Wafaa Bilal/Virtual Jihadi update

posted Jul 17, 2008

virtual jihadi stillWafaa Bilal's Virtual Jihadi, which got bumped from RPI and sparked protests in Troy, is now on display in Chicago. And while it doesn't seem like Chicagoans have necessarily embraced the idea of an assassinate-the-president game mod as art, it doesn't look like anyone there is flipping out over it, either.

Bilal talked about all the hubub he encountered in Troy with TimeOut Chicago:

When asked whether courting controversy has any benefits--the incidents in Troy brought Bilal (whom New York University has just hired as an assistant photography professor) national media attention--the artist acknowledges that he deliberately pushes the envelope in his work. Yet he adds, "I knew [Virtual Jihadi] was going to be controversial, but I didn't know it was going to be that controversial."

Previous items about Wafaa Bilal on AOA.

image from Virtual Jihadi: WafaaBilal.com

tags: arts, people

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