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Visiting Artists and Scholars lecture series: Wafaa BilalPost an Event »

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San Francisco Art Institute (Main Campus)

March 10 - March 10, 2010

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800 Chestnut Street San Francisco, CA 94133
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Born in Iraq, Wafaa Bilal devises interactive Internet encounters in part to inform audiences around the world about conditions in his native land. In his installation Domestic Tension, he placed himself in front of a paintball gun wired to an interactive Internet platform through which people could shoot at him. His video-game piece Virtual Jihadi was shut down by Renssellaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, less than a day after it opened—contributing to his being named one of 2008’s 15 Most Politically Fascinating People by GamePolitics.com. Exhibition venues include the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago and the Milwaukee Art Museum in Milwaukee (Wisconsin, USA). Artist residencies include the Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga (California) and CATWALK in Catskill (New York). Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life, and Resistance under the Gun (2008) contains a first-person account of his life. Bilal teaches at the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. www.wafaabilal.com