Performing the Institutionalization of "Bare Life", Coco Fusco Operation Atropos Bare Life Study #1 A Room of One’s Own Commentary, Jill Lane

Operation Atropos
A video by Coco Fusco, 2006

In Operation Atropos, Fusco explores a particular shift in the role of women in the era of global warfare. The 59-minute video follows the artist and six women enrolled in a training workshop led by Team Delta, a group of retired U.S. military interrogators, and designed for people in the private sector who want to learn from them various techniques for extracting information. In a one-day immersion in a simulated reality, the women are introduced to interrogation from the point of view of the prisoner: the group is ambushed, captured and subjected to harsh treatment from ex-military personnel playing guards and hostile interrogators. The video shows how interrogators combine theatrical tricks with physical and mental stress to extract information from their prisoners.