- What is the difference of your project and other projects of the kind, like governmental memorials? And the other Iraqi Memorial?

I realize this is a very problematic and messy undertaking. We (particularly U.S. citizens), bear implicit responsibility for the deaths of many thousands of people in a country we know very little about on the other side of the globe. The primary question I am asking through this project is essentially - how do we respond as artists – is it possible to respond - to the deaths of Iraqi civilians that is occurring as the result of the actions of our government?

I first conceptualized Iraqimemorial.org in reaction to the publication online of the 5201 proposals for the official World Trade Center Memorial Competition in the fall of 2003. Even though the War in Iraq was still in it’s first year, civilian and military casualties already far exceeded the nearly 3,000 victims of the terrorist attack of 9/11. I thought, at the time, that there would never be an official call for proposals for a memorial to the innocent civilians killed in this war – a war that was, sadly, politically predicated by a propagandistic build up that, in the United States, sought to create a link between Iraq and the attacks of 9/11.

As the project idea evolved, I move away from my first instinct, which was to purely mimic the design of the WTC site towards a more thoughtful and serious attempt at creating a project that would seek to honour and memorialize the civilian victims of the War in Iraq through an open call for proposed, imagined memorials. Iraqimemorial.org is very similar to, and in fact uses standard methods of any typical “Call for Proposals” for a memorial or other public art or architecture competition. From my research prior to launching this project, the vast majority of memorials online to the Iraq war are primarily focused on the military dead – either en masse or individually. There are a few projects and websites dedicated to “the victims of terrorism” and such, but few that are solely focused on recognizing the civilian casualties in Iraq.

In the end it was the importance of creating a forum for artists to focus on the issue of civilian casualties in the war that moved me to get beyond any coincidental and likely unavoidable similarities between this project and others. As a practicing artist, one is always concerned about originality - yet in this context, I was troubled to think that other projects variously addressing the human toll of this war would cause me to abandon the effort and concept behind Iraqimemorial.org: the issue at hand is too important and deserving of further examination by artists.

I have put this project out there, in large part, as a memorial in and of itself – perhaps a futile gesture in light of the very real suffering by the Iraqi people – a suffering I can only imagine yet cannot disconnect from my level of comfort and complicity. I am hopeful that artists might respond to this project by creating ideas that seek to recognize the complicated nature of memorials and to question the social/political role of artists in such a difficult and very real context of death.

- What is the main motive(sp) for making such projects on the Internet as the medium?

Functioning as an individual artist with minimal grant or institutional support, the web serves as a logical context for the viral distribution of media content. Iraqimemorial.org is, first and foremost, a call for participation – a “user content generated site” that requires the involvement of others in order to succeed. I am a media artist – I have been working with electronic art forms for much of the past 20+ years – much of my recent works involve using the Internet for interventionist protest in computer game spaces I suppose if I were a gallery owner or publisher or worked at a museum this project could exist as a call for proposals for those contexts (exhibition or book) – that said, the potential for the Internet to reach many thousands of people both in terms of participation and visitors to the site presents an attractive and useful venue/medium to me as an artist/activist.

- Iraqi people can hardly connect to the Internet. For whom are these pages done?

Since the launch of the project this past December, there has been exactly one visit from Iraq to the Iraqimemorial.org project as recorded using Google Analytics. Persons in other countries in the Middle East, however, have visited the site in larger numbers. The project is still in its early stages both in terms of participation and hopefully exposure to the viewing public who would have access to the Internet. As the project is ongoing I would hope over time that more Iraqis could have the opportunity to view the project.

To specifically answer the second part of your question, I would say that my first audience is perhaps my fellow countrymen here in the United States. Part of the impetus behind this project has been my frustration with the absence of serious consideration of the issue of civilian casualties. Through the U.S. media we have been constantly reminded of the sacrifice in American military deaths and the incredible monetary cost of the war with the occasional mention of the deaths of innocents – although this most often reads as an afterthought. The deaths of civilians, estimated between 80,000 and 655,000 to now over 1 million by some sources barely seems to register with the American media or the public.

Secondly would be the international community – a project such as this that simply suggests the validity of recognizing the deaths of others due to the actions of our military communicates something positive and contrite. I accept my culpability and seek to express my frustration with the current state of affairs that led to this wholly avoidable conflict and it’s horrid results. The project perhaps allows others to take part in what is symbolically a collective gesture of memory and recognition.

- I find interesting you are American and you don't speak on Americans or journalists getting killed in Iraq. How it happens?

American soldiers, contractors and journalists have been remembered constantly through the American media – there are any number of projects, both online and in the real world that have been put in place to remember our own losses as a result of the war in Iraq. Iraqimemorial.org is precisely not about remembering “our own” but recognizing the humanity and suffering of others as a result of our actions.

- Have you been yourself in war or you think you have been a part of it in a discursive way?

I have not been in war. Yet I live in a country that has the largest, most powerful military force ever to exist. I pay taxes to the government – some of my money goes towards funding the United States military industrial complex. Part of my thinking surrounding this project is that it could be considered an attempt to conceptually close a loop in regard to what is essentially the logical result of having such a powerful military – that people, innocents by the thousands, get killed, we are told, “to protect our freedom”, or “to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here”. So yes, there is definitely a discursive manner in which I have come to personally consider this issue – it is this disconnect that we suffer from in regard to the consequences of our complicity in this war.

As I noted previously, Iraqimemorial.org is perhaps a futile gesture in the context of the magnitude of the suffering being raught on the Iraqi people. I am very sensitive to the notion that this project is just another example of outsiders in a position of power and comfort defining or speaking for the experience of suffering “others”. It is my hope that artists might be able to cut through these barriers to understanding and sincerely work to collectively take a risk - that it might be ok to say that one cares about what happens to Iraqi civilians and to do so through the expressive possibilities of their creative ideas.

Read more on works by Joseph deLappe

Before the official start of the Victims' symptom, planned for early 2008, a serial of interviews will be published on this blog. Besides commenting, you can send your proposals with questions or full interviews that would shape the upcoming discussion.