The Itagaki Interface

Description

In their performance, Itagaki Interface, Daniele Hopkins and Kyle Duffield use their own bodies to challenge exaggerated representations of the human body in the fighting game, Dead or Alive (PS1), by Tomonobu Itakagi. The game features hyper feminized and hyper masculinized bodies in one on one combat, and more notably, a separate physics engine dedicated towards the characters’ breasts.

The audience is confronted with the challenge of having to compete with one another in the game by manipulating the controllers worn on the chests of the artists. This piece is a hybridization of 70’s body-centric performance art and new media interactive performance, challenging audiences to consider ways in which our bodies are both represented and interacted with in videogames, and highlighting individual choices and motives behind avatar selection.

Notes

This project was a collaboration between Kyle Duffield and Daniele Hopkins. Performed at Vector: Game+Art Convergence in Toronto, Canada. The Itagaki Interface was part of the Playing Personae: Embodied and Engendered Performances at Interacccess Electronic Media Arts Centre on February 22, 2013.

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