Democratic Torture

VIDEO · 2004 · WITH MIKE PARR

A collaborative Geczy/Parr work based on Mike Parr's performance Democratic Torture at Artspace, Sydney, in 2003.

This is a film using footage I made during Mile Parr's performance of the same name where he people all around the world were about to "phone in" an email request to administer him with an electric shock. I was the "executioner". The work was a response to the prevalence of torture by the USA after 9/11 justified by "national security". Not many people made the request which both a disappointment and a consolation. As a discrete film, the audience is removed and there is an absence of external agency so the torture is visualised in its gratuitous rawness.