Light and Lens, 2nd Edition

11.0  Thomas Demand remakes the world in paper and cardboard and then photographs the results. For this project, he used a digital program to cut each of the 900,000 layers of heavy gray cardboard, weighing 50 tons, which he used to build his grotto, layer upon layer. Wanting certain parts of the final photograph to lack definition, Demand actually built “pixels” in cardboard, tiny squares that deceive the eye into thinking the photograph is unfocused, whereas it is in fact reproducing the “reality” of the sculpted grotto. “Digital is just a technique of the imagination. It is opening possibilities that wouldn’t have been there before. But I lose ...