“In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of; it is a paper tiger.”
-Mao Zedong
*In a 1956 interview with the American journalist Anna Louise Strong, Mao Zedong used the above phrase to describe American imperialism.
On Demand is a foam core and paper model of a drone control room. The work’s title refers to the ‘on demand’ nature of images today, on the internet, cable television or in this case in the space of remote warfare. The work’s title is also a play on the name of the artist Thomas Demand, who photographs paper and cardboard models, based in turn on published photographs. Thomas Demand’s work helps to disrupt photography’s indexical relationship to the world, putting into question our own belief in images and in their ability to tell the ‘truth.’ The piece then ultimately speaks about the troubled relationship between the image and its use in war to literally decide between life or death.
