Gearfuse

Have you been to Coney Island lately? It’s the prime spot for carny games and funnel cake. Now, it’s got even more appeal, with robots acting out the infamous torture technique of waterboarding. It’ll have you running in terror as if you’re being chased by a creepy old man bot. Artist Steve Powers opened the “Waterboard Thrill Ride” on West 12th Street in Coney Island not just for profit and laughs but for a deeper meaning.

I bet you’ve never witnessed a Guantánamo Bay interrogation: a creepy figure in a dark sweatshirt acts as “executioner” as it leans over another figure in an orange jumpsuit, its face covered by a towel and its body strapped down on a tilted surface. So, is it a haunted house or what? Steve Powers explains:

“What’s more obscene, the official position that waterboarding is not torture, or our official position that it’s a thrill ride?”

Good point, Mr. Powers. Waterboarding is just as much torture as leaving someone alone in a dark room with a Nokia N-Gage.

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Getting wet sucks, especially if you’re that alien species from the movie Signs. Michael Burton has crafted an award-winning concept of a virtual water interactive installation. Unlike the Light Rain, you won’t find shoddy poetry and goofy dancers throughout this video. Rather, you’ll see people playing with life-like water displayed on a board.

The water will react to anything pressed up against the board including your entire body. Plants will grow in dry areas of the board, aquatic life will spawn from bodies of water and water will become stagnant if its source is severed. With multiple users, an evolving network of virtual water is obtained. The Waterboard claims to

“offer the means to encourage creating thinking to emphasis the natural progression of the Earth’s water supply”

Looks like he’s going for an eco state-of-mind and from the looks of things, it seems to be quite the success.
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