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Joseph DeLappe

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Joseph DeLappe

Joseph DeLappe is Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Nevada where he runs the Digital Media area. His work in online gaming performance, electromechanical installation and real-time web-based video transmission have been shown throughout the United States and abroad.

According to DeLappe:

Joseph DeLappe is a 2008 Commissioned Resident Artist at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center in New York City. He is an Associate Professor of the Department of Art at the University of Nevada where he runs the Digital Media area. Working with electronic and new media since 1983, his work in online gaming performance, electromechanical installation and real-time web-based video transmission have been shown throughout the United States and abroad.

Contents

Artistic Projects

dead-in-iraq

dead-in-iraq

Joseph DeLappe's dead-in-iraq is an online performance, memorial and protest. DeLappe has been frequenting the US Army’s online recruitment game and propaganda tool, America's Army America’s Army, since March of 2006. Using the login name “dead-in-iraq,” he has refused to play the game, opting instead to access the system’s chat interface — a communication device intended for gamers to strategize with one another. By methodically typing out all of the names of U.S. service personnel who have been killed in Iraq, DeLappe has co-opted the Army’s own technology to undermine official representations of soldiers and military service, thus reminding players about the very real consequences of war.

According to DeLappe:

This work commenced in March of 2006, to roughly coincide with the 3rd anniversary of the start of the Iraq conflict. I enter the online US Army recruiting game, "America's Army", in order to manually type the name, age, service branch and date of death of each service person who has died to date in Iraq. The work is essentially a fleeting, online memorial to those military personnel who have been killed in this ongoing conflict. My actions are also intended as a cautionary gesture. I enter the game using as my login name, "dead-in-iraq" and proceed to type the names using the game's text messaging system. As is my usual practice when creating such an intervention, I am a neutral visitor as I do not participate in the proscribed mayhem. Rather, I stand in position and type until I am killed. After death, I hover over my dead avatar's body and continue to type. Upon being re-incarnated in the next round, I continue the cycle.

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Salt March Online

Salt March Online, March 12-April 6, 2008

Joseph DeLappe's Salt March Online (2008) is a virtual recreation of Gandhi's 1930 Salt March in Second Life that utilizes a treadmill to control an avatar.

According to DeLappe:

Over the course of 26 days, using a treadmill customized for cyberspace, I reenacted Mahatma Gandhi's famous 1930 Salt March. The original 240-mile walk was made in protest of the British salt tax; my update of this seminal protest march took place at Eyebeam and in Second Life, the Internet-based virtual world. For this performance, I walked the entire 240 miles of the original march on a converted treadmill at Eyebeam in New York City and online in Second Life. My steps on the treadmill controlled the forward movement of my avatar, MGandhi Chakrabarti, enabling the live and virtual reenactment of the march.

See also:

See Also:

External Links

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