io9
War will become more like a video game, and vice versa, as computer-controlled weapons systems become more advanced and civilians can watch wars in progress online. So Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal is forcing people to confront the boundaries between wars and games, with one art installation that allows people to shoot paintballs at him via the Internet, and another which inserts him into an anti-George Bush video game. Click through for details and more images.
Last year, Bilal spent a month living inside Chicago's Flatfile Gallery, with a webcam observing him 24/7. And visitors to the gallery's website could control a paintball gun and shoot at Bilal or his possessions. During the month "Domestic Tension" was going on, the site got more than 80 million hits, 65,000 paintballs were fired, and the site received 2,000 comments ranging from racial slurs to encouragement.
Since the project ended, Bilal has been unable to sleep without sleeping pills, because it brought back his post-traumatic stress from years of living under threat in Iraq. Persecuted and arrested by Saddam Hussein for his work, Bilal fled Iraq and came to the United States in 1991. He's now teaching at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. On the positive side, a group called Virtual Human Shield managed to take control over the paintball gun by visiting the site constantly for a whole week.
Now Bilal is causing controversy again, by inserting his image into an Al Qaeda-created video game called "The Night Of Bush Capturing," in which Jihadis hunt down the U.S. President and kill him. Bilal says he wants to explore themes of civilians' complicity in warfare, and the tendency of civilians to support whichever side is more powerful at the moment:
My character in the game will be like any Iraqi civilian on the ground, allying with the power which is dominant at the moment. At the beginning of the game the American soldiers are stronger than Al Qaeda, and I will ally with them, fighting Al Qaeda. But as the game progresses and Al Qaeda becomes more powerful, I will switch sides to fight on behalf of Al Qaeda. That is exactly what is happening in Iraq. The game will culminate with my revenge on the Bush administration for the destruction it has wrought on my country. I will be a suicide bomber who attacks Bush.
Not surprisingly, Bilal has been condemned as un-American by Republicans, and his show has been closed down twice, both times after just a day. He says he's not trying to be shocking for its own sake, but to get past our apathy and image overload about the war in Iraq. And video games are the perfect medium:
Because video games have become the medium of our time, so many people use this popular medium to convey a message. With video games, people are engaged beyond art, their senses are engaged.Bilal, who's publishing a book soon with City Lights Press, has one more interactive art project going on. He's launching "Dog or Iraqi," a site where Internet visitors can vote on whether a cute dog (with an American flag bandana) or an Iraqi man will be waterboarded in Upstate New York. Right now the dog is ahead. (But a vet will be on hand to make sure the dog doesn't actually drown.)
Comments
I love this Mirch guy that called the exhibit un-American.
It's like he says, "I'm all for free speech! Just, you know. Not that free."
Bob Mirch, the GOP majority leader in the Rensselaer County Legislature, speaks on behalf of every republican everywhere?
I always thought it would be fun to create a web page called burn-a-flag-a-day DOT com. Every day you could post a video with a unique way to burn the flag. It could be anything as basic as burning it on a grill on the 4th of july while cooking hot dogs and hamburgers. To some elaborate Rube Goldberg device that ignites a flag after 2 minutes of weird interconnected cause-and-effect madness.
@braak: i love how he calls it 'un-american' as if there could be a more american enterprise than regime change. i mean america invented the regime change.
"civilians' complicity in warfare, and the tendency of civilians to support whichever side is more powerful at the moment"
Also called "the will to live".
I see the fires burning, the children screaming and the end of freedom. We are losing the right to free speech. I'm waiting for blogs to be hyper-examined for correct (political) content.
"The game will culminate with my revenge on the Bush administration for the destruction it has wrought on my country. I will be a suicide bomber who attacks Bush."
Where was all that rightous anger when Saddam was ass-raping Iraq? Sorry, I'm no fan of Bush, but this looks like cynical self promotion to me...
@Epaminondas: Read the article, please. Here, let me quote it for you:
"Persecuted and arrested by Saddam Hussein for his work, Bilal fled Iraq and came to the United States in 1991."
I would suppose he didn't get persecuted and arrested by Saddam for singing his praises.
We are becoming more like Rome every day. I realize people have always loved the simulation that drama can provide, and perhaps war is the greatest drama of all, but I'm not sure war games don't confuse people into a jaded "it's just a game" mindset. Their are a lot of people with murderous tendancies out there: G.W.Bush.
@Jeff-Minor: But he probably hasn't played games, being the good little Christian he probably was.
Actually, it's kinda hard imagining he has ever been a teenager. Feels weird just thinking about it.
@Guizzy: Thanks, I did, obviously you choose to take more from it then I did.y I'm saying that if he was imprisoned and then released by Saddam and left (presumably) with all his fingers and toes, it's because he was singing the praises out of tune.
Get real, if this guy had pulled this sort of stunt with Saddam he'd be dead. Putting yourself in a room with a webcam and a paint gun is something I'd expect from David Blaine.
@Jeff-Minor: Rome managed four and a half centuries as a Republic, not sure we can make it for that long. So stop with the Rome-bashing!
Wow. PTSD. And he let people shoot paintballs at him? He has commitment to his message. Or he is mentally masochistic. Either or, really.
@Epaminondas: Saddam, for all his bad-guyness, I'm sure managed to miss a few dissenters which would be the ones to flee the country, living else where. Some of whom who then acted as advisors (terrible ones I might add, 'cos obviously they didn't see this sh*t state of affairs in Iraq coming down the pike) to the dear leader, Dubya.
I'm sorry. Political or not, this just seems like wankery. To refer to a situation where you can pelt this guy with paintballs over the internet as an "art installation" is pretentious, at the very least. Yeah, I get it. War's like teh video gamez. The implications of that are certainly up for debate. But I simply can't look at this guy and not think "douchebag".
Plus, he's going to wish he went for full face protection when one of those things nails him in the mouth.
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