KEEP GITMO OPEN! That is, GONE GITMO, the virtual installation of Guantánamo Bay Prison in Second Life.
GONE GITMO, launched in 2007, allows participants to explore a place that is inaccessible to the average American citizen and press. In fact, the Pentagon recently expelled four reporters who have been covering the prison for years. By integrating documentary footage from the actual prison, creating unexpected experiences for visitors and streaming events into the 24/7 live virtual environment, GONE GITMO delivers a unique news report on the complex subjects raised by the off-shore prison including loss of habeas corpus rights.
The virtual prison has been showcased from Yokohama to Cannes and reviewed widely:
“You lose control of your avatar and can be virtually pulled to any location...” New Scientist
“The last thing I notice before I am hooded is that I’m shackled to the floor of a military cargo plane. I hear it take off. Or land. I can’t tell. A man shouts, “Shut up!” and I hear a violent blow...,” Vanity Fair
“Here, users can experience first-hand - through their personal avatar - what it might feel like to don the orange jumpsuit and have your rights indefinitely suspended. Using writings and testimonials of actual detainees to the virtual world, the project aims at new means of connecting viewers to the issues." IDA Documentary Magazine
"A jarring experience...very immersive and unsettling." Rik Riel, media blogger
“Rather than engage in virtual torture, de la Peña and Weil built a contemplation chamber that includes news feeds, statements from public figures and poetry by detainees.” Documentary.org
“I have strong thoughts about the larger social significance of the enterprise. You are involved increating social memory.” Joseph Margulies, Assistant Director, MacArthur Justice Center
The cost of maintaining a virtual environment is real. We have self-supported GONE GITMO since 2008 and are looking to KEEP GITMO OPEN with your help. We are hoping to fund the maintenance fee for 2011 as well as a series of online events, inviting speakers who have visited Guantánamo Prison to come to GONE GITMO as avatars to speak of their experience.
Even though President Barak Obama, five ex-secretaries of state, the current secretary of state, the former Secretary General of the U.N. and the current Secretary General of the U.N. have each called to CLOSE the real Guantánamo Bay Prison... we need your help to keep GONE GITMO OPEN!
For more information, go to: www.gonegitmo.blogspot.com
To visit the virtual prison in Second Life, go to: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Network%20Culture/227/78/25
Nonny de la Peña is a Senior Research Fellow at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism where she is exploring Immersive Journalism, a novel way to utilize gaming platforms and virtual environments to convey news, documentary and non-fiction stories. These “immersive journalism” pieces include GONE GITMO, a virtual Guantanamo Bay; CAP & TRADE, a carbon markets story built in collaboration with the Center for Investigative Reporting and Frontline; and FOOD BANK, a report on hunger in California.
Another project “IPSRESS”, a collaboration with the Event Lab in Barcelona, investigates the use of head mounted display technology as a means to evoke feelings of presence in reportage. De la Peña is also co-founder of the 2010 Knight News Challenger winner Stroome.com, an online community that allows collaborative remixing of visual journalism from anywhere on the globe.
A graduate of Harvard University with more than 20 years of news industry experience, she is a former correspondent for Newsweek and has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times Magazine and others. She is also an award-winning documentary filmmaker and her films have screened on national television and at theatres in more than 50 cities around the world. The LA Times wrote that “de la Peña expertly personalizes the stories,” and the New York Times called her work “a brave and necessary act of truth-telling.”
Peggy Weil is a digital media artist and designer focusing on interactive and immersive design. As a member of the Architecture Machine Group (now the M.I.T. Media Lab) from 1980-1982, she worked on pioneering interactive projects in design and telepresence, going on to create titles for The Voyager Company, Broderbund, Electronic Arts, Von Holtzbrinck and Ravensberger Interactive.
Weil was awarded the MILIA D’OR in Cannes in 1998 for the CD-ROM series Moving Puzzle. She designed the original Roden Crater website in 1996 and was creative producer/designer for USC’s Institute for Creative Technology E.L.E.C.T. project, a role-playing game to increase cultural awareness in Army Officers; and The Redistricting Game, a USC Annenberg-sponsored project to increase voter awareness about redistricting. Projects include The Blurring Test, a reverse Turing Test running for over a decade; Gone Gitmo, a virtual installation of Guantánamo Prison; Wall Jumpers, a global visualization of political separation barriers and IPSRESS, an experiment in Immersive Journalism. Her work has been exhibited at LABoral in Gijon, Spain; and presented internationally, including Games For Change Conference in New York, The Center for Human Rights at UC Berkeley, MIPDOC and MIPTV in Cannes, Simposio Feedforward, LABoral and PICNIC Amsterdam.
$1770 will go to Linden Labs to pay for the "island" - the cost of the server space for hosting our project. The other $500 will cover minor programming fixes and for a speaker series - individuals who have been to the real world prison willing to give talks to all.
