What Is Disco Boxing?

Disco Boxing, a collaboration between MICA students & Baltimore artists Mike Anderson, Alix Fullerton and Mick Zimmerman, is to be an interactive lighting environment situated within the Midway section of Artscape. An integration of two independent projects, Disco Boxing will be directly interactive with the audience on an individual basis. Located on the Charles Street bridge, Disco Boxing will be approximately 8’x8’x8’ with three complete walls measuring 8’x8’ each, with a ceiling covering the top. The forth wall will be removed to expose the inside of the booth to allow for viewing by passers-by.

Made of lumber and plywood, all interior walls will be covered in a grid of standard household electrical light bulbs, totaling 256 throughout the inside. The bulbs will be controlled by a punching bag, situated in the center of the room. The punching bag will be wired with many pressure-sensitive switches that will measure the amount of force directed toward the bag and will send information to the light bulbs, which will react according to the manner in which the bag is hit. The effects produced by the light bulbs will vary in pattern, meaning and intensity, depending on both the amount of force and the area on which the bag has been hit. The interested audience will be given a pair of boxing gloves and will be given a chance to hit the punching bag, creating an astonishing display of light.

For Baltimore, Boxing has a rich history as both a recreational sport and also as a professional practice. Throughout the past 150 years, local boxing clubs across Baltimore have thrived and declined again and again. Currently, only a few are left, and their gyms are filled with a sense of nostalgia, similar to the feelings bowling alley carries. In order to acknowledge the rich history of Baltimore Boxing, Disco Boxing hopes to involve local gyms and local athletes to showcase both the piece of art and the thriving communities of athletes and promoters.

Boxing in Baltimore can reach the general community. Seeing a punching bag almost begs the viewer to punch it. Seeing the light bulbs of Disco Boxing only bring a stronger sense of nostalgia, referencing the signs of Las Vegas’ yesteryear and Baltimore’s rich theatre history, both for a simpler time when Boxing was a more popular sport, but also for old technology, such as the incandescent bulbs that seem to be gradually disappearing from every-day life. Entering the installation on Charles Street, near a historic piece of architecture such as Pennsylvania Station, will bring a sense of stepping back in time. The piece is meant to allow the audience direct interaction, making their use of the punching bag part of the process to creating art. The audience’s interaction is the last step in the art-making process for Disco Boxing.

Disco Boxing will be a temporary, but public installation during Artscape 2009’s Midway exhibition on the Charles Street bridge next to Pennsylvania Station on July 17th, 18th, & 19th, 2009. Disco Boxing will live on, past Artscape ,in different configurations across the Baltimore area as well as throughout the region as an advanced display used to interact with different controllers for different purposes. Music, Film, Sport: Disco Boxing, in its many versions, will be a part of Baltimore for a long time to come.

When Can I See Disco Boxing?

What Is Artscape?