visit http://www.cinematexas.org/parallax for a printable schedule

The following blog entries include the full Parallax View program which occurs Sept 22-24 at The Victory Grill (1104 E. 11th St). For questions or concerns, email leslie@cinematexas.org

I. Intro
II. Schedule
III. APOCALYPSE NIGH: DEATH AND TERROR IN THE MIDDLE EAST (9/22)
IV. REMAKING NEW ORLEANS FROM BELOW (9/23)
V. TORTURE EXPRESS: THE RISING COST OF FREEDOM (9/24)


PARALLAX VIEW: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF IMAGES

The mass media focuses on global issues and problems in a superficial way, often glossing over causes and potential resolutions. This year, Parallax View looks at modern conflict from an on-the-ground perspective, seeking to provide practical ways to become a part of the solution.

Whether disaster is man-made or natural, made-in-the-USA recipes to fix them seem evermore destructive. Our countrys force-fed freedom agenda in Iraq seems to be staying the course straight into civil war as Condoleeza Rice confidently decrees, "We need always to be cognizant of and looking to what kind of Middle East we are trying to build. It is time for a new Middle East." The agenda is victory by any means necessary, even when the cause is lost.

Unfortunately, our government has been successful at creating a new New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina, Bush proposed a Gulf Opportunity Zone - ostensibly for displaced residents to rebuild. However, developers from all over the country flocked to the prime real estate of predominately black-owned neighborhoods that were flooded and left to rot. Thankfully, volunteer groups and community activists rallied to assure that whole neighborhoods werent illegally bulldozed.

From these crisis situations, strong, solidified grassroots movements are emerging to preserve the livelihood, culture, and basic human rights of the people affected. Individuals are realizing that participation in a system contrary to our governments nightmarish bureaucracy can be efficient, effective and influential. Parallax brings film, artwork, music, interventions, activism, journalism, and their respective creators to challenge this regimes hegemony and skillfully escape their stranglehold on the media.

Leslie Dreyer

visit http://cinematexas.org/parallax for a printable schedule

PARALLAX VIEW: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF IMAGES
(free and open to the public)
Austin, Texas September 22-24, 2006 (at The Victory Grill 1104 E. 11th street)


APOCALYPSE NIGH: DEATH AND TERROR IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Friday September 22nd
6:30-8:30pm
Palestine Blues dir. Nida Sinnokrot 80 min. (followed by Q&A with filmmaker)

9:00-10pm
Samidoun: A Multimedia Journey Through the 34-Day War in Lebanon and Its Aftermath
with Andrew Stern which interweaves video, still photography and audio collected in the field with video by Democracy Now!'s Ana Nogueira


REMAKING NEW ORLEANS FROM BELOW
Saturday September 23rd
1:00-1:30pm
Local Anti-Racist Organizing and the History of the Victory Grill presented by Eva Lindsey (venue's manager and long-time community activist)

1:30-2:30pm
Three Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation (trailer) 5 min
Robert King Wilkerson, a former Black Panther, speaks about the history of classism and racism in Louisiana including his personal history of spending 32 incarcerated, 29 of those in solitary confinement in Angola Prison, for a crime of which he was exonerated in 2001.

2:30-4:00pm (short films from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina)
South of Ten dir. Liza Johnson 10 min.
Cataclysm In New Orleans dir. Ralph Klein / Elias Scheideler 59 min.
Solidarity Not Charity dir. Common Ground Collective 21min.

4:00-5:00pm
Common Ground Relief organizers Scott Crow, Lisa Fithian and Malik Rahim (former Black Panther and long-time prison activist) will speak about the collectives history and relief efforts in New Orleans

5:30-7pm
Food and Activism
Nubian Queen Lola will speak about the power of food to gather organizers and conjure solidarity
followed by a Parallax dinner catered by Nubian Queen Lola's Cajun, Soul Food Kitchen.

6:30-8pm
Music by Big Chief Kevin Goodman and The Flaming Arrows
Experts at New Orleans second-line funk


TORTURE EXPRESS: THE RISING COST OF FREEDOM
Sunday September 24th

1:00-1:30pm
It's Not My Memory of It by Speculative Archive/Julia Meltzer and David Thorne 25 min.

