Andrea Bowers

This photo was taken at Gameworks, an arcade in Ontario, California. For the last year, I have been recording people in Southern California playing new generations of video games. My most recent video installation, shown at Chouakri Brahms Berlin, focused on arcade fighting games like Virtual Arena, the game I am playing in this photo. Sensors record the human player's movements, triggering the action of the digital counterparts. Through the recording and editing of the video footage, I attempted to turn a traditionally masculine fighting game into a choreographed dance. Sally Banes, the dance historian, wrote, "Dance is culture, but in a very particular way. It's culture's body." This project looks at culture's body today. A battle is presented between awkward, beautiful human movements within the confines of an interstitial or in-between digital space. Disembodiment is paired against the body.