August 6, 2008
Waterboard Thrill Ride Makes a Splash at Coney Island
Photo courtesy Atomische.
As part of a Creative Time initiative called “Democracy in America: The National Campaign,” artist Steve Powers has turned a former photo booth on Coney Island into "The Waterboarding Thrill Ride," an animatronic diorama that depicts a prisoner being waterboarded. The Times describes the scene:
If you climb up a few cinderblock steps to the small window, you can look through the bars at a scene meant to invoke a Guantánamo Bay interrogation. A lifesize figure in a dark sweatshirt, the hood drawn low over his face, leans over another figure in an orange jumpsuit, his face covered by a towel and his body strapped down on a tilted surface.When asked if the installation is in keeping with the festive spirit of Coney Island, Powers ponders, “What’s more obscene? The official position that waterboarding is not torture, or our official position that it’s a thrill ride?”Feed a dollar into a slot, the lights go on, and Black Hood pours water up Orange Jumpsuit’s nose and mouth while Orange Jumpsuit convulses against his restraints for 15 seconds. O.K., kids, who wants more cotton candy!
He also tells the Times that his initial idea was “for real people to undergo real waterboarding, right there in real time. [Powers] would be the first volunteer, then he’d perform it on the next guy, who’d turn the hose on the next one, and so on.” But at the urging of his wife, he decided to settle on “robot waterboarding.” Which doesn’t impress Coney Island old-timers like Janice Carter, who says the robots are just a big scam: “It’s a gimmick. When they have the sideshow, you see real people. That’s legit. But this here? Uh-uh.” Clearly, this is Christopher Hitchens's big break.
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Sounds slightly less painful than "it's a small world after all"
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ESPO has always been spot on with his art. By far the coolest guy you'll ever meet.
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Wow, I hope wonder if any kids will try to convince their parents to take them to this one.
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Clever....seems like a great piece...
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That's really neat... part social commentary, part coney island oddity.
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That seems like a wickedly insightful piece.
(Did I just say 'wickedly insightful?!?!)
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Sounds really cool. However, who wants to guess that SpongeBob and Squidworth get removed from the exhibit due to copyright violations by tomorrow?
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Doesn't sound as interesting as his original proposal to use 50 lawyers. This seems kinda lame.
Go back to writing ESPO.
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Freedom of speech in action! And an excellent defense from Powers.
Now the real question is: will Obama rescue this nation from the Iran/China flavor pit that Dubya put us in?
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that storefront is stunning - perfect.
i kinda can't get over it
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#7 - Yeah, but just about every fair, carnival and boardwalk uses phony versions of famous cartoon characters on games and rides (not to mention the bootleg prizes you win) and it never seems to be noticed.
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'Sounds slightly less painful than "it's a small world after all"'
i enjoyed that ride.
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It's remarkable in how unremarkable it is to most of the thousands of people that pass it by at Coney Island.
You can view a short video of the waterboard thrill ride here.