Joseph delappe biography

Abstract

In 2001 media artist Joseph DeLappe began a series of protests, interventions, and reenactments – hacktivist performances within computer games and online communities.

Joseph delappe biography

Included in these is the controversial project “dead-in-iraq” which he created to intervene in the highly popular, taxpayer funded “First Person Shooter” game produced by the Defense Department as a recruiting and marketing tool.

DeLappe enters the America’s Army game with the moniker, “dead-in-iraq”, drops his weapon and in the ensuing virtual mayhem, is killed; hovering over his dead avatar he proceeds to type the name, age, service branch and date of death of each American military casualty from the war in Iraq.

In this ongoing act of “memorial and protest” he has, to date, logged in over 4,000 names of the 4,221 reported killed. The project has garnered both intense support and criticism from dedicated gamers, veterans, soldiers’ relatives, and others, while also receiving a level of media scrutiny that