Youtube Video- The PaintBall Project Day 14

The video post begins with a breathless Bilal declaring the day had been "insane". He said the previous two or three hours had been a constant bombardment. The rate of fire had been so great it had trouble keeping the hopper of the gun filled. He points the camera at the paintball gun showing and almost empty hopper. As counter point to his narration, the snap of the paintball gun firing comes every few seconds- It seemed to be the most frequent that i had heard it while listening to the blogs.

He repeats the situation is insane, and seems to struggle for words. He points out how the room has been "trashed" and how the shots have been directed at him. I suspect he did not expect such a concentrated onslaught, especially after he noticed people had been aiming the gun away from him. He said "I don't know why people have all this hate in them" pointing out this barrage is due to many people logging into the site, not just one person.

The gun has run out of paintballs, but the gun continues to fire although it is empty. Bilal attempts to re fill it but it is clear that. He swears and gasps as the gun fires near him. He shows the splatter as he ducks behind a clear, plexiglas shield. He mentions that his site had been listed on DIGG, driving many more people to visit his site and performance.


What are the limits of this performance? How do characterise the venue? Is it the room, the gallery, the gallery space and the site? Does it leak out into social media sites such as DIGG and Paintball nation? Is Youtube a space of this performance? Are Bilal's video blogs part of the performance, or they documentation. In so far as Bilal intended that these would be viewed during the performance, and they encouraged comments from those that saw them, they seem to advance Bilal's goal of encouraging a dialogue about the issues that concern him.

Bilal said he had to run back and forth between the gun and shield and couldn't keep the gun filled and his camera operating at the same time . He admitted that he set up the situation even though it was disturbing and he wouldn't give up. He ends the video saying "It's empty, it's empty". Through out this video is a sense of frantic movement and extreme tension.