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Channel: bro – Daniele Hopkins and Kyle Duffield
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Beginning Stages: Working PS1 Bra and Bro/Jockstrap

November 19, 2012, 9:40 am
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So we’ve settled on our controller garment project – We’re making a working original Playstation controller bra and either a bro/mansierre or jockstrap controller! Hopefully both down the road, but we’re only going to focus on one for now.

Here’s a picture of our preliminary button placement for the bra:
measurign button placement on controller bra

Our plan is to use conductive thread and soft circuits to make all the contacts.

Very exciting! Though we do keep asking ourselves if this project is just a little too strange.


Filed under: Controller Projects
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Working PS1 Controller Bra and Bro – Itagaki Interface

December 13, 2012, 6:50 am
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We’ve been accepted for a performance with our garments at the Vector Game + Art Convergence!

To fit within a theme and structure for a performance that acknowledges perspectives on gender in games and surrounding gaming culture, we’ve decided to narrow down our garment focus and to place the experience of playing games on human controllers within a specific context. For the purposes of this festival, we came up with Itagaki Interface

Itagaki Interface is both a playful interactive performance piece and a social experiment that aims to complement and contrast the content of “Dead or Alive” (DOA) through the tactile manipulation of the PS1 interface. Itagaki Interface features two performers/artists acting as female and male “controllers,” each wearing a hacked PS1 controller bra/bro. The controllers are connected to the first installment of DOA, the beginning of the Tecmo-saving franchise created by Tomonobu Itagaki, which was renowned for its impossible-looking implementation of the series’ controversial trademark breast physics. The game is projected so that the characters in the game are relatively life-sized, with both artists standing static in front of the screen. Participants are invited to “play” the artists, free to select either a male or female controller (versus or single player), and subsequently, a male or female fighter within the game. Face to face with the artists, participants engage with awkwardly tangible human intimacy while controlling a now archaic 32-bit representation of fantastical and sometimes oddly bouncy bodies.

Both male and female artists are used to reflect the selection behaviour supported by the game’s fighter choices. This piece questions general assumptions about the willingness of the game’s target audience to face the contrast between reality and fantasy in relation to assumed preference and comfort level when confronted with real-life physical interaction through either a male or female “interface.” Itagaki Interface is meant to be an open forum that acknowledges both the controversy and success of DOA’s highly sexualized characters by giving gamers the opportunity to directly address the source of the controversy — how gamers interact with sexuality in both digital and physical forms when presented simultaneously.

Here are some images to further illustrate the piece:

Itagaki_Interface_Male_Garment

Itagaki Interface female garment diagram

Itagaki Interface Setup Diagram


Filed under: Controller Projects
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Working PS1 Controller Bra/Bro Progress

December 22, 2012, 8:10 am
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We’ve been prototyping our original Playstation controller bra and bro. We were originally going to equip the entire garment with soft circuits, but for the purposes of the Vector Game + Arts Festival we’re involved with, we decided it would look/feel far more badass if we used the actual buttons in the construction of our garments. Not only for tactility, but for gamer familiarity.

We also decided that in the future, we’re going to work on not only the jockstrap, but we’re looking into creating such garments with analog joysticks and rumble packs! So exciting!

For now, here’s a shot of some family controller-testing time:
Cat and controller bra prototype


Filed under: Controller Projects
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Vector: Game+Art Convergence – Working PS1 Controller Bras/Bros!

February 3, 2013, 5:31 am
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Here’s the info for the performance we’re doing with our PS1 controller bra and bro! Come play with us!
Vector: Game+Art Convergence
Pricing: See Ticket info here
The whole festival runs from February 21-24, 2013
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 21, 2013 7:00 – 10:00 p.m.
Itagaki Interface Setup Diagram
Itagaki Interface

Daniele Hopkins and Kyle Duffield will be performing at Playing Personae: Engendered + Embodied Performances on Friday, February 22, 2013 at 9 Ossington Avenue, Toronto.

In their performance, Itagaki Interface, Daniele Hopkins and Kyle Duffield use their own bodies to challenge exaggerated representations of the human body in the fighting game Dead or Alive (PS1), by Tomonobu Itakagi. The game features hyper feminized and hyper masculinized bodies in one on one combat, and more notably, a separate physics engine dedicated towards the characters breasts.

In the performance, the artists wear modified game controllers on their chests, essentially acting as human game controllers. The audience is confronted with the challenge of having to play one another in the game, by manipulating the controllers worn by the artists. This piece is a hybridization of 70s body-centric performance art and new media interactive performance, challenging us all to consider the ways in which our bodies are represented in interactive media.

