Wafaa Bilal, Domestic Tension, Performance Piece, 2007
"In May 2007, Bilal began a 30-day-long project called Domestic Tension in protest of the Iraq War. During the installation piece, Bilal confined himself to a small room at the FlatFile Galleries, located in Chicago. Although the artist was confined, he could be seen twenty-four hours a day through a camera that he had connected to the Internet. In addition to the camera, Bilal set up a remote-controlled paintball gun that viewers could use to shoot him at any time. The gun shot foul-smelling yellow paint and emitted a sound as loud as a semiautomatic gun each time it went off.
The inspiration for Domestic Tension stemmed from Bilal's experiences in refugee camps during the rule of Saddam Hussein, losing members of his family in the war, and trying to cope with the reality of war as it raged on the other side of the world. One day, Bilal learned that his people were being killed by soldiers who were not even stationed in Iraq—they had the power to shoot missiles "from an armchair in front of a computer somewhere, as if it were all some kind of video game."
The performance took its toll on Bilal, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. Confined within the gallery, Bilal had no way to escape the constant threat of the paintball gun, the deafening sound of the semiautomatic, or the feedback he received from viewers watching his every move online. In addition to the physical welts he received from the paintball pellets, the artist became so overwhelmed by the constant threat of being shot that he experienced post-traumatic stress, as if he were actually in a war zone. In the chat room attached to the video feed, Bilal was constantly berated by his viewers, who accused him of trying to escape from the gun or even claimed that the performance was being faked. Whenever Bilal wasn't complying with what the viewers wanted, they would become angry, sometimes leaving comments full of "racism and explicit demonizing of all Otherness." Overall, a total of 60,000 shots were fired over the course of 30 days by "shooters" from 128 different countries.
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