Re: [nettime-fr] miltos manetas centre pompidou 18 decembre

[zabarvers@no-log.org]

Rappel : Tour Du Monde Du Web Dernière!
Jeudi 18 Décembre, 20 h, Cinéma 2, Centre Pompidou, Entrée Payante

Depuis octobre 2002, les Cinémas de demain ont proposé un «tour du monde
du web», chaque séance présentant la création web d'un pays. Invité par
Isabelle Arvers pour cette dernière séance des Tours du monde du web
consacrée à la Grèce, Miltos Manetas présente le mouvement artistique NEEN
qu’il a fondé en l’an 2000 et les œuvres d’Angelo Plessas et d’Andreas
Angelidakis, neenstars : architectures de mondes virtuels en 3D,
communautés virtuelles, avatars, sites web/œuvres d’art réalisées en
quelques minutes, … Un petit tour virtuel au pays de Socrate pour
philosopher autour de la dernière déclaration neen: Les sites web sont
aujourd’hui la forme d’art la plus radicale.

Miltos Manetas
Artiste de renommée internationale, Miltos Manetas est né en Grèce, mais
vit entre New York et Los Angeles. Connu pour son travail en vidéo, en
peinture, et pour ses performances liées aux jeux vidéo et à l’univers
informatique, il crée aussi des sites web conçus comme des œuvres d’art.
http://www.manetas.com/

Andreas Angelidakis
Neenstar, architecte pour bots (robots créés par des logiciels), inaugure
un nouveau type d’architecture qui accommode les humains à leurs machines.
Architecte de mondes virtuels tels que Neenworld, mirrorsite…
http://www.angelidakis.com

Angelo Plessas
Neenstar, web designer. Des fois, il fait des sites pour lui, des fois il
en design pour d’autres…
http://www.angeloplessas.com/

Isabelle Arvers
Commissaire d’exposition dans le domaine des nouveaux médias : net.art,
cinéma numérique et jeux vidéo. Projets à venir : exposition Game Time,
Melbourne, Australie, sept 2004 et la section net.art du Festival Banana
RAM, Ancona, Italie, juin 2004.

Si vous désirez en savoir plus, vous trouverez ci dessous les interviews
de Miltos Manetas, Andreas Angelidakis et Angelo Plessas réalisées par
Isabelle en août 2002.

A noter dans vos agendas :

Miltos Manetas inaugurera son “Ideal Office” à Outcast le 16 décembre 2003
/ 9 rue Pierre Dupont 75010 Paris
La Cosmic Galerie présentera les nouvelles peintures de M Manetas à partir
du 17 janvier 2004 / 76 rue de turenne 75003 PAris


MILTOS MANETAS

IA : could you present the ElectronicOrphanage ? what is the aim of the EO ?

MM : ElectronicOrphanage is an international club for people who produce
art and theories, related with the world of the computer screen.
The headquarters of EO , is a store front in Los Angeles, at Chung King
Road. In this pedestrian street, located in Chinatown, where you can find
the most avanguarde LA art galleries and designers, Miltos Manetas and Mai
Ueda, opened EO in Feb 2001. EO is a black cube, where a large screen is
left white for projections. When the galleries in the street have
openings, the Los Angeles EO is also showing a piece , created for the
occasion from a guest artist. The rest of time, that space, is a studio
where people ( the Orphans) are "working" on neen and telic (check
www.neen.org <http://www.neen.org/>) . We are planning to open soon an EO
in Sangai, China and Goa, India.

IA : with who are you working in the EO ?

MM : People involved : Andreas Angelidakis*architecture, Mike Calvert *art
,Amy Franceschini and Future Farmers* art, Joel Fox*art, Juribot* human
robot, Tim Jaeger* art ,Norman Klein * theory,Peter Lunenfeld *theory, Lev
Manovich * theory, Jonathan Maghen*webdesign, Miltos Manetas*production
*art , Sushi Matsuda*communications, Yvonne Force * adviser, special
projects, Jan Aman* adviser, special projects, Angelo Plessas* art and
webdesign,Francois Perrin *architecture, Rafael Rozendaal*art, Steven
Schkolne*art, Mark Tranmer (Gnac) * music ,Nicola Tosicn * EO's CEO and
webdesign, Mai Ueda *production *art.

IA : could you describe the orphans ?

