The America’s Diplomat game concept was developed in association with the spoof New York Times special, end of the war edition that was published on November 12, 2008 both in print and online. Over 100 artists and artists groups collaborated to create the spoof NYtimes. I proposed to write an article for the project that detailed the abandonment of the America’s Army game to be replaced by the America’s Diplomat game. This is a hopeful, conceptual gesture towards re-thinking how our tax dollars are used to create popular online entertainment/propoganda. Why not America’s Diplomat? Why America’s Army? Why not imagine the creation of an online gaming platform to encourage our young people to consider international cooperation, negotiation and cross-cultural understanding rather than what exists, a shooter game that presents an highly unrealistic portrayal of military service.
For the past two years I have been involved in an online memorial and protest that takes place within the America’s Army game. “dead-in-iraq”, started in 2006, involves entering the AA game as an active intervention. I drop my weapon and proceed to type the name, age, service branch and date of death of each service person killed in the Iraq conflict. To day I have input over 4000 names into the game.
I view this new project, America’s Diplomat as a continuation of this work - a way of visualizing a different model for encouraging young people to server out country. To present a conceptual alternative to the expected and accepted strategy of recruiting young people to military service through a computer game.