Speculative Archive + Trevor Paglen

About This Screening

In recent years, the CIA has been using unmarked civilian airplanes to kidnap and transport suspected terrorists to countries like Syria, Egypt, and Romania where they can be tortured outside of the official US military and prison system. In his lecture-based piece, N4467S: Tracking the CIA's "Torture Planes" Trevor Paglen uses diagrams, photographs, and other documents, to navigate the fog of misinformation surrounding one of these planes—visiting the street addresses of front companies, observing airfields, and comparing the many fake signatures attributed to its owner. The Speculative Archive's new videos stem from their time living in Syria over the past year and a half. Not a Matter of if but When features Rami Farah, a young Syrian performer, addressing the camera to speak to, with, or about those who govern, about being governed, and about the governing situation. They will also being showing the work in progress We Don’t Like it as it is but We Don’t Know What We Want it to Be, which looks at the way in which the concepts of "imminent threat" and "preemption" are used by the Asad regime in Syria to control the population. The piece uses as its framework a large unfinished shopping center in central Damascus, about which a Syrian architect has said, "within this building you will find the story of the failed state of modern Syria."