Wafaa Bilal's Kill Bush 'Virtual Jihadi' Video Game

Assassination is becoming a popular subject in the art world.

Last month, Yazmany Arboleda tried to "set up a provocative art exhibition in a vacant storefront on West 40th Street in Midtown Manhattan with the title, 'The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama.'"

That exhibition was quickly shut down.

Now, Chicago artist Wafaa Bilal has added his contribution to assassination art. His work invites the viewer to play a video game. The mission: Kill President Bush.

CHICAGO -- An artist's video game that is being exhibited at a free-speech exhibit in Chicago challenges players to kill the president.

The video game is part of a "confrontational art" exhibit by Chicago-based artist Wafaa Bilal.

In the 3-D game, "The Night of Bush Capturing; A Virtual Jihadi," players are sent on a mission to kill President George W. Bush.

Bilal, 42, said his art is a personal attempt to deal with the deaths of citizens in the country of his birth. The artist said his brother died in Iraq in 2004 from a U.S bomb.

The game is part of the Freedom of Speech exhibition at FLATFILE Galleries. It runs until Aug. 22.

The game was scheduled for exhibition in March at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., but school administrators shut it down after less than a day, according to a TimeOutChicago blog post.

...In a statement on its Web site, FLATFILE said, "censorship of any artistic expression is wrong, and (FLATFILE) proudly supports the right of its artists to show their work regardless of political content and previous censorship."

Bilal is an instructor in the Art and Technology Studies Department at the Art Institute of Chicago.

NBC Chicago station WMAQ reported that in the game, players are sent on a mission to kill the president.

"This is to raise awareness about the civilian toll in Iraq, and how a lot of them have been forced by the consequences of the invasion to become suicide bombers," Bilal said.

Bilal is pictured in the game as a suicide bomber, WMAQ reported.

"We are so disconnected from the conflict zone," Bilal said. "I wanted to bring that picture closer."

Bush gamer by dollarsandsense123 FLATFILEgalleries has this statement on its website:

VIRTUAL JIHADI, the night of Bush Capturing, the latest confrontational art installation from gallery artist Wafaa Bilal will open for an unimpeded run at FLATFILEgalleries from June 20th to August 22nd, with a reception on June 20th from 5-9pm. The installation was closed down in two locations in Troy, NY.* It is the belief of FLATFILEgalleries that censorship of any artistic expression is wrong, and proudly supports the right of its artists to show their work regardless of political content and previous censorship. Thus, we are both pleased and proud to present Wafaa Bilal’s Virtual Jihadi, as well as gallery artist Benjamin June’s IRAQ Suicide Attack Pillow Project: A MEMORIAL, the other component in our FREEDOM OF SPEECH summer exhibition. Wafaa Bilal, an Iraqi American artist and professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, first came to the US in 1992 after fleeing Saddam’s persecution and surviving two years in refugee camps in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In 2007, Bilal made history with DOMESTIC TENSION, the interactive paintball project in which he resided in the gallery’s project room for 31 days, a human target for paintballs fired remotely via internet. Benjamin June began the work in his IRAQ Suicide Attack Pillow Project: A memorial in 2007, after thinking long and hard about the more than 7,000 victims of over 900 Suicide Bomb attacks since the US entered Iraq on the 20 March 2003. As an artist who has long used embroidery as his medium, June thought that the perfect place to embroider the work was on pillows, ubiquitous objects that imply an inherent intimacy due to their size and nature. June established a coded system that allows him to imbue each pillow with many points of information. For example, pillows edged with narrow lace mean that more than ten victims died, with medium lace, more than 25 fatalities, wide lace, more than 50 victims, and more than 100 is designated with all three sizes of lace. Black lace denotes that the suicide bomber killed only himself. The front of each pillow informs the viewer whether it was an SUV, a car, a boat, or on the person, a belt, a backpack, or explosive vest, along with hash marks denoting the number of deaths that occurred in the incident. June believes that the installation of these pillows in a closed space will raise awareness of the astonishing numbers of deaths, including those of suicide bombers that have occurred since we entered Iraq. This project is partially supported by a Community Arts Assistance Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and a Special Assistance grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

No police swooped in and shut down Bilal's Virtual Jihadi exhibit, the way they censored Yazmany Arboleda's work. Apparently, Bilal's 3-D game sending players on a mission to kill President Bush is suitable for public consumption, in the name of Freedom of Speech and artistic expression. Benjamin June's work memorializing suicide bombers since the U.S. began its mission in Iraq is also not troubling to the sensibilites of Chicago's artistic community. The project at FLATFILEgalleries is actually receiving support by "Community Arts Assistance Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and a Special Assistance grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency." Chicago and Illinois agencies are funding the exhibit. Tax dollars are being used to display this "art." Amazing. I find it interesting that a video game designed with President Bush as the target of assassination is deemed acceptable, yet the U.S. Army's Virtual Army Experience, a video game that is meant to educate people on the life of a soldier, was censored and shut down by Milwaukee's Summerfest. Anti-military radicals, Peace Action Wisconsin, insisted that "War games should NOT be presented as entertainment." Their rallying cry was "War is NOT a game." I wonder if Peace Action Wisconsin has raced down to Chicago to protest Bilal's Virtual Jihadi. No, I don't wonder that. Of course they haven't. Killing President Bush, a real person, the President of the United States, is presented as artistic entertainment. Assassinating Bush IS a game. The fact that Bilal's Virtual Jihadi exhibit is proudly on display makes the censorship of the U.S. Army's game at Summerfest all the more reprenhensible. It reveals the utter hypocrisy of the anti-war extremists. Their professed "Give peace a chance" nonviolent posturing is total BS.