Hans Bernhard: "I certainly don't believe in torturing people, well, maybe just a little bit, but i don't believe that playing loud music is torture either".

James Powderly: "I think probably, a lot of people might disagree, even some of the other detainees might feel like what they received wasn't torture. And relative to what someone might receive on a daily basis at a place like Gitmo it certainly is not particularly harsh. It's kind of like being a little bit pregnant, we were a little bit tortured".

TORTURE CLASSICS is a project by the artist duo UBERMORGEN.COM (A/CH/US) and James Powderly (US, Graffiti Research Lab/F.A.T) in conjunction with TIME LIFE, the respective artists, copyright-holders and their respective lawyers.

TORTURE CLASSICS is an outgrowth, a metastasis of UBERMORGEN.COM's "Superenhanced" project - a two year R&D project on "Enhanced Interrogations" (newspeak for torture), "Extraordinary Renditions" (kidnapping), "Supermax prisons" (high-security prisons) and "child imprisonment" (USA, Iraq, Afghanistan). "The Superenhanced Generator", an interrogation-software, a series of studio-photos and videos with Lola (2) and Billie (5), torture-performances and military-tribunal installations, and now the TORTURE CLASSICS COMPILATION are products of this long-term project. TORTURE CLASSICS combines the clandestine world of military torture & the special sonic interrogation techniques with the pop-culture ethos and glam-rock flare of the global music-business.

Powderly's TORTURECLASSICS victim-performance with Hans Bernhard as "The Interrogator" is an extension of  his research into mainstream culture's popular obsession with terrorism and government-sponsored violence and the celebrity terrorists and torturers that fill our screens, minds and water-cooler conversations. Related projects include: Top Chumps Radical Fanaticals card game, where kids compare terrorists' "stats" to win cards and the game, and his music video for Bowie's "Rock N' Roll Suicide", which combines footage of bombings, sniper attacks, explosions, propoganda and executions, released by terrorist organizations on the web, with contemporary music video imagery and style.

http://www.UBERMORGEN.COM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Powderly