Info 202 F12

The concept of "protest" brings to mind images of hippies holding signs, or in this decade, of hipsters camping out outside Wall Street. But the Guantanamo Bay Museum of Art and History transcends our traditional understanding of both "museum," and "protest," because it is neither a real museum, nor is it a physical place of protest. 

The museum's "opening" was officially declared in a press release last week. Its organizers have created a website to establish an alternate reality in which Gitmo has been shut down, and Americans visit the site as we might visit Auschwitz or Terezin—to understand what was done there.  Several artists allegedly have their work on display in the Tipton Three Exhibition Space, and there is a Center for Critical Studies, the page for which currently links to articles related to Guantanamo Bay. The website does not, however, clarify that the museum doesn't actually exist. In fact, there is even a "Plan A Visit" page that maps out its location and boasts that since travel to Cuba may be difficult, the museum has "organized several regular flights to the local airport near the facility from several major airports around the world." All content plays with reality, and leaves any under-informed reader thoroughly confused. 

But that's the point. The organizers see the creation of this museum as a form of protesting reality. "The museum is the result of a collaboration between artists/theorists and is meant to act as both a critique of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility as well as assert the possibility of its closure," wrote Rene Guerne (quoted by The Atlantic). "In this sense, it is a 'real' museum, although I cannot promise that there is a physical building in Guantanamo Bay." 

The Atlantic article that pointed me in the direction of this so-called museum points out that the creation of imaginary, digital entities is a "tried and true protest technique." But the clever quality of this particular endeavor draws from Guantanamo Bay's obscurity as a physical location; the site already exists as a somewhat "imaginary" entity. No one actually gets to visit, and any media coverage is highly mediated. The only people who truly know the facility are its prisoners and wardens. So, in this almost fictional state of existence, the question arises: if we can create a website that changes Gitmo's digital reality, effectively changing the world's perception of its physical reality, can that actually change the physical reality? How can the proliferation of "wrong" information impact the public's expectations? And how can that then impact the policies that govern reality?