virtual guantanamo

and then there's the most full on simulation out there: Second Life - and sure enough, it has the most intense of scenarios on it - a virtual Guantamo, designed by USC Institute for Media Literacy and the Seton Hall School of Law. if you don't want to get sucked in to actually setting up your own avatar and joining Second Life you can get a sense of how the virtual guantanamo looks by watching these videos.



what do you think? does this build empathy? or is it pornography of violence? fine line. one that a gaming company nearly crossed when it was going to make a Gitmo video game simulation for profit. in the end they dropped it, not because of that concern, but because they thought it might be used as "al Qaeda propaganda".

but what we want to do is take down Guantamo, not recreate it. Amnesty International has done something along this line with tearitdown.org - but while compelling, it certainly does not get the gut in the same way.

for a sense of other ways activism is being done on Second Life check this out

but reminding folks of what it's like and what's at stake by putting actual bodies in orange jumpsuits in front of the white house still seems more effective to me

I have mixed feelings about the touring cell - which you may have seen Jon Stewart redecorate. again, it seems 'too easy' somehow. I want it to be more obvious that the experience isn't that easy to recreate, that there's more to it. I want it to be obvious that there are silences, stutters. Still, the cell on tour I'm sure did raise a lot of awareness.