboard for nationalistic myth-making. But Paglen — a 2017 MacArthur Fellow and geography Ph.D. known for “showing what invisibility looks like” by documenting classified reconnaissance satellites, National Security Agency listening stations, weapons test sites and other clandestine structures — sees space exploration through a different lens: Space is entirely a “weaponised” place as far as we earthlings are concerned, and all recent advancements in the industry are outgrowths of the Cold War.

“When we’re looking at spaceflight,” he says, “it has everything to do with military and other attempts to exert power over the planet from that high ground, whether that’s surveillance, targeting or delivering weapons.”