MM : They are orphans in terms of an ideology. In the past, people would
believe in a system of ideas such as Marxism or Anarchism or whatever :
they would belong to an intellectual family. Today instead, we don't have
any of those even if , most of us came from similar schools of thought or
from commun life expereiences. We are very different from each other, we
are orphans and we want to stay such. But the ElectronicOrphans, are also
people who understand the power of computing: they are mastering this
power and build samples for the unconventional use of computing. In
between the Eorphans, there are 2 visible categories: people who are Telic
and Neensters. The Telic people are doing a lot of research, theory and
planning. They have a sense of duty . The Neen people instead are careless
and they are doing only Neen. Telic is encouraged and respected in the
ElectronicOrphanage, but the real target of the club is Neen.

IA : what do you think about this new creators generation ?

MM : I think that its the most interesting that came out after the
Dadaists. Finally, we are done with modern and postmodern: this generation
is creating new utopias.

IA : what are you looking for in network performances ?

MM : Performance is real space, is as much exhausted as installation art.
But looking on virtual bodies, creating them actually, because they don't
exist any great samples yet, can be a surprise. We start working on this
direction in 1998 . We introduced then CHELSEA WORLD (
www.chelseaworld.com <http://www.chelseaworld.com/>) , but the artworld
has been slow to catch up, mostly because they are Apple users and Active
Worlds are for PC. After Chelsea, we builded WorldPlusPlus (
www.worldplusplus.com <http://www.worldplusplus.com/>) and now is coming
the Neen World. This time, it will be a private universe, only for people
who are Neen or Telic. We decide to be more selective and to quit losing
time with the vast artworld.

IA : could you present your villette numerique's performance ? what is NEEN?

MM : We will build a new World in Active Worlds, called NEEN. This will be
a kind of a stage . Andreas Angelidakis will do the architecture. The Neen
World will be projected in the Villette Numerique . The content of the
performance, will be a preview and an advertisement of a new show that we
are preparing for CASCO in Holland in November, called AFTERNEEN. We will
also use the occasion to present some selected pieces from the previous
shows that ElectronicOrphanage curated: www.biennale.net
<http://www.biennale.net/> and www.whitneybiennial.com
<http://www.whitneybiennial.com/>

IA : do you think that art is for everybody ? if yes, what is the strategy ?

MM : art has never been for everybody and the same time is something that
everybody can do. It's an easy thing : just look around for what has not
been done yet and invent it. That's why we use Internet, because there are
all these .com spaces available. They are open opportunities, if for
example, you work on the concept of  miserability in the old world , you
'll come with aestetics that all other artists are using in the same way.
But if you decide to register miserability.com, you have to find a very
unique way to rapresent the concept, because there is only one domain name
possible. Our strategy are names: we name what has not been done yet and
then it happens.

IA : video games in the world of the 11 September ?

MM : why not ? Videogame violence is white violence, while real violence
is a dark one. We can all use some white violence : its therapeutic. Or
maybe you mean that reality is more spectacular than videogames ? In that
case, videogames are opportunity for thought, philosophical gardens ,
adorned with explosions, where we can meet, walk together and talk.


ANDREAS ANGELIDAKIS

IA : Where are you from ?

AA : I was born in Greece, but I'm 1/2 Norwegian, so I grew up in a
strange mix of two very different cultures, spending half the time in
Greece and 1/2 in Norway. I studied architecture at SCI-ARC in Los
Angeles, and through my friend Jim Isermann, I got to know the
contemporary art scene at a great moment. Later on I met Adelina von
Furstenberg, and through her I learned a lot more about contemporary art.
At more or less the same time I did my masters at Columbia University
which had just introduced the digital department.

IA : How did you meet M Manetas ?

AA : I met Miltos through the gallerist Emily Tsingou, when he was in
Greece participating in an exhibition by Adelina. At the time neither of
us had a computer, it was 1994, and I was just leaving for New York to
study at Columbia. We met again a few months later and we both had our
first Macs, and where totally addicted.

IA : What kind of collaboration do you have with him and with the orphans?

AA : I dont know if collaboration is the right term. I would say we are
part of the same landscape, a landscape in the sense of intelectual
topography. So of course we collaborate on many things, discuss ideas,
judge each others' work and quite often we do projects together.

IA : You are the EO frontstore architect ? what were the main ideas at the
origin of this project what were your constraints ?

