Contemporary Means of Torture

Hey Everyone!

I just wanted to throw out a concept I had for the next project and see what people thought. It was something that Claudia Pederson, the speaker from Monday night's lecture, brought up. She was discussing the Iraqi artist, Waffa Bilal, and his newest work, which was an interactive online voting piece called "Dog or Iraqi". People voted on which one - the dog or the Iraqi - would be waterboarded in an undisclosed location in Upstate New York. Bilal was voted to be waterborded and he made a video documenting it. This net art piece made me think of another artwork featuring waterboarding that I had read about this summer.

Steve Powers, a graffiti and conceptual artist, created an installation piece on Coney Island. An audience member puts in a dollar, peeks in a window, sees a scene of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner being waterboarded. The people in the scene are animatronic dummies, but the blindfolded prisoner struggles and convulses as a hooded man pours water over his face.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/arts/design/06wate.html?_r=1&scp=4sq=Waterboarding&st=cse&oref=slogin

I am very curious about this exploration of such a horrendous torture technique in art. I think I would like to comment on it in my next project. Let me know what you think.

Thkx
Franny