Chicago artist's display is shut down

TROY, N.Y., March 10 (UPI) -- A controversial video show developed by a Chicago-based artist has been shut down less than a day after it opened in Troy, N.Y.

The work, "Virtual Jihadi" mimicked a video game and featured a three-dimensional image of the Iraqi-born artist Wafaa Bilal dressed as a suicide bomber, The Chicago Tribune reported Monday.

Using a keyboard and mouse, the show allowed viewers to shoot American soldiers. The object was to penetrate a bunker and kill President Bush with Bilal's avatar available to blow himself up next to the president.

A spokesman for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute said it would review the display's "origin, content and intent" before allowing it to be shown again.

Bilal is a faculty member of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

He said he sent Rensselaer his plans for the work long before arriving at the upstate New York campus to being a two-week residency.

Bilal said shutting down his display amounts to censorship and doubted it would be reopened.