Coney Island waterboarding thrill ride
2008 artwork
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The Coney Island waterboarding thrill ride was a work in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City conceived by conceptual artist Steve Powers in mid-2008.[1][2][3]
As originally conceived, Powers saw the public watching volunteers undergoing actual waterboarding.[1] The Washington Post reported that on August 17, 2008, Powers brought in Mike Ritz, a former US official experienced in administering waterboarding, for a one time demonstration of waterboarding on volunteers.[2] This demonstration was not open to the general public, but rather for an invited audience. Powers himself was one of the volunteers.
As built, the thrill ride was a diorama, where viewers would mount stairs to a window where they would see a tableau of two robotic models, one a captive, one a masked interrogator. The captive was wearing an orange uniform "non-compliant" captives wear in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba, and was spread-eagled on a tilted table.
When the piece was installed, in July 2008, viewers inserted a dollar and the interrogator figure would pour water onto a rag over the captive figures' nose and throat, upon which the captive figure would start convulsing.
The piece was installed in a row of ordinary Coney Island freak shows and concessions. When installed the thrill ride triggered coverage and commentary around the world.[4][5]
The installation's last viewing was on September 14, 2008.[6]
Powers told The New York Times his purpose in preparing the display was educational, being "a way of exploring the issue without doing any harm". He said of the work:
What's more obscene, the official position that waterboarding is not torture, or our official position that it's a thrill ride? [...] It's the perfect Coney Island distraction — it's not quite delivering what it offers, but it's putting a unique experience on the table. And it doesn't take a great leap of the imagination to look in there and say: 'That's really what's going on? That's crazy.'"[7]