1:30-3:00pm
Outlawed: Extraordinary Rendition, Torture and Disappearances in the 'War on Terror' by WITNESS 30 min

3:00-4:00pm
Muckraking for the Masses an investigative journalism workshop with A.C. Thompson

4:00-5:00pm
N4467S: On the Trail of the CIAs Torture Planes a multimedia presentation with Trevor Paglen exhibiting his investigative art/geography/journalism project in which he spies on the CIA.
followed by a discussion between A.C. Thompson and Trevor Paglen about their soon to be released book Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights

Parallax View Friday September 22 at The Victory Grill 6:30-10:30pm


Program details:


6:30-8:00pm
PALESTINE BLUES dir. Nida Sinnokrot
(US/Palestine 2005, 80 min, Mini-DV)
Palestine Blues follows the repercussions of the Israeli Security Wall and Settlement expansion in the engulfed/annexed Palestinian farming communities of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Instead of focusing on the object of the Wall, this documentary examines the grassroots resistance movement that has sprung up against it. Palestine Blues is not a "traditional" political reportage but rather an interminable road trip across hard and liquid borders, across a terrain that is being erased as it is being traversed.

Nida Sinnokrot is a Palestinian-American artist and filmmaker. His films, installations, and sculptures, which have shown nationally and internationally, often explore complex notions of time and space in a phenomenological investigation of Diaspora consciousness. After completing his undergraduate studies in Radio, Television, and Film at the University of Texas at Austin, Nida moved to New York where he received an MFA in Film and Video from Bard College. Nida recently completed the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program, is a 2002 Rockefeller Media Fellow, and was recently awarded a Paul Robeson media grant.


9:00-10:00pm
SAMIDOUN: A MULTIMEDIA JOURNEY THROUGH THE 34-DAY WAR IN LEBANON AND ITS AFTERMATH with Andrew Stern which interweaves video, still photography and audio collected in the field with video by Democracy Now!'s Ana Nogueira

Samidoun interweaves still photography and audio collected in the field by award winning documentary photographer Andrew Stern. It takes us on a heart-wrenching journey through the devastating 34- day war in Lebanon and its aftermath post cease-fire. It is a uniquely intimate look at the human cost of this bloody conflict that took the lives of at least 1600 people, wounded thousands, and displaced over one million. Stern's work takes us to the scene of massive bombings, travels through the desolation of Lebanon's destroyed landscape, bears witness as people emerge from the rubble to bury their dead, and ultimately reveals the steadfast determination of the Lebanese people to survive and rebuild their country in the face of unimaginable violence and national anguish. Stern's work is a reminder of the importance and power of independent journalism, in the face of a mainstream media that increasingly presents a one sided and superficial perspective.

Following Stern, will be Ana Nogueira's hard-hitting TV news reports for Democracy Now!, which form the basis for her half-hour documentary. Nogueira was a correspondent for Democracy Now! during the war and stayed in Lebanon to document its long-lasting effects on this ravaged country. Samidoun links Nogueira's reports into a cohesive narrative that portrays the horrific impact of Israel's attacks on the people of Lebanon and the civilian infrastructure. It takes viewers inside hospitals in Lebanon to the ruins of Bint Jbail, Aitta Chaab, and Yaroun to tobacco fields filled with Israeli cluster bombs to the oil-slicked Lebanese coastline and provides a rare glimpse into the hearts of ordinary people whose lives have been changed forever.

"Samidoun" translates from Arabic to "Steadfastness", or "Those Who Stay." In this presentation, we will provide information on the Lebanese grassroots coalition of the same name that provided desperately needed services to thousands of the internally displaced during the war. They are currently working to help families return to their homes and rebuild their lives. For more information or to get involved or contribute, visit www.samidoun.org.


Andrew Stern is a photojournalist committed to documenting critical social and political issues. His compelling imagery has been recognized for the intimate relationship he develops with his subjects, as well as the time he spends to immerse himself in a story. He has photographed in over 20 countries and his award winning work has appeared in The Guardian Weekend Magazine, Clamor, Yes!, Adbusters, Readers Digest, Harper's, The New York Times, Internazionale, Die Welt, La Jornada and many other publications both domestically and internationally. Andrew is also co-author of We Are Everywhere: The Irresistible Rise of Global Anticapitalism (Verso, 2003). He has documented the economic collapse and popular uprising in Argentina, the war in Iraq, native land struggles in Greenland, the westernization of tribal East Africans, street kids in Calcutta, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, coca farmers in Bolivia, the global protest movements, and is currently in Lebanon covering the most recent Israeli invasion.

