City officials in Troy, New York apparently used the municipal building code to shut down a controversial video game art exhibit.
As we've been tracking on GamePolitics, Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal, a faculty member at the Art Institute of Chicago, was invited to present at - and then abruptly booted from - Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute.
Following his RPI expulsion, Bilal's Virtual Jihadi exhibit was moved to the nearby Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy. On Monday night, a local Republican political figure, Robert Mirch (left), led a protest against Bilal's work outside the Sanctuary. Mirch, by the way, also happens to be the Public Works Commissioner for the city of Troy. In that capacity, he is responsible for enforcing building codes.
On Tuesday, as reported by the Albany Times-Union, the Sanctuary for Independent Media was shut down by city code enforcement officials. Sanctuary spokesman Steve Pierce told the newspaper:
They put us out of business. They said we had doors that were not up to code.
Pierce made additional comments to the Schenectady Daily Gazette:
The only thing different between the day before and [Tuesday] is we have an Iraqi artist protesting the war. The next day, the city sent code enforcement to us and we were cited.
City Councilman Bill Dunne said:
This isn't the first time that code enforcement has operated in a fashion like this. It certainly on the surface smacks of political retribution.
Kathy High, an RPI Arts professor, added:
I guess we could cycle through all of the art galleries in the city and have the city shut them all down. This will make people afraid to show the exhibit and that is very wrong.
GP: Whether you like Bilal's work or hate it, to see political officials in the United States wield the power of law to shut down controversial expression is scary stuff, indeed.
Comments
Already is.
1st: the exhibit, that protests the war, is taken down.
2nd: the kid is suspended and then expelled
3rd: the new location of the exhibit is shut down by the guy leading the protest against the exhibit.
this is what a baby police state looks like.
Are we talking about the same incident here? The exhibit was suspended, not a student. The artist was a guest invited from another college...
I can see some confusion though, due to the fact that the FBI pulled him out of a classroom to question him. But he was speaking to the class, not attending it. :)
I'm not saying his actions make him Hitleresque nor Stalinesque. I'm saying that from the photo provided here on GP, the guy looks like Hitler.
I remember, at that young age, thinking, "Why don't people just not shop there, so these evil people don't get money?" While I was obviously naive about both the evil nature of porn and how successful that industry is, my line still holds true.
So, let the man's message stand on its merits. It's a rather trite little game. However, all the fuss just gives it more weight. And more publicity. So really Bilal got more than he could have hoped for from all the hoopla, right?
I guess I can't muster any outrage over what is really a local politics issue, and not my local. National issue, I think not. I'll let the voters of Troy figure out how to deal with it. /shrug /me doesn't care.
I'll worry about the Mayor of Pittsburgh misappropriating Homeland Sec funds for use of an DHS SUV for a tailgate. That issue, I can, and did, effect.
~~All Knowledge is Worth Having~~
So what if they've used the same tactic for similar reasons before? That doesn't make this issue OK. That's all the more reason to fight them on this occasion. I can't abide corrupt politicians using their position to bully citizens and curb freedom of speech. I may not like what everyone says, but I can always walk away.
"Building codes/zoning laws have been used to stop personal pet peeves for as long as I can remember."
Sad but true. Still, if I were a resident of Troy, I'd be protesting against such an abuse of power, no matter what it was used for.
Right, so would I. But I'm not, and neither are most of the ouraged people here. This is a LOCAL issue. And a small one at that. And by the looks of it, won't end well for Mirch. What a measly thing to end your politcal career over, eh?
Ebonheart,
If you can't see the parallel between my anecdote and the article's issue, I can't help you. Both cases are how local zoning/building code laws are (mis)used to protect a vocal minority's sensibility.
~~All Knowledge is Worth Having~~
After I reread the post I realized it, sorry about that. I grabbed on to one sentence and ran with it instead of fully reading.
The book Trigger Happy by Stephen Poole wrote a book that debates that games are in fact an art form.
Clever
However, the government abusing its power to shut down the exhibit at the Art Gallery is totally unacceptable. If they weren't willing to enforce building code violations before the exhibit, then they were only using them as an excuse to censor Bilal.
The two incidents are completely different. When a private institution refuses to host something, it's their freedom of expression (or their freedom not to express). When the government shuts down something because they don't like it, then it is censorship.
And we might as well be IN "1984" if a computer depiction of opinions differing from those of a government that has violated so many liberties and international laws is politically strong-armed to be banished while torture both unlawful and useless on top of violating human rights continues on its merry way.
For those who will argue that torture isn't useless, you're disproven by every historical and current study on torture, all of which reveal that the information derived (from those overzealous extraction methods that would be perceived as torture by anyone receiving them) is almost entirely unreliable and consistently costs lives when acted upon.
Which we've known for decades, but why would the president listen to the experts on interrogation when he could just fearmonger instead, and use the tactics of an organization that has never studied torture's effects because it doesn't have lives hanging on the information it receives (CIA)?
Perhaps for the same reason politicians in this government abuse their authority to illegally stop the sharing of an opinion they find threatening but which actually neither poses nor encourages any harm to national security.
Too bad "for the sake of national security" can't be Godwin's Law-ified.
Now, it's become so scared of terrorism that the terrorists have won. The ultra-conservative "powers that be" have inch-by inch intruded so far on your civil liberties, that you'll soon be just another fascist state.
The Thought Police are waiting for you.
With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.
The Drumhead
A pathetic and petty link, this man's actions, but its still a link.
I love geeks. We're awesome.
Well unless Q was involved I guess...
And Americans arent afriad of terrorism till a politican goes "Terrism MAY hit us!" Till then no one gives a care. Politicans bring it up when ever someone says "We need to fix America's problems!"