AA : At the time, Manetas was doing the famous "cables on the floor"
paintings, and all his visual landscape was cables and hardware,
everywhere, which is almost unavoidable when you have many computers in a
space. My first reaction for EO was no cables, no hardware, no floor and
to definetly avoid the classic "computers on tables" view. So I decided to
take everything off the floor, and have it hanging from the ceiling. Then
the main concept was to  have the space function as a drop-down navigation
menu, a space designed as a website. You can close the menu and see just a
screen, or open it to work.
Basically EO is a screen, so when the menu-workstations are closed, all
you see is an empty space and a screen floating in the back. I made the
basic equivalence that a storefront is a screen. The only constraint was
the budget, but I decided to design the space as it should be in an ideal
world, and then build a demo-version instead.

IA : Do you work differently to build spaces for internet or for the
physical space ?

AA : Not really. What I usually try to achieve is a very abstact quality,
a moment when you dont know if what you see is a space or a screen, a
building or a computer rendering. So in the built projects, I try to
create this moment with materials that are native to the built world, I
try to achive virtuality not with technology but with regular building
materials. This moment could be described as NEEN, which is an abstract
term in itself, something that we recognize but cannot describe.

IA : I guess i understood that you will create the Neen architecture for
the villette numerique's performance. How do you imagine Neen's world ?
and then how will you create it with the help of the others ?

AA : At this stage the NEEN world will be on the Active Worlds platform,
which I'm familiar with since many years. I dont know yet what it will be
like, I am just starting to design it. The main idea is to have a plateu
for discussion and a home for every Neenster. These will be separated by
an empty space. As a schematic starting point it will like the entrance to
World++, but of course there will be one crucial element that makes it
Neen.

IA : What do you think about the concept of " event " in architecture ?

AA : I prefer buildings without people.


IA : Have you ever worked before on stage or performances ?

AA : Yes, a long time a go I used to do the sets for the art-techno band
called Stereo Nova, and recently I did Pause space in Stockholms'
Fargfabriken, where the photographer Jean-Pierre Khazem staged
performances with models.

IA : What is your next project ?

AA : Right now I'm working on developing + updating the brand identity +
new space / shop of Forever Laser Institut in Geneva, designing a
travelling museum retrospective of a well known artist, a renovation of a
house in Long Island city and a playground- landscape in a school in
Armenia.


ANGELO PLESSAS

IA : Where are you from ?

AP : I was born and raised in Athens,Greece with italian roots.I used to
work as CAD programmer few years ago until Flash 3 came out and I started
as a hobby to make some very simple animations.Maybe the reason of this
,unconsciously ,was that i used to hate all these cartoons and animations
when I was a kid.

IA : How did you meet M Manetas ?

AP : Through Andreas Angelidakis.

IA : What kind of collaboration do you have ?

AP : He buys domains and I design flash animations.

IA : How do you work with the other orphans for webprojects?

AP : For example with my closest Neenster-friend Mai Ueda we worked
together on her web site.We were bored one night in Los Angeles and
suddenly Mai showed me a Comme des Garcons dress.We immediately came up
with the idea to make a flash animation from the patterns.The web site was
finished after half an hour.

IA : What is the meaning for you to create for internet ?

AP : I dont know if it means something, it is just the only place. Its
like being in the jungle, and you try to create a civilization, you find a
script, you test to see if you can start a fire.

IA : You often take internet or computers interfaces in your artwork, do
you think that there is a new aesthetics in it ?

AP : That’s the only thing I do.I make web sites as an artwork. I’m not
sure if the aesthetic is new, but definetly the way you experience is new,
and the pressure to keep a user interested for more than 5 seconds,
without doing too much. That is the most difficult thing , to keep
interest but not necessarily to impress, but to have the same fascination
as looking at a beautifull sunset maybe. Its always the same but something
makes us look at it.

IA : What would you like to explore now ?

AP : I would like to interfere more with Active
Worlds(www.activeworlds.com).I was so amazed when I first walked as an
avatar in Chelsea and World++.I think it is the best place to hang out.

IA : Your definition of digital creation, what do you expect from it ?

AP : I think digital creation is endless.There are some things that we
loved last year and now we cannot stand. But something cool is going on
all the time.

IA : Your next project ?

AP : I have just finished the web site of  British musician Gnac.
Now I am starting to design the website for an art magazine called “ The
Breeder ” (www.thebreedersystem.com) and also I will design some avatars
for the world NEEN.


 
 
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