Real War Games

I don't know why I'm so obsessed with video game culture, I'm not even an avid gamer, but this is of great interest to me... It's another one of those "dark side of innovation" deals...

While brutal civil war ravaged Spain in the 1930’s, representatives of the democratic government turned to the 20^th century’s most well know, but least understood artists. Hoping he would provide a bold visual protest to Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s treachery. While Pablo Picasso generally avoided politics, and showed disdain for overtly political art, Guernica is arguably one of modern art’s most powerful anti-war statements.

Similarly, visual artist Joseph DeLappe is creating a sort of living memorial to those who gave their lives in Iraq. But where Picasso painted abstract victims, DeLappe’s are rendered in full 3D digital imagery, with software courtesy of the U.S. military. Salon.com explains, the online interactive multiplayer game “America’s Army” is funded by the U.S. army as a recruitment tool.

Since the anniversary of the Iraq invasion, DeLappe, chair of the art department at the University of Nevada, Reno, has been playing the game using the character name Dead-in-Iraq. Whenever he logs on, he allows his character to be shot and killed in the virtual environment, and then painstakingly types the names of dead U.S. servicemen into the game’s public chat system. Here's the rub, can a memorial, which serves to agitate its immediate audience, be an effective form of moral confrontation?

Wired news explains, DeLappe logs on and allows his character to be shot and killed in the virtual environment. He then painstakingly types the name, age and date of death of each service person killed in Iraq. As of September 14, he’d entered 2,670 of the American’s killed. He plans to continue until the war ends. In DeLappe’s words, “I’m trying to remind other gamers, that real people are dying in Iraq.”

DeLappe explains in the New York Times in September, “I’m going to where these people spend their time. If you can get them where they live and this causes them to think, even for an instant, I think it’s effective. According to Aphra Kerr in his book the Business and Culture of Digital Games, 2006, “of all the industries that use digital games, the military is arguably one of the most effective.”

To some anti-war groups outraged by the $4 billion a year the military spends to recruit new soldiers, DeLappe’s performance art is valuable. “I applaud him,” says Celeste Zapala, a member of the anti-war group, military families speak out. Her son was killed in 2004. She argues, “when people participate in virtual violence, it makes the victims of violence less empathetic, less real.”

However, other gamers are not amused. When DeLappe uses the game’s public chat system, the screen becomes filled with messages like, “Please, this is not the forum for you to do this,” and “Man, will all the F%&*N hackers just go play ping pong or something.”

According to wired news, other reactions are more personal. “One Air Force senior airman stated, “A dead soldier is not, and should not be used as a political icon to justify beliefs that they may not have shared.”

As critics of new media and innovation, we should note that DeLappe’s protest only exists online in a make believe world, and that the names are only on the screen for a short time. One important implication to consider is how significant publicity becomes to his overall message. The original audience of players is so limited that in order to elicit a reaction form from the larger world, the project must gain coverage in the media.

When I logged on to play the latest version titles “America’s Army, Real Heroes,” I did not encounter DeLappe’s handiwork, but I was able to experience what seems to be the army’s response to his protest, which was just added sept. 14. You can now read profiles of actual decorated soldiers and watch video clips of them talking about their families and war experience.

DeLappe’s message has been repeated in media sources all over the world, has little to do with the fact that it is confrontational, but is more likely because it fits into the bigger picture of war protests.

In fact, although he facilitated dialogue with both advocates and protestors of the war, his actions are rarely seen as over-the-top by other anti-war groups. Further research might determine if this is because the use of non traditional methods of protest have become more commonplace in our national discourse, or because agitative rhetoric requires greater notoriety to stimulate a response.

Art is a limited form in trying to change the world, but it is the only tool that some activists have. While DeLappe’s protest art is not exactly Picasso’s Guernica, it does occupy a place in the new school of political art that lambastes the Iraq war. DeLappe says that as he types he imagines President Bush or Donald Rumsfeld having to write each of the names out on a chalk board like a punishment. Charles A. Handson Jr. 22, marine, November 28, 2004.

Just a little food for thought the next time you log on to play war games.

--Roger