In the video game that Wafaa Bilal created, his avatar is steely-eyed and hooded, with an automatic rifle at his side, an ammunition belt around his waist, a fuse in his hand and the mien of a knightly suicide-bomber. He is the “Virtual Jihadi.”
The Iraqi-born, Chicago-based artist said he adapted his game from an earlier version made by al-Qaeda’s media branch to raise questions about Americans’ conceptions of the enemy in Iraq.
His work was briefly exhibited Thursday night at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. The game was projected on a giant screen so that one viewer at a time could play — until administrators shut down the show Friday morning. The institute needed time to review the show’s “origin, content and intent,” said William N. Walker, a vice president
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