Group Sues City Of Troy Over Exhibition

In a story that shows the blurring of the line between games and art, The New York Civil Liberties Union has filed a federal lawsuit due to the closure of an exhibition that featured artist Wafaa Bilal's game Virtual Jihadi.

The game, a shooter which its official site depicts as a "skin" of Quest For Saddam -- a game which was retailed in the U.S. -- has the player hunting down George W. Bush, who was president at the time of its exhibition.

Bilal, an Iraqi-born artist who is a faculty member at New York University's Tische School for the Arts according to a Guardian report, originally planned to exhibit the game in a show at Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute until objections from the college's Republican Club reportedly resulted in its exclusion from the show.

The game found a new home, in March 2008, at The Sanctuary for Independent Media, but that gallery showing was shut down by Troy, New York's public works commissioner, Robert Mirch. NYCLU contends that this was done to suppress Bilal's free speech and not for legitimate reasons -- "purported [city] code violations," per the NYCLU -- hence the suit.

In the NYCLU statement, Melanie Trimble, director of the union's Capital Region chapter, said, "City officials cannot selectively enforce building codes to shut down an art exhibition they find distasteful. Mr. Mirch abused his authority to suppress the free speech rights of people he disagrees with -- an unconstitutional act that must be challenged."

Albany, New York newspaper, the Times Union, offers this statement from Mirch: "Since I haven't seen [the suit], I can't comment on what I haven't seen. Obviously there is a political motive since they chose not to address RPI."

The NYCLU maintains that the exhibit was an art piece designed to promote thought and dialogue about the 2003 - present Iraq war.

(via Gamasutra)