Ana Nogueira is television journalist and media activist. She worked as a producer for Democracy Now for four years and is now a correspondent for the award-winning daily news program. Ana is also a founder of the NYC Independent Media Center and its newspaper, the Indypendent. She has been deeply involved in the growth of the Indymedia Network worldwide, believing that citizen journalism plays a critical role in helping us understand the tumultuous world in which we live.

Parallax View Saturday September 23 at The Victory Grill 1:00-8:00pm


Program details:


1:30-2:30pm (film trailer followed by a talk with Robert King Wilkerson)
THREE BLACK PANTHERS AND THE LAST SLAVE PLANTATION (trailer) dir. Jimmy Ohalligan, prod. Scott Crow
(US 2006, 5 min, Mini-DV)

This documentary tells the story of three former members of the Black Panther Party incarcerated in the Angola Louisiana State Prison known as the Angola 3. It focuses on the issues that have surrounded and clouded their cases since the 70s. In addition this film explores the political climate of the 60s and 70s that produced "political" prisoners in America. By presenting a meticulously researched portrait of these men, their circumstances as well as the context of the times, the film encourages viewers to think critically about history, racism, the prison system and to actively engage in making changes.


Robert King Wilkerson is a former member of the Black Panther Party who spent 32 years incarcerated, 29 of those in solitary confinement in Angola Prison. He and two other former Black Panthers, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, comprise the Angola Three. Although the State of Louisiana exonerated and released Wilkerson in February of 2001, Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace remain in prison and are the longest held individuals in solitary isolation in the United States. The Angola 3 have a civil suit pending (Wilkerson, Woodfox and Wallace vs. The State of Louisiana et. al), which the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled has merit to proceed based on claims that their 'solitary isolation' is a violation of Eighth Amendment rights that protect against "cruel and unusual punishment". After his release Wilkerson vowed to work for the exoneration of Woodfox and Wallace, and towards this end has spoken before the European, Dutch, and Portuguese Parliaments and lectured in many venues across the U.S. He is the author of a soon to be released book, A Cry from the Bottom.
After Hurricane Katrina, Wilkerson was stranded at his house in New Orleans surrounded by toxic floodwaters for 9 days. When King was finally taken to dry ground, he decided to move to Austin where he continues to make and sell Freelines, pralines made from a recipe he perfected while in prison, to help fund his activism and raise consciousness about political prisoners.


2:30-4:00pm (3 short films from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina)
SOUTH OF TEN dir. Liza Johnson
(US 2006, 10 min, video filmed on 35mm)

A girl flees a makeshift tent city. A man finds a trombone amidst the rubble. A worker watches the ocean from under a moving house, while its owner gazes at the view from her shifting living room. In ten vignettes, residents of the destroyed Mississippi Gulf Coast act out scenes of their everyday lives and the relentlessness of labor now required in their extreme terrain.


CATACLYSM IN NEW ORLEANS dir. Ralph Klein / Elias Scheideler
(New Orleans / Berlin 2006, 59min, video-PAL)

The documentary describes the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, followed by a disastrous crisis management effort, which uses the catastrophe to "clean up" black neighborhoods. New Orleanians speak about their personal experiences and hypothesize about how their famous city will change in the future.


SOLIDARITY NOT CHARITY directed by Common Ground Collective
(New Orleans 2006, 21min, video)

This video gives an overview of the work of Common Ground Collective, a community-initiated volunteer organization whose mission is to provide short-term relief for victims of hurricane disasters in the gulf coast region, and long-term support in rebuilding the communities affected in the New Orleans area. It was established in the first week after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans. While local and national government relief efforts were largely ineffective and ineffecient, Common Ground was the first organization to open up a medical clinic in the Algiers neighborhood, and the first provide immediate assistance (food, water, supplies) to the thousands of low-income residents unable to evacuate.

Common Ground Collective continues to this day, and is inspiring new branches, such as Critical Response, an organization of Katrina volunteers who have set out to provide emergency response to disasters, both natural and human-made. Critical Response is working to send a rescue and relief team into Southern Lebanon to assist with humanitarian aid efforts. The Critical Response team will go into areas that are not currently being served adequately by relief organizations due to the high risks involved.


