“Americans are simply not used to be hunted,”1 summarizes Iraq-born artist Wafaa Bilal on why his artwork has caused so much tension since it was first shown in Chicago in 2008.
Bilal's cyber video game project, titled Virtual Jihadi is based on the subverted version of the “Quest for Saddam,” one of the most popular games in the past few years in the United States. The wargame, in which American troops hunt for Saddam Hussein during the occupation of Iraq, was first hacked by several cyber jihadist Al Qaeda members, who created a new game by exchanging the roles, and as a consequence, changing the whole narrative as well. In the new wargame, titled “A Night of Bush Capturing,” it was the Americans and not the Iraqis whose bodies suddenly became totally 'dehumanized' in the war.
Then came Wafaa Bilal, who twisted the narrative once again: he added his own character to the Bush-hunter game as a suicide-bomber terrorist. Underlying the structure of the original wargame so radically, the artist is aimed to reflect on the loss of his brother who was killed in 2005 at a U.S. checkpoint in Iraq. Bilal develops a second reality in the virtual world, to draw attention to the total absurdity of real life in a war zone. By promoting alternative perspectives of the Iraqi war, he creates opportunity for dialogue and criticism as well.
Beside pointing out how easily the “Western” world demonizes the “enemy,” the Virtual Jihadi project also challenges the relationship between gaming and war within a society. Since the beginning of the Cold War, wargaming2 has had a significant function in the United States: that is selling the idea of war to the public and clarifying who the “bad guys” are.
According to the German philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer's theory of gaming3, if one suddenly or radically changes the rules of a game, it would cease to be a game any more. This is exactly what happened with the Virtual Jihadi project in reality: after its premiere, the project was suspended at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute of Chicago and Balil was shut out of the building, as he was considered to be a real terrorist. This incident shows how easy it is to cross the border between reality and virtuality; and also how easily one can become the wanted “bad guy” in both worlds.
1Wafaa Balil talked about his artwork at a roundtable discussion, organized as a SanctionnedArray event on November 2, 2010, in New York City. http://www.arteeast.org/pages/events/1304/
2About the relation of wargaming and computer game, see e.g. Patrick Crogan, “Wargaming and Computer Games: Fun with the Future” In The Pleasure of Computer Gaming: essays on cultural history, theory and aesthetics. Edited by Melanie Swalwell and Jason P. Wilson. 2008, McFarland & Company, Inc., North Carolina, and also Bogost, Ian, The Persuasive Games: the Expressive Power of Video Games. 2007, MIT Press, Cambridge
3 Gadamer, Hans Georg: Truth and Method. Trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. 1989, Continuum,, New York.
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