The Mantua Music and Arts Festival, Co. Roscommon, Ireland, 2007

Street Fighter vs. Bum Fights

This piece is basically a mash-up performance of the classic “Street Fighter” video game and the controversial videos of homeless people fighting on the street called, “Bum Fights.” It’s primarily a comparison between the cartoonish, but graceful, violence of video games and the authentic, but humiliating, violence of real street fights (and the way both types of violence are used to entertain spectators).

The idea was to make some over-sized arcade controls and a few other video game props so that people in the audience could control the video game characters while they fought. What I really liked about performing this project, was that the characters who were fighting eachother were not responsible for their actions, supposedly the people with the fake arcade controls were. The characters in the game were just supposed to be average people who you might see in a real street fight, and the controls were made out of refuse or materials commonly found on the street.

Disclaimer: This project is not associated with “Street Fighter” or “Bum Fights” in any way other than as popular culture references for social commentary. This project is not meant to advertise or condone anything it references in any way.