Domestic Tension !

This blog was supposed to be updated weekly. Hence the name weekinmylife. But looks like I will have to change the name to monthinmylife or even quarterinmylife :-) Anyway..."I was busy ay work" is as socially acceptable excuse as "I am running half an hour late" these days as. But I must make sincere efforts to keep this blog active. Hence here is an interesting tit-bit of a blog-worthy subject that I came across in last few weeks:

An Iraqi immigrant Wafaa Bilal in US who is a new age live artist has put up a very innovative exhibit to protest US war in Iraq. The exhibit is called "Domestic Tension". Basically it consists of a small room where Bilal has locked himself up since last few weeks. He feeds live video of himself over internet (www.wafaabilal.com and www.crudeoils.us) 24X7. And now the real crux of the exhibit: The webcam acts as the view finder of a paintball gun! So viewers can see him online and move the gun left or right (not up and down) and shoot him with paintball pellets at will ! So there will be two categories of viewers, one who wish to shoot him and others trying to save him by pulling control and turning arond the gun away from these trigger happy men.
The idea of the exhibit is to show the world the sadist ways of US military might which can shoot at will from thousands of miles away at some target which they cannot see and hear. The light bulb moment came to Bilal when he watched an interview of a US soldier sitting in Colorado shooting missiles remotely in Iraq which he doesnt even know for sure whether they hit intended target or innocent civilians. So civilians in Iraq live in constant fear of some bomb falling over their heads and that is the experience Bilal wants to live through by way of this exhibit. Bilal wanted to name this exhibit "Shoot an Iraqi" but his sponsors and the art gallery for which he works toned it down to "Domestic Tension". Also search for "paintball project" on YouTube for watching and hearing Bilal's daily video blogs.

So pick your choice "Shoot an Iraqi" or "Save an Iraqi"...
~Amit