My first outside screening of experimental film this semester was incredibly rewarding. I had still not been to the remodeled Whitney Museum, so I was excited to see Laura Poitras’ Astro Noise there.

I saw Poitras’ documentary, Citizenfour when it was first released, and was enthralled in the story of Edward Snowden. Astro Noise tells the same basic story as the documentary, but interacts with the viewer and imposes on them a visceral experience of America’s war on terror.

From the first instillation, (a drop down screen with close up shots of 911 spectators projected on one side, and US interrogation footage of men who are currently being held at Guantanamo Bay on the other) I felt as though I was being kept in the dark while simultaneously being fed information that I wasn’t supposed to see. Both the interrogation video and the video from 911 were presented without any contextualization, yet both videos are incredibly intimate. The interrogation of the two prisoners as a result of the 911 attacks, and more broadly the impulse of the Bush administration to launch into a poorly defined ‘War on Terror’ is felt deeply here.

The next instillation consisted of a raised platform in the middle of the exhibition space, where spectators could lay down and watch videos (projected on the ceiling) of drone airspace in Syria and Iraq. This was perhaps my favorite part of the exhibition. I got to relax, put down my heavy backpack, and look at serene images of the sky, although the knowledge that these areas were under military surveillance was at the front of my mind. The relaxation and vulnerability here is perhaps the intended effect, since the exhibit culminates in an exploitation of this space.

Continuing through the exhibit, many of the documents leaked by Snowden are on display, deep in small rectangular holes in the gallery walls, so that you need to put your eyes flush against the wall in order to see them. Also inside these rectangles are different videos filmed by Poitras. These items are presented without context, and require the audience to do some ‘digging’ to see what secrets are behind the walls. I was particularly moved by a video of a small village celebrating the arrival of a dignitary of some kind (no other details are given), then an inter title saying “the next day”, and images of the same village completely destroyed, with villagers trying to make sense of the wreckage. Here is another example of how the lack of context leads to a deeper, more visceral understanding of the ways in which the War on Terror functions.

The end of the exhibit culminates in a handheld video shot by Poitras of a US invasion of a small Iraqi town. Only in this instance does the artist provide a context and fully explained details. Poitras tells via voiceover the circumstances of the US occupation and explains the consequences she faced after the filming – namely being flagged by the NSA. In addition to Poitras personal account, there is a mounted television broadcasting an infrared live stream of museum goers as they lie down to watch the Syrian/Iraqi sky. I think this was the perfect way to end the exhibition. The audience is filmed and broadcast without their knowledge or consent. The viewer is personally betrayed by Poitras, just as the NSA betrayed the trust of the American people.

Made famous by her 2014 Documentary, Citizenfour, about the notorious Edward Snowden, Laura Poitras puts on her first solo museum exhibition, Astro Noise, at The Whitney Museum of American Art. Taking up the entire 8^th floor of The Whitney, Astro Noise examines themes of surveillance and war, forcing visitors to confront these themes head-on by becoming unwilling participants in the artmaking processes itself. Laura Poitras’ unfamiliarity with the museum space is made clear by the inconclusive nature of the exhibition, which seems to fall short of deserving consideration as art.

The experimental nature of the exhibition seems like a first attempt at a broad topic rather than a full-fledged exhibition on surveillance and war. The interaction between the viewer and the installation seems surface level at best and could have included a greater level of engagement in order to convey the theme of surveillance. The use of a dual video, double sided screen in the center of the room adds to the sense of space, requiring the viewer to walk from the front of the screen to behind the screen in order to see both films. On one side of the display there is footage of individual’s gazing at the ruble of the Twin Towers in the days after September 11^th, on the other side of the display there is footage of suspected terrorists being interrogated. This dichotomy is intriguing yet predictable and does not seem very experimental in its design. The connection between the two videos on either side of the screen is straightforward and does not leave me with any unanswered questions. The second part of the exhibition is a video installation, Bed Down Location, in this installation the viewer is drawn in through the use of a carpeted platform in which visitors lay down and gaze at a video projection on the ceiling. The video features starscapes and footage of distant military drones flying overhead. This section of the installation encourages us to do something we so rarely do: look up. By laying down and looking at the ceiling we obtain a perspective we don’t often see and we are forced to envision ourselves beneath the unknown, under the blanket of drone surveillance. This was the most powerful part of the exhibition and for me it had to do with the fact that I was laying down and looking up, it became just me and the video overhead causing me to forget that I was in a museum.

