Born in 1974, Maryland. Lives in Berkeley and New York.

Experimental geography is the framework of Trevor Paglen's multidisciplinary practice that operates between social sciences, detective work, astronomy and contemporary art. His works investigate secret military operations, CIA programmes, prison torture, satellite observers, and the 'black world' of the hidden military/industrial complex. For the past four years, he has been documenting ‚secret' satellites to construct a multimedia work called The Other Night Sky.
Celestial Objects (İstanbul) (2009) extends Paglen's archive through mapping military and reconnaissance/intelligence satellites in the night skies over İstanbul. In collaboration with the Astronomy Department of İstanbul University, he has produced a series of photographs in which fields of stars are interrupted by streaks of light: the traces of satellites moving through the frame and captured using long exposure. The presentation of this evidence mimics the visual format of covert operations: the photographs of the orbiting Earth flood the wall like monitors in an observation base. What appears as sensuous and pure astronomic pictures reveals the cynical ambiguity of the black world. "
The project was produced with the help and collaboration of Michelle Dizon, Prof. Dr. M. Türker Özkan, Assoc. Prof. Dr. A. Talat Saygaç, Asst. Prof. Dr. M. Taşkın Çay, Asst. Prof. Dr. Hasan Hüseyin Esenoğlu, Asst. Prof. Dr. İpek H. Çay, Research Assistant Sinan Aliş, Research Assistant F. Korhan Yelkenci, Özge Ünal and Arzu Yayıntaş.