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Wafaa Bilal’s childhood in Iraq was defined by the horrific rule of Saddam Hussein, two wars, a bloody uprising, and time spent interned in chaotic refugee camps in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Bilal eventually made it to the United States to become a professor and a successful artist, but when his brother was killed by an unmanned U.S. Predator drone, he decided to use his art to confront those in the comfort zone with the realities of life in a conflict zone.
His response was “Domestic Tension,” an unsettling interactive performance piece: for one month, Bilal lived alone in a prison cell-sized room in the line of fire of a remote-controlled paintball gun and a camera that connected him to Internet viewers around the world. Visitors to the gallery and a virtual audience that grew by the thousands could shoot at him twenty-four hours a day. The project received overwhelming worldwide attention and spawned provocative online debates; ultimately, Bilal was named Chicago Tribune’s Artist of the Year.
Structured in two parallel narratives, the story of Bilal’s life journey and his “Domestic Tension” experience, Shoot an Iraqi is for anyone who seeks insight into the current conflict in Iraq and for those fascinated by interactive art technologies and the ever-expanding world of online gaming.
"Once I picked up this book, i could not put it down. There is something so urgent and compelling about Bilal's story, as though he is speaking to our time. His story is not just for those interested in the arts; it is a human story of the horror, frustration, and tragedies of war." —Mary Flanagan, artist and author of re:skin
"This is an unsettling and gripping book. It poignantly recounts a dark and imaginative experiment inspired by an excruciating and ghastly reality. Its unsettling effects couldn't be more welcome: we desperately need to be shocked out of our collective zombification, and this book does that by leading us through a wild labyrinth at once aesthetic, political, and existential. Potent stuff." —Danny Postel, author of Reading "Legitimation Crisis" in Tehran
"Who in their right mind would allow the internet to shoot at them? Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life, and the Resistance Under the Gun tells the story of Wafaa Bilal. When his brother was killed by an unmanned Military device during the Iraq war, Bilal took it locked himself in a room, a camera showing him to the world with a remote controlled paintball gun connected to the internet, in the name of art and political statement. Bilal explains himself quite well, making Shoot an Iraqi fascinating reading." —Midwest Book Review
"Weaving together accounts of Iraq and America, art and violence, performance and reality, past and present, this gripping account all but shakes the reader by the lapels." —Publishers Weekly
Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal has exhibited his art worldwide, and traveled and lectured extensively to inform audiences of the situation of the Iraqi people, and the importance of peaceful conflict resolution. Bilal's 2007 dynamic installation "Domestic Tension" gained global recognition, being named Artist of the Year by the Chicago Tribune. Bilal has held exhibitions in Baghdad, the Netherlands, Thailand and Croatia; as well as at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, the Milwaukee Art Museum and various other US galleries. His residencies have included Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, California; Catwalk in New New York; and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
- Sales Rank: #392440 in Books
- Brand: Brand: City Lights Publishers
- Published on: 2008-09-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x .50" w x 6.00" l, .70 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 177 pages
Features
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Weaving together accounts of Iraq and America, art and violence, performance and reality, past and present, this gripping account all but shakes the reader by the lapels. Iraqi-born artist Bilal records the month he spent confined in his 2007 interactive performance piece entitled Domestic Tension, living under constant fire from a chat room–controlled paintball gun 24 hours a day, his every move dogged and determined by the hostility—or benevolence—of his thousands of online viewers. The nerve-rattling conditions were intended to reflect both decades of suffering endured by millions of Iraqis and Bilal's own life and the costs of surviving Saddam's regime, Gulf War bombardment, Sunni-Shia violence, a brutal Saudi refugee camp and, finally, the difficulties and joys of the American immigrant experience. The author emerges as an Iraqi everyman, and his provocative book brilliantly juxtaposes images and time frames to convey the toll of war on Americans and Iraqis: We may think we are surviving, Bilal writes, but as I... twist and turn through sleepless nights, flailing between worlds of comfort and conflict, hope and despair, I wonder. (Dec.)