4:00-5:00pm (Malik, Scott, and Lisa will speak about Common Ground Relief in NOLA)
Malik Rahim is a former Black Panther and a long-time Louisiana housing and prison activist. In 2005, He gained national publicity as a community organizer in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Having remained in the city of New Orleans throughout the storm, in the chaotic days that followed Rahim wrote a widely distributed article about conditions in the city, titled "This is criminal." He co-founded Common Ground Collective, a volunteer-run organization dedicated to rebuilding New Orleans in a community grassroots fashion as an alternative to corporate, profit-driven reconstruction efforts in the city. Common Ground continues to provide assistance to New Orleans homeowners and residents in the most hurricane-devastated areas of the city. Resident assistance projects freely provided by the collective include debris removal, aid distribution centers, roving medical clinics, bioremediation for toxic areas, house-gutting, roof-tarping, building neighborhood computer centers, stopping home demolitions in the Lower 9th Ward, anti-racist training for volunteers, tree service, and legal counseling services. A Vietnam vet, a vocal low income housing advocate, and longtime organizer, Rahim ran for New Orleans city council in 2002 on the Green Party ticket. In addition to his work with the Common Ground Collective, Rahim has co-founded many activist organizations over the last 30 years, including the anti-death penalty group Pilgrimage For Life, the affordable housing nonprofit Housing is a Human Right, and the National Coalition to Free the Angola Three. He currently lectures around the world and is the executive director of Common Ground Relief in New Orleans.


Scott Crow is an Austin, Texas-based community organizer, writer, and filmmaker who began working on anti-apartheid and animal rights issues in the mid-1980s. An anarchist organizer, he co-founded and co-organized the Radical Encuentro Camp and UPROAR (United People Resisting Oppression and Racism) and has organized for Greenpeace, Ruckus Society, A.C.O.R.N. and many small grassroots groups. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he and Brandon Darby went to New Orleans to help Robert King Wilkerson escape from his floodwater-surrounded house. Afterwards, he joined with Malik Rahim and Sharon Johnson to co-found the Common Ground Collective. Scott is currently working on a documentary film about the Angola Three, a group of 3 former Black Panthers held in solitary isolation for over 29 years, and also continues to collaborate on long-term, sustainable democratic economic projects.

Lisa Fithian has been working for social change since the mid 1970s. During 7 years as coordinator of the Washington Peace Center during the 1980s, Lisa organized hundreds of events and demonstrations on a range of issues both locally and nationally and helped lead an extensive anti-racism process that successfully transformed the Peace Center into a truly multicultural organization. In the early 1990s Lisa joined the labor movement, bringing her experience to the Justice for Janitors campaigns in Washington DC, Denver and LA and to nursing home workers in San Francisco and Detroit. She also provided training and support work to the United Auto Workers Union and with the Detroit Newspaper Strikers. Lisa has continued her work for social, economic and environmental justice, providing training and organizing support to many of the global justice mobilization around the world since the shut down of the WTO Ministerial in Seattle in 1999. Over the past year, Lisa has been working with the Common Ground Collective in New Orleans organizing relief efforts. Currently, Lisa serves as a National Steering Committee member of United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of over 1000 local and national groups working to end the war in Iraq and build a broad movement for social change


5:30-7:00pm
Lola Stephens is the owner of Nubian Queen Lola's Cajun, Soul Food Kitchen in East Austin. She provides free meals to for the homeless every Sunday. Lola, who is originally from Louisiana, volunteered extensively at the Austin Convention Center after Hurrican Katrina. Lola and her family and friends welcomed fellow Louisianians to her new home state by opening her restaurant and the lot behind it so that displaced musicians, such as Big Chief Kevin Goodman, could stage their own benefit to raise funds for their resettlement. Every penny raised went directly to the performers who were staying at the Convention Center, helping them set down some roots in Austin. This February, Lola spoke on the panel Parting the Waters! The Use of Backyard Throwdowns, Soul Food and Music to Help Louisianians Settle in Austin at Abriendo Brecha III: Activist Scholarship Conference on Crisis, Politics & Performance in the Americas.


