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There's a quote by activist and punk-rock 
musician Jello Biogra that I love.

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He says, 
"Don't hate the media. Be the media."

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I'm an artist.

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I like working with media and technology 
because A - I'm familiar with them

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and I like the power they hold.

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And B - I hate them and I'm terrified
of the power they hold.

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(Laughter)

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I remember watching in 2003, an interview
between Fox News host Tony Snow

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and then-U.S. Defense Secretary,
Donald Rumsfeld.

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They were talking about the recent
invasion of Iraq and Rumsfeld is asked

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the question, 
"Well, we're hear about our body counts,

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but we never hear about theirs, why?"

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And Rumsfeld's answer is,

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"Well, we don't do body counts
on other people."

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It's estimated that between 150,000
to one million Iraqis, civilans

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have died as a result of the U.S. led
invasion in 2003.

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That number is in stark contrast with 
the 4,486 U.S. service members who died

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during that same window of time.

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I wanted to do more than just bring
awareness to this terrifying number

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and wanted to create a monument
for the individual civilians who died

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as a result of the invasion.

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Monuments to war, such as 
Maya Lin's Vietnam memorial

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are often enormous in scale.

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Very powerful and very one-sided.

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I wanted my monument to live 
in the world, to circulate.

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I remember when I was a boy in school,
my teacher assigned us

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this classic civics assignment where
you write -- you take a sheet of paper

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and you write a member of your government.

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And we were told, if we wrote a really
good letter, if we really thought about it

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we would get back more than just a simple
formed letter as a reply.

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This is my notepad.

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What looks like an everyday, legal
tablet of paper, is actually a monument

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to the individual Iraqi civilians that 
died as a result of the U.S. invasion.

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Notepads in act of protest and an act
of commemoration disguised

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as an everyday tablet of paper.

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The lines of the paper, when magnified
are revealed to be micro-printed text

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that contain the details, the names,
the dates and locations of individual

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Iraqi civilians that died.

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So, for the last 5 years, I've been taking
pads of this paper -- tons of this stuff

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and smuggling it into the stationary
supplies of the United States

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and the coalition governments.

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(Applause)

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I don't have to tell you guys, this is not
the place to discuss how I did that.

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(Laughter)

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But also, I've been meeting one-on-one 
with members and former members

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of the so-called Coalition of the Willing,
who assisted in the invasion.

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And so, whenever I can, I meet with one
of them and I share the project with them.

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And last summer I had the chance to meet
with former United States Attorney General

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and Torture Memo author,
Alberto Gonzales.

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"May I give this to you? 
This is a special legal tablet."

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"This is actually part of an on-going 
art project."

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"Is it a special legal pad?"

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"Yes, and I know you won't believe me, but
it's in the collection

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of the Museum of Modern Art."

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"I'm an artist."

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"OK."

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"And all of the lines of the paper --"

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"Are they going to disappear?"

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"No, they're micro-printed text that
contain the names

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of individual Iraqi civilians, who have
died since the invasion of Iraq."

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"Thank you."

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(Laughter)

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The way he says thank you
really creeps me out.

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(Laughter)

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OK, so I'd like each of you 
to look under your chairs.

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There's an envelope.

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And please open it.

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The paper you're holding in your hands
contains the details of Iraqi civilians

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that died as result of the invasion.

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I'd like you to use this paper
and write a member of government.

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You can help smuggle this civilian body
count into government archives.

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Because every letter that's sent
in to the government, and this is

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all across the board of course, 
every letter that is sent in

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is archived, filed and recorded.

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Together we can put this in the mailboxes
and under the noses of people in power.

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Everything that's sent in, eventually
becomes part of the permanent archive

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of our government, our shared
historical record.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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So, tell me Matt, how did this idea come
into your head, of notepad?

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I had just finished a project that dealt
with the U.S. coalition side of the war

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and it was a black armband that was called
the Empathetic Device which accumulated,

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in realtime, the names, ranks, cause
of death and location of U.S. service

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members who had died overseas and each
time the Department of Defense or Syncom

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released their data, it would stab me
in the arm.

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And so, I became aware that there was
a spectacle associated with our own

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people who are dying overseas, but 
a disproportionate amount of casualties

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were the civilian casualties.

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Thank you so much.

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Thank you.