In a story that shows the complexities in the blurring of the line between games and art, The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit due to the closure of an exhibition that featured artist Wafaa Bilal's game
Virtual Jihadi.
The game, a shooter which its
official site depicts as a "skin" of
Quest For Saddam -- a game which was retailed in the U.S. -- has the player hunting down George W. Bush, who was president at the time of its exhibition.
Bilal, an Iraqi-born artist who is a faculty member at New York University's Tische School for the Arts according to a Guardian
report, originally planned to exhibit the game in a show at Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute until objections from the college's Republican Club reportedly resulted in its exclusion from the show.
The game found a new home, in March 2008, at The Sanctuary for Independent Media, but that gallery showing was shut down by Troy, New York's public works commissioner, Robert Mirch. NYCLU contends that this was done to suppress Bilal's free speech and not for legitimate reasons -- "purported [city] code violations," per the NYCLU -- hence the suit.
In
the NYCLU statement, Melanie Trimble, director of the union's Capital Region chapter, said, "City officials cannot selectively enforce building codes to shut down an art exhibition they find distasteful. Mr. Mirch abused his authority to suppress the free speech rights of people he disagrees with -- an unconstitutional act that must be challenged."
The full text of the complaint is available at the above NYCLU link.
Albany, New York newspaper, the
Times Union, offers this statement from Mirch: "Since I haven't seen [the suit], I can't comment on what I haven't seen. Obviously there is a political motive since they chose not to address RPI."
The NYCLU maintains that the exhibit was an art piece designed to promote thought and dialogue about the 2003 - present Iraq war.
Bilal's site describes the concept behind the game, reproduced here in part: "
Virtual Jihadi is meant to bring attention to the vulnerability of Iraqi civilians to the travesties of the current war and racist generalizations and stereotypes as exhibited in games such as
Quest for Saddam; along with vulnerability to recruitment by violent groups like Al Qaeda because of the U.S.'s failed strategy in securing Iraq."
The form this work takes, a shooter, is no doubt the intrinsic to this particular controversy.
