Allie SuttererArt and War

Final Research Paper

Wafaa Bilal: An Iraqi Artist’s Response to America’s Virtual Reality of War

An attack on September 11, 2001 in New York City prompted President George W. Bush

to begin what would be called the “War on Terror.” According the the Bush administration, this

war was based on the assumption that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Hussein was a dictator mistreating his people and also posed a threat to US national security

therefore, we needed to invade Iraq to protect our state and the Iraqi people. Another claim as

to why the US would enter the war is that we would go to promote and create a democratic

system of government that would ensure the rights of Iraqi women and civilians in general. This

war was based on national security and humanitarian efforts. Or so that’s how the Bush

administration and the news media projected it.

Examples of how media left out information about conflicts in Iraq start with the coverage

of Saddam Hussein. We start hearing media coverage of Hussein's regime in 1990 when Iraq

invaded Kuwait, an oil producing nation. Although Saddam Hussein's dictatorship had been

endangering Iraqi civilians since 1979, news-media in the US did not cover his regime until the

Iraqi invasion of Kuwait posed a threat to oil production (Bennett 2004). Our involvement in Iraq

was not purely based on the concern for the Iraqi people, although it was publicized as such.

Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College, Michael T. Klare,

argues that the war in Iraq was not fought for the reasons the US government gave. Klare

gives us insight into how the invasion of Iraq was mostly based on the United State’s

dependency on oil and an effort to secure our nation’s access to that oil. Klare also argues that

in order to gain control of oil, a neo-political strategy with a central goal of power projection

emerged in the Bush administration. To gain stability and control the flow of oil from the Middle

East, the US had to assert military dominance in that region (Klare 2008) .

This is where we see a common theme in what the media and government promoted

during the years of the Iraq war. Political Science professor at Duke University, David L. Paletz

claims that, the news-media was a tool used by the government to shape public opinion that

would favor military technology advancement. The need to assert military dominance showed

through the continued coverage of advanced military technology. News outlets, right-leaning,

left-leaning, and in between began to instill relief in American’s concerned with civilian

casualties in Iraq by using investment in advanced military technology as a justification for

continued warfare (Schechter, 2004). Because this technology was designed to pinpoint

military targets and avoid civilian areas, the investment in these technologies was framed as

and a humanitarian act. The result? According to the Watson Institute of International and

Public Affairs, over 165,000 civilian deaths occurred between the time the US invaded Iraq in

March 2003 and April 2015. And as war becomes more urban in nature, the death-toll of

civilians will continue to increase.

An obsession has emerged from the US media’s glorification of weaponry. Now with

the development of drone warfare, the virtual violent video games, movies, and television shows

that our culture also highlights, has become a reality. Iraqi-born and US based artist Wafaa Bilal

deals with this phenomenon and aims to create interactive work that engages people

Internationally and in the US in conversation about virtual warfare and its real physical effect on

victims of war.

Wafaa Bilal grew up under Saddam Hussein's regime in Kufa, Iraq. He was tortured

and and arrested because of his art practice and left the country in search of safety and in fear

of his ties to family that opposed the Hussein regime. After escaping to a refugee camp in

Saudi Arabia post Gulf War of 1991, he continued to make art and moved to the United States.

The US invaded Iraq in 2003 and in 2004 Bilal was informed that his brother Haji was killed. Haji

was pressured by men from Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army to command a checkpoint on a

bridge near Kufa when US forces approached. The area was surveilled by an unmanned drone

aircraft before a US helicopter gunship struck the area killing Haji. Haji’s death and also the

death of Bilal’s father two months later, had an overwhelming impact on the family (Ingram,

2011).

Wafaa Bilal focuses much of his work on the relationship between the virtual and the

real. Bilal’s critiques and commentary on this subject are best illustrated by his online

interactive virtual reality installations that allow normally passive viewers of art to become active

participants.