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* Iraqi artist Bilal immigrated to the U.S. after Desert Storm, and channeled his haunting experiences�into his performance pieces, culminating in�Domestic Tension. For 31 days and nights, Bilal�was the�target of a�paintball gun controlled by�online participants who were invited to�“shoot an Iraqi.”�Video cameras recorded Bilal’s struggle to retain his composure if not his sanity as he interacted with�shooters and viewers�via a chat room and YouTube. Now he writes�about his art and�his life in Iraq, revealing�overlooked daily struggles�of existence under a dictator, in war, and during a�long-term occupation. Ultimately the death of his brother back home via�an unmanned American drone compelled Bilal to make his greatest artistic statement yet against�all that makes the war in Iraq unreal to most outsiders.�Recounting his own traumatic�journey and the long-ranging effects of his bold installation makes�for a�powerful and demanding�read that is,�frankly,�a literary punch to the gut. Bilal discloses all�the risks he has taken with his art and asks why Americans are not willing to take their own chances and uncover�the dirty truths about the Iraq War. --Colleen Mondor
Review
"Once I picked up this manuscript, I could not put it down...he [Bilal] is speaking to our time." --Mary Flanagan, artist and author of re:skin (MIT Press)
"Weaving together accounts of Iraq and America, art and violence, performance and reality, past and present, this gripping account all but shakes the reader by the lapels. . . . The author emerges as an Iraqi everyman, and his provocative book brilliantly juxtaposes images and time frames to convey the toll of war on Americans and Iraqis . . ." --Publishers Weekly
"Ultimately the death of his brother back home via an unmanned American drone compelled Bilal to make his greatest artistic statement yet against all that makes the war in Iraq unreal to most outsiders.. . . a powerful and demanding read, that is, frankly, a literary punch to the gut." --Booklist
"What is most remarkable about Shoot an Iraqi isn't, however, the chronicle of the project that brought him worldwide attention, but the back story. Weaved amid a narrative of the 31-day experiment is a memoir of his life in Iraq and eventual flight to Kuwait and then Saudi Arabia, followed by his attempt to make a new life in the United States." --The Brooklyn Rail, November 2008
"'Shoot an Iraqi' is an invaluable work of political art and a clear-eyed view of the profoundly disturbing fate of present-day Iraq." --Shelf Awareness, December 1, 2008
"'Shoot an Iraqi' tells of Iraq's dissolution from a beacon of education in the Middle East to a locust-eaten state, mugged by a dictator and then punished from abroad for his offenses. Neither Bilal's exhibit nor this absorbing book about it can expiate Iraq's condition. Rather, they brilliantly demonstrate the lengths to which one man went to live history, and the disturbing--and occasionally hopeful--things he learned when he invited the entire world to do it with him." --John Freeman, Newark Star Ledger
"[A] highly readable, moving book." --Bea Leal, The Socialist Review
"Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal details a compelling interactive art project he undertook in 2007 . . . for 31 days in spring 2007, the artist, then a professor at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, lived in Chicago's FlatFile Galleries in front of a webcam and a remote-controlled paintball gun as part of a video game he created that allowed online players . . . to shoot paintballs at him--65,000 in total--sometimes relentlessly. . . . The self-imposed ordeal was also intended to comment on the remote-controlled warfare that allows soldiers to dehumanize their very human targets, including Bilal's brother Haji, a suspected insurgent who was killed with the support of a U.S. drone. For Bilal, who now teaches at NYU, art and life are inseparable." --Art in America, December 2008
"History simply refuses to leave some people alone. The Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal grew up under Saddam Hussein, survived two wars, was forced to live for periods at refugee camps in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and finally escaped to the U.S. in 1992 to study art. When his father and brother were killed during the latest U.S. invasion of his country, Bilal responded by creating the now infamous art piece Domestic Tension, in which the artist spent a month living in a Chicago gallery where Internet users could watch his day-to-day movements and, if they felt like it, take shots at him with a remote-controlled paint gun. By the end, more than 60,000 people had opened fire. Shoot an Iraqi--a name he initially considered for the installation--combines autobiographical narrative with a discussion of his work and its political implications." --Village Voice
Iraq artist Wafaa immigrated to the U.S. and channelled his haunting experiences into performance pieces, culminating in Domestic Tension: [sic] for an entire month Wafaa, on camera, invited online participants to 'shoot an Iraqi' with a computer-controlled paintball gun. His memoir about his life and the profound impact of his bold installation is powerful and demanding.-- Skillings Mining Review --Skillings Mining Review
"Most remarkable about this book is the thoroughly candid, unsentimental and non-martyr-making way that Bilal and Lydersen describe his life in the Middle East and the dramatic month in Chicago when he relived through art his own and his two nations' traumas. Lowering his defenses, Bilal offered himself up as the quintessential enemy, and then shared his catharsis with his friends and foes everywhere. That the art of war can cause so much suffering explains why there are so few recruits." --Art Asia Pacific
"Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun by Wafaa Bilal and Kari Lydersen recounts Bilal's journey, his life in Iraq under Saddam Hussein's regime, his survival of two wars, his life in refugee camps, plus 'Domestic Tension', a month-long live performance in a Chicago gallery with Internet users watching his every movement and taking shots at his with remote-controlled paint guns." --Banipal Magazine
Voted one of the Top 10 Arts Books of the Year 2009: "A staggering memoir by immigrant Iraqi artist Bilal, who staged a performance piece, during which online participants used a computer-controlled paintball gun to 'shoot an Iraqi.'" --Booklist Online
"Shoot An Iraqi, art, life and resistance under the gun . . . [is an account of] an interactive performance piece, illustrated, from a Iraqi brother for another brother killed by a U.S. Predator drone. `For one month Bilal lived alone in a prison cell sized room in the line of fire of a remote-controlled paintball gun and a camera that connected him to internet viewers around the world.' He was shot at 24 hours a day." --Longhousepoetry.com --Longhousepoetry.com
Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
At the Hands of the Ignorant
By Jim Muccio
In November, 2010 I read about the artistic exploits of Wafaa Bilal and was intrigued. So intrigued I blogged about his latest project and posted it in several online forums. I also ordered his book, "Shoot an Iraqi; Art, Life, and Resistance Under the Gun" co-written with Kari Lydersen. I read it in one sitting. Astonishing in content and brilliantly written, Bilal and Lydersen have taken, by my first estimate, an ill-conceived, albeit somewhat artistic, publicity stunt and turned it into a MUST READ commentary on the cost of war...now my second and more accurate estimate.
