105,000 Tattoos PT 2: Iraqi Artist Wafaa Bilal Commemorates Dead Iraqis & Americans

[Hissyspit]

Run time: 09:46 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lg-uIw6wQQ   Posted on YouTube: March 10, 2010 By YouTube Member: StartLoving2 Views on YouTube: 1   Posted on DU: March 10, 2010 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 298

 
105,000 Tattoos: Iraqi Artist Wafaa Bilal Turns His Own Body into a Canvas to Commemorate Dead Iraqis & Americans PART TWO

PART ONE: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=441380&mesg_id=441380

PART THREE: http://www.youtube.com/user/StartLoving2#p/u/4/lM0pyvgIePU

The official death toll from the war is 100,000, but it is widely estimated to be much higher, perhaps even as high as one million. In his latest piece of artwork, Iraqi American artist Wafaa Bilal tries to grapple with the enormity of these numbers. Its a twenty-four-hour live tattooing performance called ..and Counting that began at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts gallery in New York Monday night. By tonight Bilals back will be tattooed with the names of Iraqi cities, 5,000 red dots representing dead American soldiers and 100,000 dots in invisible ink representing the official death toll for Iraqis. The dots representing the Iraqi death toll will only be visible under ultraviolet light.


From wikipedia:

Dog or Iraqi

Wafaa was asked to participate in a net art piece called Dog or Iraqi while an artist in residence at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He wants your vote to decide which one — a dog named “Buddy,” or an Iraqi, himself — will be waterboarded at an “undisclosed location” in upstate New York.<6>
Virtual Jihadi

Wafaa Bilal created a computer based art piece titled Night of Bush Capturing: Virtual Jihadi which is a modified version of the game Quest for Bush, itself a "hacked" version of the popular commercial video game Quest for Saddam. While in the real game players target the ex-Iraqi leader, in Wafaa's modified version the artist casts himself as a suicide bomber who gets sent on a mission to assassinate President George W. Bush.<7> On his website, Bilal says,
"This artwork is meant to bring attention to the vulnerability of Iraqi civilians, to the travesties of the current war, and to expose racist generalizations and profiling. Similar games such as “Quest for Saddam” or “America’s Army” promote stereotypical, singular perspectives. My artwork inverts these assumptions, and ultimately demonstrates the vulnerability to recruitment by violent groups like Al Qaeda because of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. In these difficult times, when we are at war with another nation, it is our duty as artists and citizens to improvise strategies of engagement for dialogue. This platform is a piece of fiction that uses the video game format to create alternative narratives and perspectives. Because we inhabit a comfort zone far from the trauma of conflict zone, we Americans have become desensitized to the violence of war. We are disconnected, disengaged while many others do the suffering. The game holds up a mirror that reveals our own propensities for violence, racism and propaganda. We can close our eyes, our ears and deny that it exists, but the issue won’t go away."<8>

Wafaa Bilal was invited by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in late February 2008 to present a lecture on this latest work.<9> Unfortunately due to poor communication from the artist as well as the university, the artist's message was contorted by some. On March 6, the day after Wafaa's lecture, the RPI administration said they would not allow the exhibit to be supported on campus, and has since declined to reopen it.<10> The decision came after the College Republicans called the Arts department "a safe haven for terrorists" on their blog. The statement has since been retracted. The Institute has been subsequently criticized by advocates of free speech and artistic freedom.<11>

Domestic Tension

In May 2007 he began a 30-day-long project called Domestic Tension which involved him living in a gallery in Chicago, eating and drinking what was donated to him. Viewers of the piece on the internet were able to view or take shots at Bilal with a remote controlled paintball gun at any time of the day or night. <12> Yellow paintballs were chosen because it is the color of the Support our troops ribbon.<1>
Bilal first got the idea for Domestic Tension when his 21-year-old brother was killed by shrapnel in Najaf, and soon after his father died. The idea solidified after reading a news article about a U.S. soldier in Colorado who remotely fired missiles in Iraq. He originally considered calling the piece "Shoot an Iraqi," but decided that would be too incendiary.<2> Still a book was released under the title "Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun."

The number of paintball shots greatly escalated after the work was reported on Digg.com. By the twentieth day, he had been shot at over 40,000 times, and hackers had programmed the gun to fire automatically.<2> By the end, more than 60,000 people from 130 countries shot at him. Bilal lived in the room from May 4 until June 4; afterwards the room remained on display, uncleaned, until June 16.<13>