The longest amount of time any area in the continental United States has gone without an update in Google Earth was between 2008 to 2016. The gap lies in a dry lake bed in Southwestern Nevada located in the Tonopah Test Range, a subsection of the Nellis Test and Training Range, which is jointly owned by the Department of Energy and Air Force.

When Eyebeam Resident Dhruv Mehrotra and writer Brendan C. Byrne discovered this gap and realized they could purchase the rights to the satellite image themselves, they bought it in an attempt to push Google into completing its dataset. However, the purchase came with a set of its own restrictions within layers of legalese, which frustrated this initial intent while prompting an exploration into the most notable phrase that kept appearing: FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY.

What possibilities exist between the fine print, and can creative approaches help to locate grey areas, or loopholes to work within? Can abstraction or poetry obfuscate an original to the point of no longer being confined by a legal document? Where is that line and in how many ways can we collectively push upon the boundaries defined by “internal use?” What are the implications of state secrets and corporate censorship on artistic interpretation?

In an effort to interrogate these questions, Mehrotra and Byrne have commissioned a series of original paintings of the satellite image of the expansive Nevada landscape by artist Sebastian Gladstone, as well as writing to be performed by poet Marvin Mayfield. During Internal Use Only, these new works will be revealed to an intimate audience of “internal users,” accompanied by conversations with journalist Sharon Weinberger and copyright lawyer Mark Bradford.

Instructions to become an “internal user” to follow.

Dhruv Mehrotra is an engineer whose work explores networks, conspiracy, politics and power. He is currently a resident at Eyebeam and a researcher at NYU.

Brendan C. Byrne's criticism has appeared in Rhizome, The Intercept, and The Baffler. His fiction has appeared in Terraform, Big Echo, Flapperhouse, and Dark Mountain.

Sebastian Gladstone is an artist based in Los Angeles. Recent solo exhibitions include “Pictures From My Dream” at Marvin Gardens and “Fantasy Playground” at Club Pro Los Angeles.

Marvin Mayfield is a native of Brooklyn, NY; a product of the racially and socially turbulent 70's. As a person directly affected by the prison industrial complex, he has devoted his knowledge and experience to the cause of ending mass incarceration and establishing true Criminal Justice Reform. Today, Marvin is an activist, a writer, and a student at Columbia University where he is pursuing a degree in social work.

Sharon Weinberger is the DC bureau chief for Yahoo News. Previously, she was an executive editor at Foreign Policy magazine, and before that, the national security editor at The Intercept. She has held fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, MIT’s Knight Science Journalism program, the International Reporting Program at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She has written on military science and technology for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, Wired magazine, Nature, BBC, Discover, and Slate, among other publications.

Mark Bradford has an A.B. from Brown University and a J.D. from Fordham Law School. In 2009, he started his own firm, Mark Bradford, P.C., which specializes in copyright, trademark, arts, music, and media law in addition to commercial litigation, representing start-ups and entrepreneurs. He is general counsel for Electronic Arts Intermedia, and has done legal work for the Merce Cunningham Trust and Anthology Film Archives, among others. He also serves on the boards for Culture Push and The Firehouse Space and is the executor of the estate of multi-media artist Stuart Sherman.