In a nutshell Wafaa writes about his confinement to an exhibit room at the Flat File Gallery in Chicago. He called the exhibit "Domestic Tension" and lived within its confines for one month. That's the domestic part. The tension comes from the added twist. If you visited him, either on-line or in person, he gave you the option to fire a yellow paint ball at him at 300 feet per second, all day, every day. Approximately 65,000 balls of yellow paint were fired during his ordeal. He was forced to live under the fear of being whacked at anytime. There was a field of fire available to the paint ball gun which he could escape be remaining close to the ground...inducing the stress of literally living "Under the Gun". When online visitors stopped in they could chat with him directly, setting up a tension between those who could reach out to the humanity of the situation observing and bearing witness to the ongoing persecution, and those who wanted to have sadistic fun at the expense of another human being. (NOTE: Although sadistic fun unfortunately occurs in warfare I do not believe it is a primary driver yet it does become another ugly cost of war).
As he writes about his ordeal during his month in captivity he wraps in the story of his early life growing up in Iraq under the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. He describes what life was like for the Iraqi people, their hopes and dreams for education and prosperity, their day to day family existence, with both their good humor and sanity evaporating during what has now amounted to almost three decades of constant war. Wafaa escaped as a refugee to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and finally to the United States but carries the scars of many haunting years of fear and persecution in its countless forms. That is what he was trying to recreate in "Shoot and Iraqi" as a cathartic response to the guilt he has felt by leaving Iraq and thus surviving to tell his tale.
"Shoot an Iraqi" is not a war protest, though many who read it might consider it so...I might also add that some associated with his project seem to convey a clear anti-war vibe...yet Wafaa resisted the invite to preach rather he simply wants us to think about the cost of war in human terms rather than ethical or moral implications. This book is also not an indictment on the use of remotely piloted vehicles to execute war, which have gained so much favor and criticism during the wars in the Middle East...yet remain highly misunderstood. Again, Wafaa resists the temptation to draw too many parallels between what he was doing and this new brand of warfare. Early on he exhibits a desire to make the parallel, primarily when he attributes a tragic event which cost the life of many innocent civilians to reconnaissance conducted by an unmanned aircraft. Only in the sense that violence is being executed at a distance can the two be compared. No other parallels to this brand of warfare exist. But this is not a debate to have in this book review. The other parallels to the stress of those caught in the war zone and living minute by minute "Under the Gun" with the constant threat of death are quite real.
Wafaa has a unique vision in his art form that will continue to elicit strong criticism, censorship, and even persecution, whether intentionally by his own hand or by the hand of ignorance. He grows and we grow as a result of what he has experienced and has shared. This book goes a long way in reducing the hand of the ignorance...in this particular case mine.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
An intriguing book that looks at the cost of war with a humanistic eye
By Brie0070
Typically I try not to get into politics of wars but as fate had it, I actually had the privilege of having Wafaa himself as a professor when I attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago a few years back when he was still teaching there. I didn't know what to expect having an Iraqi for a professor, mostly because I had little knowledge of Iraq outside of media coverage. As I began to get to know him, not only did I start to learn about his life and his part played within the political climate, I also learned how his artwork turned into a pivotal role in his own survival. His past artwork has shown how he is able to bring up controversial issues in a way that illuminates both sides yet remains unbiased. He is truly inspirational and I was constantly in awe of him when he was my professor. I decided to buy his book sometime later out of curiosity and it stood up well to the actual man it is about. The book does a fantastic job of jumping back and forth from his life growing up in Iraq to one of his more current pieces "Domestic Tension." The book also does a tremendous job explaining his artwork, why it was necessary for him to work "Domestic Tension" (a piece that literally had people shooting paintballs at him over the internet) and also what the cost of war is on a human level. Whether you're an artist, interested in the impact of war or just interested in biographies, I highly, highly recommend this book.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
I loved this book
By TashaFay
I loved this book. It's well written and provides more information than just about Wafaa's art project, but his life story. I like the parallel story structure and the incite that the book provided. I'm interested in art and Iraq, so this book was perfect.
See all 11 customer reviews...
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