Laura Poitras at the Whitney
By: Kayla Wieche
http://whitney.org/Exhibitions/LauraPoitras
Until May 1, visitors to the Whitney Museum’s eighth floor will encounter ‘Astro Noise,’ the multi-sensory exhibit by artist and journalist Laura Poitras. Poitras is best known for her involvement with the Snowden revelations and her documentary Citizenfour, which features NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden detailing and describing classified documents on government surveillance. ‘Astro Noise,’ named after an encrypted file that Snowden gave to Poitras in their initial communication over two years ago, continues to probe the tension between privacy rights and government surveillance.
The exhibit features visual presentations of various components of the government surveillance program – detention, torture, drones, data mining – and the legal reasoning that enables and supports it. After exiting the elevator, visitors are greeted by large prints depicting images of an American and British intelligence hack of Israeli drone feeds. The first room houses a screen with one side streaming video footage of passersby’s faces reacting to the site where the Twin Towers had stood in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, and the opposite side projecting video of prisoner interrogations in Afghanistan. Following this striking display is an interactive video and sound exhibit relating to drone surveillance. Next, the visitor is guided through a dark hallway perforated with brightly lit peepholes through which intelligence documents legally justifying these programs are displayed. The exhibit ends with indications that all visitors have been surveilled during it.
The sense of unease generated by visiting ‘Astro Noise’ is purposeful and powerful; it is intended to make the visitor critically question the validity of and take action against privacy violations committed in the name of national security. Poitras told The New Yorker “we create the political landscape in which we live and we can change that landscape.” The gift shop sells US Constitutions, perhaps suggesting that visitors use it as a tool to begin to enact that change.