(January 22, 2024 - Los Angeles, CA)—Drawing upon a series of remote, obscure or completely hidden sites throughout the American West, Out of Site: Survey Science and the Hidden West tracks the evolving relationship between art, technology and the search for what we cannot see.  

Out of Site features more than 90 works of art, including videos, photography and archival materials from the mid-19th century to the present. Featuring a range of historical and contemporary artists, such as Carleton Watkins, Margaret Bourke White, Richard Misrach, Nancy Baker Cahill and Will Wilson, Out of Site offers new perspectives on art, technology and the Western landscape we share today.

The exhibition is broken up into three sections “Site Unseen,” “Survey to Surveillance” and “Remote Control” which seek to revisit and revise our understanding of visual technologies as applied to remote Western lands and places that are within and without modern society.

“Site Unseen” echoes the stories of forgotten empires and reveals hidden stories etched into the bedrock of the West. Photographs, artifacts, and geological specimens harmonize to narrate a silent symphony of existence, transcending the boundaries of human perception. “Site Unseen” invites you to question the impermanence of power, the fleeting nature of civilizations and the indomitable force of time.  

Explore the intersection of technology and control with the evolution of surveillance photography with "Survey to Surveillance.” Peer into the lens that turned curiosity into scrutiny, observing the shifts from capturing the sublime to documenting the mundane for purposes unknown.

“Remote Control” is a mesmerizing exploration of humanity’s quest to conquer the skies through the lens of photographic technology. In this ethereal realm, discover the symbiosis of man and machine as we extend our vision beyond the horizon. “Remote Control” beckons you to soar through pixels and particles, inviting you to question where the observer ends and the observed begins.

Out of Site will explore art related to the origins and expansion of visual imaging technologies within the Western landscape, applications of photographic technology to sophisticated imaging systems and responses to imaging conventions related to landscape and survey.

Out of Site: Survey Science and the Hidden West will be open from May 18, 2024, through Jan. 5, 2025.  

For more information, please visit theAutry.org/OutOfSite.

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