That’s right folks. We’ve made fully functioning PS1 game bras/bros! See you there!

A Note About the Vector Festival:

A not-for-profit initiative dedicated to showcasing contemporary game based artworks, Vector: Game + Art Convergence will be running at four venues over five days from Feb 20th-24th, in Queen West and Kensington in Toronto. Over these five days, Vector will feature exhibitions, screenings, workshops, performances and round table discussions, all with the intent of creating a critical dialogue about the medium of games and its expressive potential as a contemporary art practice.With an influence that is spreading across various cultures and sub-cultures through out the world, video games are a pervasive media that are influencing a wide range of social and cultural practices.

Programmed by Team Vector, the festival will address contemporary creative practices that peel back to curtain of gaming and its cultures, positing games as tools and inspiration for contemporary art making. It will feature works by international, national and regional, emerging and established artists.

Works in sculpture, film and video, new media, installation, print, fine craft and performance will all be part of the spectrum exhibited at Vector. These works will incorporate, criticize and address the culture, politics, technology and aesthetics of games, through exhibitions, artist talks, workshops and performances.

Vector: Game+Art Convergence


Filed under: Controller Projects, Events
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PS1 Controller Bra/Bro Preview

February 13, 2013, 7:40 am
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Here’s a sneak peak of the bra! We’re just ironing out some final aesthetic details:
working PS1 controller bra

 
PS1 controller bra

Daniele and Kyle’s PS1 controller bra/bro performance is coming up soon!:

Pricing: See Ticket info here

 

The whole festival runs from February 21-24, 2013
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 21, 2013 7:00 – 10:00 p.m.

 


Filed under: Controller Projects
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VECTOR WRAP UP AND THANK YOU

February 25, 2013, 12:57 pm
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We would like to thank all of those who came out and supported our project. Vector was a blast! There was a lot of spectacular work by amazing artists and we feel privileged to be a part of the festival.

We would also like to send a special thanks to all of the curators, Skot Deeming, Clint Enns, Katie Micak and Christine Kim for the blood and sweat, putting together a wicked festival and giving us this opportunity. Thanks to Interaccess Electronic Media Arts Centre for providing the space for our performance!

Also, WE WANT YOUR DOCUMENTATION! Send us your photos and videos of the project. We’d like to compile it all! Documentation of the performance will be up soon, so stay tuned!


Filed under: Controller Projects, Events
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Some Process Pictures of Our Playstation Controller Bra and Bro

March 4, 2013, 11:22 pm
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Here are some more detailed shots of the process and components involved in our initial design of the Playstation controller bra and bro/mansierre. They basically show how we connected the Playstation controller buttons on the fronts of the garments to conductive thread, which connects to one side of a set of snaps in the garment. These snaps connect to a removable circuit board of the original Playstation controller, which was modified to make these connections. This all completes the connection to the game system when the buttons are pressed on the garment. We’re looking to continue to modify and perfect this design, trying out new things in the near future! Also, we’ll be posting some documentation of our performance at the Vector Game/Art Festival very soon!

Please click on the pictures for more detailed descriptions:

Playstation Controller Bra/Bro Circuit board Playstation Controller Male Garment Detail of Playstation Controller Male Garment Snaps Shows Playstation Controller Bra with Controller Board and Snaps Detail of Playstation Controller Bra Snaps Detail of Playstation Controller Bra Closed Snaps Conductive Thread and Stripboards Inside of Playstation Controller Bra Conductive Thread and Stripboards Inside of Playstation Controller Bro/Mansierre Playstation Controller Bra Stripboard and Conductive Thread Close-up
Filed under: Controller Projects
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Toronto Standard Vector Article

March 15, 2013, 12:15 am
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Our piece, Itagaki Interface, was mentioned in the Toronto Standard’s write up of Vector!

“The performance art was really the highlight of Vector;  Playing Personae: Engendered + Embodied Performances explored the issue of the representation of gender by having the audience use a human controller while playing Dead or Alive, the game that started the breast physics “revolution.” The controls just so happened to be placed on the wearer’s chest (and one of them was a woman).”

- Megan Patterson

The article also mentions some of the other performances and features an interview with the curators of Vector.

Check out the full Toronto Standard article here.


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Windsor Square Vector Write Up

March 15, 2013, 9:50 pm
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Our performance, Itagaki Interface, was also mentioned in the Windsor Squares write up of Vector!

“Hopkins and Duffield wore modified chest pieces that were actually controllers to interact with two fighting characters in Tomonobu Itakagi’s Dead or Alive – a game hugely popular for creating “jiggle physics” in the overly busty female fighters. It was fascinating to see men who are well-versed in DoA hesitate to touch the controller on Hopkins’ chest, and the performance was a clever way to challenge players to see how bodies are represented in the media.”

- Soha E

The article also mentions the other events, pieces, and performances at Vector in detail.

Check out the full Windsor Square article here.


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Bracumentation of Our Working Playstation Controller Bra & Bro Performance at Vector!

March 18, 2013, 4:30 pm
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Event writeup:

The Itagaki Interface was performed at Vector: Game+Art Convergence in Toronto, Canada. The Itagaki Interface was featured in the event, “Playing Personae: Embodied and Engendered Performances” along with Angela Washko‘s performance entitled, Chastity and The Council on Gender Sensitivity and Behavioral Awareness in World of Warcraft at Interaccess Electronic Media Arts Centre on February 22, 2013.

In their performance, The Itagaki Interface, Daniele Hopkins and Kyle Duffield use their own bodies to challenge exaggerated representations of the human body in the fighting game, Dead or Alive, by Tomonobu Itakagi. The game features hyper-feminized and hyper-masculinized bodies in one-on-one combat.

In the performance, the artists wear modified Playstation controllers on their chests, essentially acting as human game controllers. The audience is confronted with the challenge of having to play one another in the game, by manipulating the controllers worn by the artists. This piece is a hybridization of 70′s body-centric performance art and new media interactive performance, challenging us all to consider the ways in which our bodies are represented in interactive media, and highlighting individual choices and motives behind avatar selection and interaction.

Silly Daniele and Kyle wearing PS1 controller bra and bro gamepads Audience member playing on Daniele's PS1 controller bra Audience member playing on Kyle Duffield's PS1 controller bro/mansierre Audience members playing on Daniele and Kyle's PS1 controller bra/bro Audience members playing on Daniele and Kyle's PS1 controller bra/bro Daniele and Kyle wearing PS1 controller bra and bro Audience members playing on Daniele and Kyle's PS1 controller bra/bro gamepads Audience member playing on Daniele's PS1 controller bra gamepad Audience members playing on Daniele and Kyle's PS1 controller bra/bro gamepads
 
Thank you to Terry Anastasiadas, Heidi Persaud, and Team Vector for shooting the documentation. Also, thanks again to all who came out to the event, Team Vector (Skot Deeming, Clint Enns, Katie Micak, Christine Kim) and the Vector volunteers, Interaccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Feminists in Games, The Ontario Arts Council, OCADU’s Digital Futures Initiative and Lisason of Independent Filmmakers for making everything awesome!


Filed under: Controller Projects, Events
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Partner Play and Update on Controller Garment Developments!

April 19, 2013, 9:53 am
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Versus combat in Dead or Alive and game/art and audience context aside, we partially created the controller bra and bro/manssiere out of a longtime interest and passion for 2-player cooperative play. From Bubble Bobble and River City Ransom to Secret of Mana; from Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance to Twisted Metal and Resident Evil 5 and 6, the intimacy involved in navigating and strategizing within a fantastical world with just one other person by your side is an entirely unique pleasure. But to half-step into reality to play games on one another’s bodies is a humourous and surprisingly complicated dance. You can feel the range of your partner’s interaction with the game through the detectable nuances in their physical gestures. The desperate increase in pressure, for instance, when for the fifteenth time in the last five minutes your partner’s sorceress character in Dark Alliance says, “My pack is full,” or the feeling of deliberate precision as your partner aims an explosive arrow towards a TNT barrel. Not to mention it’s just terribly awkward playing a game sideways while holding onto someone.

Alternative to simultaneous play, turn-based play opens up a whole new set of potentially distracting intimacy options…

Using these garments has been a fun exploration of the expectations and silently understood refinements involved in partner play, and how those shift in meaning, relevance, and luminosity as the context, players/audience, and type of game is altered.

We think other people should experience hands-on partner play, too.

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On that note, we’ve been prototyping the next version of our working Playstation controller garments! We’ve been figuring out the best ways to incorporate the analog joysticks and vibration feedback of later Dualshock controller models. Here are some of our considerations so far: with the addition of the analog joysticks, we have to re-think our button spacing system so that the garments remain both ergonomic for the user and comfortable for the wearer. Also, due to the size and nature of the controller’s vibration motor, we’ve been looking into replacing these parts with smaller, more enclosed versions.

