Tag Archives: visual record


Trevor Paglen

Since 1963, more than eight hundred spacecraft have been launched into geosynchronous orbit, forming a man-made ring of satellites around the Earth. These satellites are destined to become the longest-lasting artifacts of human civilization, quietly floating through space long after every trace of humanity has disappeared from the planet.

Trevor Paglen’s The Last Pictures is a project that marks one of these spacecraft with a visual record of our contemporary historical moment. In 2012, the communications satellite EchoStar XVI was launched into geostationary orbit with the disc mounted to its anti-earth deck. While the satellite’s broadcast images are as fleeting as the light-speed radio waves they travel on, The Last Pictures will remain in outer space slowly circling the Earth until the Earth itself is no more.

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The Last Pictures Artifact.

paglen_lastpictures_EARTHRISE

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paglen_lastpictures_GRINNELL GLACIER, GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, MONTANA, 2006

paglen_lastpictures_TYPHOON, JAPAN, EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY

Some of the images on the disc.

paglen_lastpictures1

EchoStar XVI launch in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, November 21st 2012.

Trevor Paglen, ‘The Last Pictures’ (2012)