6:30-8:00pm
Big Chief Kevin Goodman and The Flaming Arrows
Big Chief Kevin Goodman's troupe of Flaming Arrows translates second-line traditions to the funk format as they run through a full menu of New Orleans standards. Chanting a Creole patois that bridges the gravelly gap between Louis Armstrong and Juvenile, Goodman fronts a band that stretches numbers into meditative mantras à la Funkadelic milking a third encore.
Big Chief Kevin Goodman is a Mardi Gras Indians, groups or "tribes" of African American New Orleanians who dress up for Mardi Gras in elaborate outfits resembling Native American ceremonial garb, who spends thousands of hours a year stitching his costumes by hand. He explains, "we build costumes dedicated to the real Native Americans as a tribute to those Indians who helped free slaves. The costumes are our contribution. It's a very spiritual thing to us."
Wading out of the rising waters in his neighborhood on August 29, 2005 after the levees broke, babies and little children in his arms, he and his family sought shelter in New Orleans' Convention Center. They suffered four days without food, water, toilets, and electricity amid relentless summer heat. When Goodman and his family finally evacuated New Orleans, he landed at the Austin Convention Center. Met with compassion and open arms, he chose to stay and begin his life anew.

Parallax View Sunday September 24 at The Victory Grill 1:00-5:00pm

program details:


1:00-1:30pm
ITS NOT MY MEMORY OF IT: THREE RECOLLECTED DOCUMENTS dir. Speculative Archive/Julia Meltzer and David Thorne
(US, 2003, 25 min, Video)
It's Not My Memory of It is a documentary about secrecy, memory, and documents. Mobilizing specific historical records as memories which flash up in moments of danger, the tape addresses the logic of the bureaucracy of secrecy in the current climate of heightened security.


1:30-3:00pm
OUTLAWED: EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION, TORTURE AND DISAPPEARANCES IN THE WAR ON TERROR dir. WITNESS
(US, 2006, 30 min, Video)
This film unveils the illegal practice of extraordinary renditions, the U.S. government-sponsored program in which suspects are illegally detained and secretly flown to third countries, where they are tortured. The documentary follows the harrowing stories of two men who survived extraordinary rendition, Khaled El-Masri and Binyam Mohamed, and places the post-9/11 phenomenon of renditions and the "war on terror" in a human-rights context to inspire global change.


3:00-4:00pm
Muckraking for the Masses
Investigative reporting isnt just for ink-stained Woodward and Bernstein-types. Muckraking skills are useful for activists, politically-oriented artists, agit-prop generators, bloggers, radio pirates, etc., etc., etc. This quick immersion in investigative reporting techniques will teach you how to unveil the activities of an intelligence agent, catch earth-wrecking corporations in the act, map the connections between politicians and their corporate masters, and spotlight the murky depths of the criminal justice system.

A.C. Thompson is an investigative reporter based in San Francisco and a staff writer at SF Weekly. His stories, covering everything from CIA to financial scams, have caused many problems for powerbrokers and garnered numerous accolades, including the prestigious George Polk Award for local reporting. Hes the co-author, with Trevor Paglen, of the forthcoming book Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIAs Rendition Flights.


4:00-5:00pm
N4467S: On the Trail of the CIAs Torture Planes

In order to sidestep international laws against torture, the CIA currently uses a fleet of unmarked airplanes to kidnap, render, and disappear suspected terrorists from around the world. The CIA then takes these people to a clandestine network of prisons in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, Poland, and Romania: places where they can be tortured.

Because the CIA uses civilian (rather than military) aircraft for these black operations, they leave a publicly-accessible trail of flight logs, registration papers, and other legal documents. These paper trails are filled with forgeries, lies, and cover-stories, but nevertheless contain important clues as to who the real people behind these operations and unmarked planes might be.

One of these planes is a Boeing 737. Its tail number is N4467S. It is the property of a company called Keeler and Tate Management, incorporated by a man named Tyler Edward Tate. Mr. Tate does not exist.

Over the course of this presentation, we will navigate through the fog of misinformation surrounding Mr. Tate. We will visit the street addresses of his front companies, observe the airfields from North Carolina to Afghanistan ö that his unmarked plane frequents, and introduce ourselves to some of the flesh-and-blood individuals who may have penned his name.


Trevor Paglen is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer working out of the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. His work involves deliberately blurring the lines between social science, contemporary art, and a host of even more obscure disciplines in order to construct unfamiliar, yet meticulously researched ways to interpret the world around us. His most recent projects take up secret military bases, the California prison system, and the CIAs practice of extraordinary rendition.

