We once looked at pictures. Then, with the advent of computer vision and machine learning, pictures started looking at us. By the award-winning artist, filmmaker and thinker.

Today our world is under the watchful and tireless eye of computer vision, with cam­eras and monitors tracing our every move. Furthermore, generative AI is now able to render a synthetic world indistinguishable from reality for us to explore. Trevor Paglen goes in search of the ways and means of understanding this new visual universe. Instead of asking what these technologies "say" about the world, he teaches us to ask what they "do" and where such images come from.

Exploring the esoteric worlds of psyops, UFO imagery, magicians, and public relation gurus, Paglen shows that this appar­ently alien realm is more human, but much stranger, than we imagine.

"Paglen's ideas are smart and suggestive, with the added virtue of being expressed in prose so clear it makes the opacity of other theoretical writing feel like a psyop. This lucidity not only makes his work readable but also staves off the perception that discourse about UFOs and the CIA must be riddled with conspiratorial paranoia... even as Paglen demonstrates how machine vision is shifting our media paradigms, he also demonstrates how human vision can help us navigate the shifts." - Art in America

"Paglen moves through psyops, UFO imagery, adtech, and recommendation algorithms to argue that the shift underway isn't just about fake images, but about images that require no human eye at all. For anyone trying to make sense of what's happening in the current digital and A.I. age, this is an equally readable and rigorous guide." - Cultured

"How will people choose to interact with art in a world where AI can spit out any image desired? When digital platforms value hyperpersonalization over discovery and learn through user surveillance? AI is altering visual culture more insidiously than it even seems, far beyond slop and plagiarism, and we need to understand it." - Lit Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2026

"Paglen's essays are impressively cogent, engaging, and relevant ... [due to] the importance of this book's subject and the valuable arguments Paglen makes, [we] recommend this title for all art and politics collections." - Library Journal

"Paglen confronts, with clear prose and a level head, everything from UFOs to psyops, offering a revealing look behind the curtain that you can't unsee." - Art in America, 7 Books We’re Looking Forward to in May

"Paglen is well-placed to bring news from the more obscure, unexpected sites and sources of present technological predicaments. For the past twenty years, his wide-ranging practice-which includes sculpture, installation, photography, and a prodigious amount of text and talk-has explored the hinterland between secret military technology and the more or less subtle distortions of everyday life that technology eventually wreaks." - 4 Columns