I’ve written a couple of times about artist Wafaa Bilal’s video game Virtual Jihadi: The Night of Bush Capturing, which FLATFILEgalleries is displaying through August 22 as part of its “Freedom of Speech” exhibition. Bilal unveiled Virtual Jihadi in March 2008 at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, but the politically charged project—in which the artist’s avatar appears as a suicide bomber—was shut down after only a day. Now Virtual Jihadi has caught the attention of Jack Thompson, a Florida attorney known for filing lawsuits that blame video games such as Grand Theft Auto for violent crime. (In September, the Florida Supreme Court will rule on whether Thompson should be permanently disbarred.)

Thompson cc’d TOC on a letter he sent to FLATFILEgalleries’ founder Susan Aurinko and director Trevor Power, stating, “Either you immediately remove [Virtual Jihadi] from your ‘art gallery,’ or I shall take the necessary legal action to have it removed. I have already contacted the Secret Service.  Your public display of this game is a criminal act.” 

What’s ironic is that Thompson and Bilal are not entirely in disagreement: Virtual Jihadi is not a commercial video game akin to GTA; like Bilal’s 2007 project Domestic Tension, it’s a reminder that some technology reduces others to targets rather than human beings. If the game doesn’t turn West Loop gallerygoers into terrorists, it might help them understand what motivates Iraqis to join the insurgency—something our own military would presumably like to know.