In his piece Domestic Tension, viewers log onto the internet and enter a chatroom where

they can communicate with Bilal and other viewers. They are also invited to shoot Bilal with a

paint gun situated in a domestic-like space set up in the FlatFile Galleries in Chicago where Bilal

resided for 31 days. This space was accessible 24 hours a day via the internet and gave the

viewers the ability to watch Bilal via webcam. As viewers chose to shoot bilal with the paint

gun, their virtual experience was transformed into a physical one. By confining himself to the

domestic space, Bilal raised awareness of the actual experiences of Iraqis during war as many

of them are confined to their homes. Yet, with so called advanced military technology that is

supposed to indirectly protect civilians, home-dwellers are still vulnerable to virtual warfare.

This approach was used to engage people from a culture that may not be willing to participate in

political discussion but are familiar with interactive playfulness that is present in video games.

Wafaa Bilal, Domestic Tension, 2007.

Each day of his confinement in the gallery space, Bilal recorded his experience and

posted a video. Many of the daily updates were about the community that was revealed and

strengthened through his project. Many of the chat room participants that were local to the

Chicago area came to visit him and supply him with food and other items he needed to continue

his project. Several of the visitors reported positive impact from learning about the issue that

Bilal confronts in his work. In each video he also describes his lived experience of confinement

and danger. He explains that he chose to do this project to connect with and engage in

conversation about virtual distance in warfare but more importantly to feel more connected to

the family he left behind in Iraq. He wanted to create and live a similar experience as the one

he knows his family has endured. Throughout the process he reported many health issues that

emerged such as sleep deprivation and PTSD nightmares because of the constant shots aimed

at him. He acknowledged the dichotomy between the comfort zone and conflict zone when

explaining how some of the participants in the online chat room questioned whether or not the

project was real and if Bilal was really being shot at. This illustrated exactly the kind of

psychological distance that emerges when soldiers from remote areas physically alter the lives

of others living in conflict zones. Some attackers can now sit in the comfort zone of safety while

others have their comfort zones, their private domestic spaces, transformed into conflict zones.

An interesting feature of his experience was that he reported his attempt to clean up his

space daily, to make it more livable. But of course his efforts were to no avail because the

mess and damage caused to his personal belongings continued as the shots began to fire more

rapidly throughout the project. The process of repair and destruction speak to the attempt of his

family and many other Iraqis to continue life normally but their efforts to exist are continually

thwarted and threatened.

Participants in Domestic Tension had the ability to aim and shoot wherever they pleased

within the space provided. It was also up to their discretion not to shoot. The experiences and

choices of the participants varied. All participants were faced with a psychological reality that

they did not know they were vulnerable to. Many fell into the excitement of the game presented

to them and gave into the decision to shoot while others reported ‘the blistering of their psyche’

by the presentation of the choice to “Shoot and Iraqi.” They ultimately chose not to. There were

others that made the compromise to aim away from Bilal and ‘just make a paint mess’ (Ingram

2011).

Wafaa Bilal, Dog or Iraqi? 2008.

Bilal’s piece titled Dog or Iraqi? Came about when he was invited to participate in an

online art piece by a company called TortureChoice. His contribution was an interactive poll

where visitors of the website were greeted with an image of a pug dressed in an American flag

bandana next to himself wearing a traditional dishdasha. The choice was which to waterboard,

a torture method commonly used by the US on Iraqi prisoners of war. One of the first complaints

on this project he received was from the US Humane Society commenting on the involuntary

participation of the dog in the experiment. Bilal replied, ‘“Well, the dog might have valuable

information. . . . It's all in the interest of national security. Besides, it isn't torture, or so the US

government would say”’ (Ingram, 2011). Nevertheless, the experiment resulted in Bilal as the

subject of torture. He recorded a video that showed his waterboarding experience which lasted

only about one minute. In his recording of the torture experience, the perpetrator of the torture

was dressed as Santa Clause. Bilal’s use of classic American iconography reflects the values of

a people that for the most part have been privileged never to have experienced a war in their

own country. It shed light on a culture that values domestic pets more than human life. It also

brought to light what a powerful force patriotism is in America. By dressing the dog as an

“American” it would be the un-American choice to pick Bilal even though he is technically an

Iraqi American. Alan R Ingram, Professor of Geography at the University College in London,

discusses the geopolitical body and how in Bilal’s Dog or Iraqi?, the humanity of the American

Iraqi is in question because Bilal looks Iraqi especially when dressed in a dishdasha standing

next to a very patriotic animal (Ingram,2011). This project is yet another example of virtual

decisions made from the comfort of American homes becoming a painful reality for an Iraqi

body.

