Soft Power
Carl Bajandas (2013)Created by Carl Bajandas, Soft Power is a 1:1 scale reproduction of a MQ-9 Reaper attack drone, featuring an 80 ft. wingspan, hellfire missiles, and computer vision system, and wholly constructed of muslin fabric and Polyfill. This project explores the growing international popularity of drone warfare and our comfortable relationship to these deadly technologies as citizens, while providing a place to play, rest, and think.
Soft Power was supported by a microgrant from the Frank-Ratchye Fund for Art @ the Frontier (FRFAF)— an endowment founded to encourage the creation of innovative artworks by the faculty, students and staff of Carnegie Mellon University. With this fund, the STUDIO seeks to develop a cache of groundbreaking projects created at CMU — works that can be described as “thinking at the edges” of the intersection of disciplines.
Carl Bajandas is a MFA graduate student in the CMU School of Art.