Michaela Davies
Sucker Punch
single channel HD video. stereo audio. 3’13”
Power is always performed, whether in the most intimate of settings, in publicly broadcast sports events, or in tightly controlled government forums. These performances are enabled by the acceptance of individual agency in complex systems. But the more this power is examined, the more the myth of this agency is exposed. As audiences, we manipulate, generate and polarize the performance of power. Sucker Punch is a performative realization of a system where embodied experience and sense of agency is disrupted and the limitations of agency are exposed. Two boxers execute pre-determined motor actions triggered by electrical impulses sent to their muscles, forcing their muscles to contract so that they punch and block involuntarily. The premise for Sucker Punch is a game from the 1970’s cult classic Future World, where human players control the movement of android boxers. Replacing androids with real people, Sucker Punch makes real the speculative science fiction of Future World and in turn asks questions about the spectacle of violence & entertainment in the future, and the ethical challenges faced by society as technology advances to a point where the level of realism in ‘games’ becomes indistinguishable from reality. Sucker Punch asks who, or what, is responsible – both within this system, and the broader context of a sport which draws heavily for participation upon the most disadvantaged groups of society. When the fighters are women, control and bodily autotomy is further threatened by the pressure to maintain a feminized image in order to succeed.
credits:
concept:Michaela Davies
sound design: Michaela Davies
camera, editing and post production: Boris Bagattini
performers: Louise Maloney & Michaela Davies
screenings: Damien Minton Gallery (Sydney, 2013)