Thomas Demand begins the process of creating his images by finding already existing images in the media, normally of recognisable interiors of contemporary life, but are devoid of any human presence or activity. He then reconstructs them using cardboard and paper, utilising his background in sculpture, and photographs them using a large format camera. After this process, the models are destroyed. The images are exhibited as large prints, almost life size.
In some cases, we are given access to areas we may not normally see; the US presidents office, or a space that is private, whilst others will be familiar to us, such as this airport security area, or a CCTV camera placed high on a wall. They are a part of our knowledge and understanding of the contemporary world, which is full of these blank, impersonal spaces, and before viewing these images we would probably have viewed them without questioning their significance.
By creating series' of images that all depict similar spaces, Demand creates a view of the world that questions how real our reality is. We are aware that these sculptures are only reproductions made of paper and card, but the space it references is so typical of modern life that it could easily have been the space itself; it is interchangeable with reality. So if a model could replace reality so easily, how real is our own reality?
Demand's work references Baudrillard's ideas of simulation and the hyperreal. This image could be seen as a simulacra; a reference of a reference of another reference; a copy of something of which there was never an original. In the above image, for example, Demand shows objects of which there are millions throughout the world, and of which there is no original. They could be easily changed for another one, and a copy could be made without us knowing the difference. The space itself is a copy of other spaces similar to it, and Demand has then removed it from reality a stage further by creating a sculpture of the already copied space. It has therefore moved into the fourth stage, the hyperreal, where everything acts as simply a code.