Paglens artwork has been shown all over the world and his articles have been published in Blu Magazine, Art Journal, Cultural Geographies, Clamor Magazine, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the Leonardo Music Journal, and Cabinet Magazine. His first book, Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIAs Rendition Flights (co-authored with AC Thompson) will be published by Melville House in the Fall of 2006.

Paglen holds a BA from UC Berkeley, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is currently completing a PhD in the Department of Geography at the University of California at Berkeley.


"If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear never to see them again you send them to Egypt." CIA agent Robert Baer

Parallax View Sunday September 24 at The Victory Grill 1:00-5:00pm

program details:

ITS NOT MY MEMORY OF IT: THREE RECOLLECTED DOCUMENTS dir. Speculative Archive/Julia Meltzer and David Thorne
(US, 2003, 25 min, Video)
It's Not My Memory of It is a documentary about secrecy, memory, and documents. Mobilizing specific historical records as memories which flash up in moments of danger, the tape addresses the logic of the bureaucracy of secrecy in the current climate of heightened security.

OUTLAWED: EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION, TORTURE AND DISAPPEARANCES IN THE WAR ON TERROR dir. WITNESS
(US, 2006, 30 min, Video)
This film unveils the illegal practice of extraordinary renditions, the U.S. government-sponsored program in which suspects are illegally detained and secretly flown to third countries, where they are tortured. The documentary follows the harrowing stories of two men who survived extraordinary rendition, Khaled El-Masri and Binyam Mohamed, and places the post-9/11 phenomenon of renditions and the "war on terror" in a human-rights context to inspire global change.


Muckraking for the Masses
Investigative reporting isnt just for ink-stained Woodward and Bernstein-types. Muckraking skills are useful for activists, politically-oriented artists, agit-prop generators, bloggers, radio pirates, etc., etc., etc. This quick immersion in investigative reporting techniques will teach you how to unveil the activities of an intelligence agent, catch earth-wrecking corporations in the act, map the connections between politicians and their corporate masters, and spotlight the murky depths of the criminal justice system.

A.C. Thompson is an investigative reporter based in San Francisco and a staff writer at SF Weekly. His stories, covering everything from CIA to financial scams, have caused many problems for powerbrokers and garnered numerous accolades, including the prestigious George Polk Award for local reporting. Hes the co-author, with Trevor Paglen, of the forthcoming book Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIAs Rendition Flights.



N4467S: On the Trail of the CIAs Torture Planes

In order to sidestep international laws against torture, the CIA currently uses a fleet of unmarked airplanes to kidnap, render, and disappear suspected terrorists from around the world. The CIA then takes these people to a clandestine network of prisons in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, Poland, and Romania: places where they can be tortured.

Because the CIA uses civilian (rather than military) aircraft for these black operations, they leave a publicly-accessible trail of flight logs, registration papers, and other legal documents. These paper trails are filled with forgeries, lies, and cover-stories, but nevertheless contain important clues as to who the real people behind these operations and unmarked planes might be.

One of these planes is a Boeing 737. Its tail number is N4467S. It is the property of a company called Keeler and Tate Management, incorporated by a man named Tyler Edward Tate. Mr. Tate does not exist.

Over the course of this presentation, we will navigate through the fog of misinformation surrounding Mr. Tate. We will visit the street addresses of his front companies, observe the airfields from North Carolina to Afghanistan ö that his unmarked plane frequents, and introduce ourselves to some of the flesh-and-blood individuals who may have penned his name.


Trevor Paglen is an artist, writer, and experimental geographer working out of the Department of Geography at the University of California, Berkeley. His work involves deliberately blurring the lines between social science, contemporary art, and a host of even more obscure disciplines in order to construct unfamiliar, yet meticulously researched ways to interpret the world around us. His most recent projects take up secret military bases, the California prison system, and the CIAs practice of extraordinary rendition.

Paglens artwork has been shown all over the world and his articles have been published in Blu Magazine, Art Journal, Cultural Geographies, Clamor Magazine, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the Leonardo Music Journal, and Cabinet Magazine. His first book, Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIAs Rendition Flights (co-authored with AC Thompson) will be published by Melville House in the Fall of 2006.

Paglen holds a BA from UC Berkeley, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and is currently completing a PhD in the Department of Geography at the University of California at Berkeley.


"If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear never to see them again you send them to Egypt." CIA agent Robert Baer