Unmanned 2022

Unmanned is a series of 3D printed action figures that interrogates the militarized fantasies embedded within popular Western imagination. Specifically the ongoing automation of lethal force—an emergent class of weapons and weapons systems (L.A.W.S.) developed by military powers and private companies intent on removing human decision making from the equation of lethal force. Such weapons are oftentimes imagined as fictional, anthropomorphic killer robots. The us of L.A.W.S. is not a faraway dystopia, but a present day crisis. AI is increasingly used in warfare with the promise of increasing efficiency in how war is waged and making wars more humane. Within a cultural imaginary where pervasive fantasies of killer robots override the believability of present day warfare, does embedding reality into such fictions make them more real