Presentation text 2006
bonus DVD + about the artist + about the director Bonus In the performance "Bare Life Study # 1", Coco Fusco, dressed in a U.S. military uniform, commands a squadron of fifty youths as they scrub the street outside the U.S. Consulate General in São Paulo with toothbrushes. The bonus tracks in Coco Fusco: I Like Girls in Uniform include the making-of of the intervention, part of the 15th Videobrasil International Electronic Art Festival (2005), covering everything from the preparation of the performers to the act itself. This work is also the subject of an exclusive interview with the artist, in which she speaks on other important pieces, including "a/k/a Mrs. George Gilbert" (2004), "Dolores from 10 to 10" (2001), "Els Segadors" (2001), and "Rights of Passage" (1997). The artist The daughter of a Cuban mother and Italian father, Coco Fusco (New York, 1963) has made the culture clash she has known since childhood the matrix of her investigations in the fields of art and science. Essayist, curator, artist, and teacher at the Visual Arts Department of Columbia University in New York, since 1988 she has been producing interventions that combine electronic media and performance in tackling such themes as cultural estrangement ("The Couple in the Cage", 1993, with Guillermo Gómez-Peña), the banalization of political violence in a culture dominated by simulation ("The Incredible Disappearing Woman", 2003), and the use of electronic surveillance against black intellectuals in the 1960s and 70s ("a/k/a Mrs. George Gilbert", 2004). She lives and works in New York. The director Wagner Morales has worked in the audiovisual area since 1995, producing documentaries, works of fiction, installations, and performances. He is the author of documentary works shown at festivals and exhibitions both in Brazil and abroad, such as "Preto contra Branco" (2004), about a football game between whites and blacks in São Paulo's largest slum, and the series "Vídeo de Cinema" (2003-2005), in which he uses video to deconstruct the clichés at the heart of such cinema genres as horror and science fiction. "Filme de Guerra" (2005), the most recent film in the series, was produced during his residency at Le Fresnoy - Studio National Des Arts Contemporains, in Turcoing, which Morales won at the 14th Videobrasil International Electronic Art Festival (2003).