Working Playstation Controller Bra & Bro at Vector Game/Art Festival

The Itagaki Interface 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. Performed at Vector: Game Art Convergence in Toronto, Canada. The Itagaki Interface was part of the Playing Personae: Embodied and Engendered Performances at Interaccess Electronic Media Arts Centre on February 22, 2013. For pictures of the performance and garment-making process, check out: