Which is what it is all about. The gulags of our time are notable for many reasons not least that they have spawned so much merchandising and artwork of all natures which must be considered as exactly contemporary to the events they wish provoke reaction to.

Art as such has long moved out of any attempt at pleasureably aesthetic stimulus to fulfil a role of purely political commentary, which goes no further than expressing the antithesis of aesthetic pleasure, that of disgust and in sodoing allows for purely politically motivated counter-reactions which in turn denegates art. Most of the well-intentioned artistic efforts to shepherd reaction to Guantanamo and US dark prisons and CIA rendition have not even counted on irony. Perhaps, it was too soon to bring Art or theatre into the politics of Gitmo.



"Marion Tracey, 57, from New Jersey, [told Reuters] she found the installation disturbing. It made her think of her father who had nightmares after returning from World War II. "In all wars, horrible things happen," she said. "I'd rather not see it."

thus the criticism of disgust is rationalised in terms of war. Is that really the case?
One wonders if Primo Levi had been published during his stay at Auschwitz would Marion have mentioned the gene for premature pattern balding and those who suspiciously remain with hairy hair.

"Alex Soto, 23, [told Reuters] he thought it was a good thing for people to learn about waterboarding", but he added: "It is pretty twisted."

Ah! the didactic & educational side of art. If only people could learn about waterboarding without the twisted element the world would be a happier place and Coney Island art installations would be content with ghost train rides and candyfloss.
 http://www.reuters.com/article/artsNews/idUSN0650002220080806
 http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--guantanamo-coneyi0806aug06,0,3819643.story

Yet if we are honest in our consideration of the foibles of arcade or promenade pier displays - such a freak show is nothing new. Nor considering that the most queued for tourist attraction in London is the wax museum of Madame Tousaud, do we expect daytrippers to turn up a chance of voyeurism or a glimpse at murder, torture or evil for one dollar.

So what does one dollar get you?

...."A window with bars offers a look at a Guantanamo-like interrogation, with a robotic figure wearing a hood leaning over a man in an orange jumpsuit, his face covered with a towel and his body tethered to a tilted plane. Lights come on and water pours into the man's nose and mouth, producing convulsions for 15 seconds. The political display sits in the midst of New York's decaying entertainment mecca, filled with beloved historic rides and the perennial object of development battles. Powers says his aim is to provoke people into thinking about the interrogation technique. "Robot waterboarding became a way of exploring the issue without doing any harm," he told The New York Times. "It's putting a unique experience on the table. And it doesn't take a great leap of the imagination to look in there and say: 'That's really what's going on? That's crazy."'
On Aug. 15, Powers says he and a few other men plan to subject themselves to the real thing: They'll have themselves waterboarded by a professional trained in interrogation techniques. The sideshow will then be moved to Manhattan's Park Avenue Armory, to be displayed with other projects from Democracy in America, an exhibit series sponsored by the public art fund Creative Time......."

 http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--guantanamo-coneyi0806aug06,0,3819643.story
 http://www.reuters.com/article/artsNews/idUSN0650002220080806

The orange jumpsuit has in near real time come to mean the striped pyjamas of 70 years ago. The first prisoners arrived in Guantanamo bay on January 11th 2002 exactly four months after the World Trade Centre buildings collapsed on live TV. It took 4 years for Associated Press to semi-successfully bring an action under the Freedom of Information act against the US government to list the inmates, which sourced the bulk of the names on this list for March 6th 2006 (one year ago). The total number was 589 which added over 60 names to the previous estimate of 510, I write "over 60" because during the period 2003-2005 successful actions were brought by the states of France, Germany, Yemen, Pakistan, Spain and the UK amongst others to repatriate their citizens. Of those repatriated the vast majority have later been acquitted of any terrorist offences in courts of law. As of 2005 it was estimated 59 prisoners had comitted suicide. ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Guant%C3%A1namo_Bay_detainees but there were obvious holes and absences in the PDF files produced by the US department of Defence  http://www.answers.com/topic/guantanamo-detainees-missing-from-the-official-list

The list of 589 names expanded to 759 in May 2006 the inconsistencies again raised doubts - the two lists did not correlate and names were repeated in mis-spellt forms. At roughly the same time Guantanamo Bay was declared the "gulag of our time" by Amnesty International in their annual report of 2005  http://web.amnesty.org/report2005/index-eng  http://web.amnesty.org/pages/guantanamobay-index-eng The condemnation of lawlessness, arbitrary detention - no charges - no habeus corpus - had already been made by the UK Law Lord Steyn in 2003  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3238624.stm

Only this week has the first extra-judicial kangaroo trial been reported.

That's a lot of water under the bridge.
under the table a lot of water.