Here are some close-up and more intimate cooperative play shots of our original working controller garments, as well as some shots of our joystick/vibration prototyping:

Close-up of both working controller garments intimate partner play of controller garments Intimate usage of Playstation bro/manssiere Prototyping Rumble and Analog Joysticks for Controller Garments Close-up of full finished Playstation controller bra Close-up of full finished Playstation controller bro/manssiere Prototyping joysticks in Playstation controller bra intimate backwards usage of playstation bra
Filed under: Controller Projects
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Adafruit’s Wearable Wednesdays + 4Player Network Write-up + Strap-on Joystick Fighting!

April 17, 2013, 6:09 am
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Our working game controller garments have been blogged on Adafruit’s Wearable Wednesday!

Also, we were mentioned in a Vector write-up on 4Player Network:

“I also had the opportunity to see game engines used for feminist performances, the first being Itagaki Interface. Artists Daniele Hopkins and Kyle Duffield use their own bodies to challenge the exaggerated body designs (particularly the infamous jiggle physics) in the fighting game Dead or Alive. It was fascinating and hilarious to me to see the hesitation of many people in the crowd who had a lot of experience with DoA come up and mash combo sequences on the human body controllers, specifically on Daniele’s breasts. I noticed some male participants introduce themselves to her first or apologize in advance for interacting with the controllers which sparked a personal revelation for me – we constantly use and abuse hypersexualized female bodies in games, but if they were personified in front of us the experience would be uncomfortable because the degradation is now real.”

Lastly, since we’ve been seriously considering making a jockstrap version of these controller garments for the last half a year, we thought this project, Using Strap-On Joysticks to Fight With Fake Dicks, was hilarious.


Filed under: Controller Projects
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Youtube Nation!

June 10, 2014, 9:43 pm
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Featured in Vice – Motherboard / Shake That Button

July 8, 2015, 12:19 pm
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Our piece, Itagaki Interface was  featured in Vice’s Motherboard in an article called Alternative Video Game Controllers, From Bras to Head-Mounted Pinball Machines.

However, our piece was found through this super awesome site created by Pierre Corbinais called Shake that Button, which featured us amongst other alternative video game controllers / installations. We just thought we would spread the love about this website as alternative and physical gaming experiences is becoming a focus of our creative career!Daniele and Kyle wearing PS1 controller bra and bro


Filed under: Controller Projects, Press
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Vector: Game+Art Convergence – Working PS1 Controller Bras/Bros!

February 3, 2013, 5:31 am
$
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Here’s the info for the performance we’re doing with our PS1 controller bra and bro! Come play with us!
Vector: Game+Art Convergence
Pricing: See Ticket info here
The whole festival runs from February 21-24, 2013
Opening Reception: Thursday, February 21, 2013 7:00 – 10:00 p.m.
Itagaki Interface Setup Diagram
Itagaki Interface

Daniele Hopkins and Kyle Duffield will be performing at Playing Personae: Engendered + Embodied Performances on Friday, February 22, 2013 at 9 Ossington Avenue, Toronto.

In their performance, Itagaki Interface, Daniele Hopkins and Kyle Duffield use their own bodies to challenge exaggerated representations of the human body in the fighting game Dead or Alive (PS1), by Tomonobu Itakagi. The game features hyper feminized and hyper masculinized bodies in one on one combat, and more notably, a separate physics engine dedicated towards the characters breasts.

In the performance, the artists wear modified game controllers on their chests, essentially acting as human game controllers. The audience is confronted with the challenge of having to play one another in the game, by manipulating the controllers worn by the artists. This piece is a hybridization of 70s body-centric performance art and new media interactive performance, challenging us all to consider the ways in which our bodies are represented in interactive media.

That’s right folks. We’ve made fully functioning PS1 game bras/bros! See you there!

A Note About the Vector Festival:

A not-for-profit initiative dedicated to showcasing contemporary game based artworks, Vector: Game + Art Convergence will be running at four venues over five days from Feb 20th-24th, in Queen West and Kensington in Toronto. Over these five days, Vector will feature exhibitions, screenings, workshops, performances and round table discussions, all with the intent of creating a critical dialogue about the medium of games and its expressive potential as a contemporary art practice.With an influence that is spreading across various cultures and sub-cultures through out the world, video games are a pervasive media that are influencing a wide range of social and cultural practices.

Programmed by Team Vector, the festival will address contemporary creative practices that peel back to curtain of gaming and its cultures, positing games as tools and inspiration for contemporary art making. It will feature works by international, national and regional, emerging and established artists.

Works in sculpture, film and video, new media, installation, print, fine craft and performance will all be part of the spectrum exhibited at Vector. These works will incorporate, criticize and address the culture, politics, technology and aesthetics of games, through exhibitions, artist talks, workshops and performances.

Vector: Game+Art Convergence


Filed under: Controller Projects, Events
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