Astro Noise, does not consider themes of war and surveillance equally, leaving surveillance as somewhat of an afterthought, contributing to the exhibition’s disjointed feeling. What seems to be a visual chronological archive of the war on terror, ends with a thermal imaging live-feed of museumgoers watching the installation video, Bed Down Location, and a monitor that tracks and identifies the mobile devices of people in close proximity. Unlike other politically inspired artworks, Poitras’ message is not clear, Astro Noise does not have a conclusion. The exhibition does not propose a solution to the issues examined, nor does it try to expose or unpack the harsh realities of war or our government’s self-appointed right to track its people.

This past Sunday in the late afternoon I visited the Whitney for the very first time to see the Astro Noise exhibit by Laura Poitras on the very top and entire floor of the gallery. It was an exhibit based on government surveillance and increased presence post- 9/11. The exhibit is based off of Poitras’ documentary film, Citizenfour. It was both an interesting and kind of spooky exhibit to walk through and, at times, to be a part of.

The exhibit begins in a large room with a tv screen in the middle, and two different projections on each side. One side is looping footage of close up shots of people staring off in front of them and their reactions. The reactions are supposed to be of the people staring at ground zero. It was almost chilling to sit there and stare these people in the face, and to see the emotions in their eyes. On the other side of the screen was looped footage of interrogation and torture of a man accused of having weapons and explosives in his car. Military men are seen questioning him, their tactics growing more severe as the footage rolls on.

The next part of the exhibit was unique in the way that it was a large dark room, with footage of the night sky and stars projected on the ceiling. For viewing, people could lay on a carpeted raised surface in the middle of the room, as if they were star gazing. An interesting thing about this is how at the end of the exhibit, before you exit, you see that there is a large tv screen of thermal heat footage of everyone who was laying on the platform in the other room. It’s spooky because, at the time, you didn’t realize you were being watched by other people. And, this forces you into the position of “big brother” aka the government that is watching over unsuspecting people. It was a very powerful image to take away from the exhibit.

I’m glad I got the opportunity to visit this exhibit, and it makes me want to investigate Poitras work further on the subject. It’s very interesting to me how she received information about government surveillance by Edward Snowden. Also, being an aspiring documentary filmmaker, I would like to watch her documentary Citizenfour to learn more about her work and the topic.  This kind of topic is very interesting because it has everything to do with our everyday lives as American citizens. I also find it interesting the information that is withheld from us concerning our freedom and civil liberties. It takes a government official to become a traitor to his country just to spread the information kept from the general public. Interesting and scary are two words to sum up what this exhibit evoked from me, and I’m sure others too.

The title of the show, which rhymes with the artist’s last name, is a good indicator of the feel of this piece which, refreshingly, does not take itself very seriously. I visited this show in the late afternoon on a weekday and besides my friend who joined me, we were the only ones in the gallery. Lining the walls were fuzzy black and white moving images of composition notebooks, on the floor a video of a cat playing with a camera “Touching (Otto)” is being projected onto a litter box, and coming from the back, the main attraction, the 3-D video inside a cardboard dome with a soundtrack filling the space. Upon walking in, we were greeted by a gallery employee who taught us the ropes to this show: there are two sets of 3-D glasses, and one of them has an “on” button that is a little tricky.

At the back of this show was the little dome containing an 11 minute 3-D video “Trading Futures” playing continually as a loop, which is where we started. It is a cozy little spot, fixed up with cushions so you can lay down and get comfortable. I had no idea what was going on the first time around watching “Trading Futures”, it took about 5 minutes to get comfortable with the 3-D image and figure out the “on” button of my glasses. We then proceeded to watch this video 2 and a half times. This video features a dancing animated diaper-wearing person, a little girl (his daughter?), a cat, and a white-spandex suited man. The audio is non-sensical philosophical instruction with a comforting generic beat in the background. At times we see industrial landscapes, inside the girl’s bedroom filled with toys, and outdoors. Somehow it felt to me that part of this video was about entertaining the little girl (who I assume was his daughter), though it also entertained me. The music is calming, and the voice (perhaps Coonleys?) is calming as well even as it prompts us to think and answer questions while we watch, which feels like we are taking a non-consequential quiz. There is one point in the video where we hear a whispering voice saying “I don’t think it’s working. I don’t think my glasses are on” which I found very funny, because I really did have those thoughts and my glasses were in fact, not “on” at one point.

I found his “Rotating Composition” series of slow, pixelated composition notebooks to be funny and somewhat sentimental, as I have used many composition notebooks in my life, but they did not hold my attention for very long. I liked his piece “Touching Otto”; we got an up close image of his cat (same cat as in the longer dome piece), playing with this camera, which was entertaining to watch and cute. There was another piece in the corner “Touching (Lumpy Ghost)” which I did not connect with much, it was a video projected on a rotating spherical mirror. All in all, it seems to  me that Coonley wanted to create a playful and light piece, starting with the title that rhymes with his last name; to poke fun and entertain himself, his daughter, and us, and in that, he succeeded.

 

-Jamie Matson