Wafaa Bilal, Virtual Jihadi, 2008.

Another piece that speaks to the virtual reality of warfare is Bilal’s work Virtual Jihadi.

The inspiration for the piece came after a widely marketed videogame called “Quest for

Saddam” was popularized in the US. Al Qaeda created its own version using the same

structure but called it “The Night of Bush Capturing.” This version, instead of Saddam, had a

character resembling US President George W. Bush. Bilal then, using the structure of the Al

Qaeda version, inserted his own take on the nuanced conflict. In Bilal’s new game The Night of

Bush Capturing: A Virtual Jihadi Bilal’s character is a suicide bomber that gets recruited by Al

Qaeda to hunt down Bush after learning about the actual death of his brother. This piece was

yet another attempt to not only comment on the virtual distance Americans have in times of war

but also a strategy to engage in political discussion.

Virtual Jihadi was designed to bring awareness to vulnerabilities of the Iraqi people both

as civilians in the devastation of war and also as potential recruits of Al Qaeda as a result of the

United State’s failed attempt to secure Iraq. After protests by members of the College

Republican Club, many of whom report not actually seeing Virtual Jihadi, along with local

politician Robert Mirch, the game was censored by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in

Troy, New York in which Bilal was an artist-in-residence. Bilal, in an interview published by the

International Committee of the Fourth International, explained that he wanted to to shed light on

the fact that the invasion of US troops in Iraq had not protected civilians and therefore caused

hatred toward America, leaving young Iraqi’s vulnerable to extremist groups (Hurley, 2008). The

controversy was ironic in the sense that protesters claimed the game was un-American and that

Bilal should be deported even though Bilal is an American citizen and holds the right to freedom

of speech. Much of the opposition to the game labeled it as propaganda, but Bilal points out that

the original game platform Virtual Jihadi was based on, Quest for Saddam was never labeled as

such.

As an American citizen but also an Iraqi directly affected by the US occupation, Wafaa

Bilal lives within the tension of these two conflicting cultures. With his insight into the Iraqi

experience of war and his residence in the US he is able to analyze the situation and lends a

perspective that differs from mainstream US media. The controversy surrounding Virtual Jihadi

and other works of Bilal’s, draws attention to the success of the US media in its effort to

stereotype, scapegoat, and silence the other side of war. Virtual Jihadi aimed to highlight and

respond to groups that stereotype and comment crassly on Arab Culture like the group that

created the original game Quest for Saddam. Dog of Iraqi? illuminates the deep-rooted

nationalism that causes many Americans to value so-called patriotism over human life.

Domestic Tension demystifies the idolization of advanced military technology and its supposed

ability to avoid civilians in combat. It also explores the vulnerability that Iraqis feel when their

homes are transformed into conflict zones and quite possibly says something of Bilal’s own

personal uncomfortability living in the US as a somewhat unwelcome Iraqi.

Despite controversy and pushback, Bilal’s work seems to stand successful in terms of

the engagement of different perspectives in political discussion. As Americans far removed from

the conflict we engage in, it is important to listen to the perspectives and lived experiences of

the people our violence has affected directly. Wafaa Bilal is gracious enough to lend us a hand

in understanding another side.

Citations

Bennett, Walter Lance. Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and US Foreign Policy

in the Gulf War. Chicago, Ill.: U of Chicago, 2004. Print.

Bilal, Wafaa. "Works « Wafaa Bilal." Wafaa Bilal. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2017.

Hurley, Clare. "World Socialist Web Site." Censorship in Troy, New York: An Interview with

Iraqi-born Artist Wafaa Bilal - World Socialist Web Site. International Committee of the Fourth

International, 21 Apr. 2008. Web. 10 May 2017.

Ingram, Alan. "Experimental Geopolitics: Wafaa Bilal's Domestic Tension." The Geographical

Journal 178.2 (2011): 123-33. Web.

Klare, Michael T. Blood and Oil. Northampton: Media Education Foundation, 2008. Print.

WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception. By Danny Schechter. Globalvision, 2004.