baghdad skyline
Despite the rapidly escalating violence in Iraq, daily stories of horror are often pushed to the back pages of the paper. Baghdad Skyline uses augmented reality to transform the New York City skyline into a war-torn battle ground that parallels Baghdad in order to increase awareness of the daily violence faced by the Iraqi people.
Despite the rapidly escalating violence in Iraq, daily stories of horror are often pushed to the back pages of the paper. Baghdad's Skyline is a grim reminder of the death and devastation the Iraqi people face on a daily basis in the wake of America’s misguided invasion. Baghdad Skyline transforms New York City with augmented reality into a war-torn battle ground that parallels Baghdad. The aim of this piece is to increase awareness of the daily violence faced by the Iraqi people.
During the work, plumes of smoke unfurl through the skyscrapers and trail across a projected panorama of NYC. The explosions causing the lingering smoke will be scaled to inflict a proportionate level of damage upon the city of Manhattan as in Baghdad. The explosions and trailing smoke are dictated by information parsed from the Internet related to violence in Iraq. One weeks worth of violence will overlay Manhattan in the projected image. The size of the included explosions will be scaled to match those taking place in Iraq. The project does its best to take into account the population densities as well population movement according to the time of day in both cities.
New York City was chosen for the project because of its location and charged historical ties to the Iraq conflict. New York City, as a project site, lets Americans see their own land under constant attack. The horrific events which took place on September 11 left everlasting wounds in the hearts of New Yorkers and the rest of the world. Sadly, these tragic events were intentionally manipulated and used to lead America to war. Baghdad Skyline hopes to serve as a reminder of the consequences of our nation's actions and the daily horrors faced by people of Iraq.