In N.Y., Waterboarding as Dark Art

Some people who viewed the installation at Coney Island were clearly repulsed. A few laughed. "It's an investigation," artist Steve Powers said. (By Robin Shulman -- The Washington Post)
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Outside, when people took in the public display set up like other exhibits, some were clearly moved.

"This is hard to watch," said Zekri Youssef, 33, a pizza maker from Egypt. "People don't know this happens."

"I recognize this, because I was tortured, too," said Paul Rivera, 41, who says he was tied down with restraints while he was serving prison time for selling drugs and guns. "This is sad to see."

"That's messed up," said Joshua Sanchez, 16, a Bronx student. "That's real wrong to torture someone, and I wouldn't have put a dollar in if I knew."

"I don't think there's a need for that. I don't like it," said Denise Kennedy, 49, a Brooklyn homemaker who held up her 9-year-old niece to view the exhibit before realizing what it was. "It's not for kids at all."

"It's our chance to be silly and political and educational all at the same time," said Scott Baker, the "outside talker" for the freak show next door, speaking into the microphone, and then switching to his pitch for a growing crowd: "Perhaps you've heard of the Man Eating Chicken. Or Lobster Boy, who was not born with hands like you and me, but pinching claws. . . . He's the only magician to perform sleight of claw."

Coney Island is no stranger to political display. Its World in Wax museum once showed dioramas of current events -- opium den sagas, murders, presidential stories -- said Charles Denson, author of "Coney Island: Lost and Found."

During World War II, Coney Island had an exhibit of captured Nazi warplanes and used fireworks displays to depict the United States winning sensational battles, Denson said. Afterward, there was an exhibit of Hitler's escape car. Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, shooting games used targets of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, he said.

Powers said his idea was born when Coney Island USA invited him to make an installation in a concrete room that reminded him of an interrogation cell.

He first wanted real people to undergo waterboarding for the public, but he realized that might be tricky and limited it to the one-time private experiment. For the public display, with robotic stand-ins, Powers concerned himself with details such as finding music mentioned on blogs as having been played to prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

His work was commissioned by Creative Time, a public arts organization launching a national initiative called Democracy in America. Since the Waterboard Thrill Ride closed Friday at Coney Island, Creative Time is showing it at the Park Avenue Armory.

"Sometimes the absurd is a way to shock people out of their daily routine and get them to think about things in fresh ways or get them to pay attention," said Anne Pasternak, the president and artistic director of Creative Time. "That's our hope."