Tension doesn't sound like a pleasant life experience, so why would Iraqui born Wafaa bilal choose to live his
life as he does, riddled with tension and unpleasant experiences?
After his brother was killed and his family was threatened by violence and destruction, Wafaa Bilal lived for one month as a living paint ball demonstration, exhibit, experiment, and cyber cultural event. for Bilal it was a personal test of his own comfort vs conflict zone. The view is not imposed upon and remains anonymous. It's a clinically clean demonstration of domestic tension. Technical difficulties added to the stress level of Bilal. The parameters were increased after a bandwidth change of the parameters allowed 500 to shot at Bilal at one time instead of the original five. In one day Bilal received 20,000 paint ball shots in bright yellow globs. A vast spectrum of society showed up to take aim on the website including: hackers, hunters, soldiers, video gamers, the curious and haters. I asked why the color yellow? Bilala explained it was a reminder of the yellow ribbons tied to trees for someone to return. When another question I presented came up about the fear of lunatics from being a public target, like John Lennon, Bilal stated that before the experiment he suffered from post traumatic stress disorder. The deaths of family members and living in a war zone had left Bilal disoriented and fearful, but the strange experiment had helped him to conquer fears and accept reality.
Other art projects Bilal experienced included waterboarding and implanting a camera on the back of his head. Asking for trouble seems to fascinate Bilal as he stretches the realms of art and reality. As he found, going through airports is not easy with a camera implanted in your head, and he could have drowned during the waterboarding experience. I'm not sure if his risky endevors are worth the pain, but to each his own.
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