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Untitled Document

May 06, 2000 8:45 PM

Online interview at Miltos Manetas, in Chelsea . By Marina Fokidis


Immigration Officer: Welcome to CHELSEA's City of Contemporary Art &
Architecture


Mmanetas: Marina are you here ?
Mmanetas: Are you Marina ?
"marina": yes I am in the world
Mmanetas: Oh great ! Right on time !
"marina": miltos the same time i am taking pictures so i will be a bit slow
Mmanetas: Ok babe
Mmanetas: You can also see me real time here :
http://www.camarades.com/userpage.php3?resource=954275027/
"marina": Have you ever give another interview on Chelsea
Mmanetas: No. that's the very first time !
Mmanetas: So cool !
"marina": Do you want to go to your studio ?
Mmanetas: Ok lets go there !
"marina": I lost you where are you?
Mmanetas: In my studio
Mmanetas: Go in the reception and click on Manetas Studio
"marina": Ok tell me about Chelsea World first was that a follow up of your
idea that everything in art would be virtual
Mmanetas: (to "marina") Not Everything, but at least there must be an
option available
"marina": what should be virtual and what in real life where is the line
Mmanetas: There is nothing really real in life : everything is a simulation
already
Mmanetas: What you see when you watch a cat is a simulation of an animal
"marina": you scare me who haw the control over everything
Mmanetas: there is no absolute control over everything..
"marina": there must be are you at one sense the master?
Mmanetas: The World is an empire of frustration for Dominators.
Mmanetas: God is also a looser
Mmanetas: Humans also.
Mmanetas: And Nature : a looser too
Mmanetas: Nobody dominates
Mmanetas: Just some possibilities of coordination
"marina": i do not tend to think myself as a looser and certainly not you as
well tell me when your fixation with computer technology started
Mmanetas: The World is available to limited coordination : )
Mmanetas: Loosers in a philosophical sense
Mmanetas: It means trapped in to illusions..
"marina": let me take some portraits and we go on
Mmanetas: And every time we form a picture of the situation, its only a
"virtual" picture that he have
Mmanetas: To conclude : The World for me was already virtual before I come
to know about computers
"marina": lets go in the beginning when did you leave Greece
"marina": and why
Mmanetas: I left GR on 1985
Mmanetas: .Following a female
Mmanetas: .She wanted to go to Italy
Mmanetas: I just wanted : out of here !
"marina": do you think you would have done different things if you have
stayed ?
Mmanetas: More drugs probably : )
"marina": your first major show
Mmanetas: In Milan, Fac Simile Gallery
"marina": which work of yours is the most important to yourself and why
Mmanetas: a show called Extras
Mmanetas: A girl-Vanessa Beecroft- was suspended 5 m from the floor of the
gallery
Mmanetas: She would typewrite descriptions of characters from Fiction novels
"marina": what do you mean she was the piece?
Mmanetas: Thousands of those descriptions were illustrating the walls of
the gallery
Mmanetas: The piece was called Extras
Mmanetas: People from books
Mmanetas: VB was on the center as the executive writer : )
"marina": miltos, the magazine photographer is in Chelsea beside us to take
pictures that is the third person
Mmanetas: Do you also see me on the www ?
"marina": no my idea is to only have pictures of our meeting in chelsea and
maybe in the end i am going to have one of yours from there
Mmanetas: Ok nice
"Cirax": Hi Girls
"marina": tell me about microsites and your fixation with computer
technology
Mmanetas: MIRRORSITES
"marina": sorry
Mmanetas: I suppose that when you do art you need a subject
"marina": how mirrorsites started
Mmanetas: I had no Subject j until I bought my first laptop
"marina": what happened when you bought it
Mmanetas: I opened it : )
Mmanetas: There was light coming from the screen, I liked that..
"marina": and...
"marina": art how did it prompt out of there
Mmanetas: I mean, when I bought that first laptop, I was just buying a
portative : )
Mmanetas: But it was loaded with more power than light
Mmanetas: Not art, but power
Mmanetas: You see, I don't believe that computers have anything to do with
Art
"marina": yes but since than you made the best out of it it became your
means of expression
Mmanetas: At least no more that what mountains or apples or women or
politics
Mmanetas: Computer World is a the so-called Real World a landscape
"marina": what about art though
Mmanetas: Useless in it self but interesting in its connection with other
stuff
"marina": art and communication and computers
Mmanetas: Art is the formal stuff that the execution of ideas happens to
output.
"marina": thiw is a question
Mmanetas: Communication has nothing to do with that.
Mmanetas: I hate communication: I try to have as little as I can
"marina": i think coom. has alot to do with art and with what we are doing
now that is a fragment of your art
Mmanetas: Communication is good mostly for promotional and presentational
purposes
"marina": I am very excited that i can see you in a scooter in a camera the
same time
Mmanetas: Not really : my art is just those DLP ( Dead Large Paintings)
Mmanetas: What we do now is exiting but is nothing more that stay somewhere
and talk
"marina": ok i got your answer so art is not Chelsea world nor your
performance
Mmanetas: Chelsea World is a citizen project
Mmanetas: I never considered it art
"marina": explain it
"Creator": :P
Mmanetas: In fact, I don't care much about how its formal development
Mmanetas: Chelsea is just like a Gas Station
"marina": what is the future of art and your output into it only your large
painting
"Creator": bye
Mmanetas: You want to have one on the highway so people will stop there and
you will be able to watch them
"marina": i would not think so i think what you do is creating a dialogue in
new territories
Mmanetas: Galleries (in real space) are also like Chelsea
Mmanetas: Chelsea is just a double-nothing more(or less)
"marina": no you cannot fly come in a scooter or fantasize
Mmanetas: All territories are new
"marina": tell me about your latest shows
Mmanetas: Depends of your abilities dear !
Mmanetas: There are people that can do strange things even in the real space
"marina": i am disable in the real world but i feel i could anything here
Mmanetas: There are no limitations: in both "real" and "unreal"
"marina": so your latest shows in Paris for example
Mmanetas: Or: there are only limitations, in both "real" and "unreal"
Mmanetas: Here is the last show, follow me..
"marina": what are you going to show in paris
"marina": i do not see much just a grey tv
Mmanetas: (to "marina") You see that ?
"marina": no just grey
Mmanetas: Strange: I can see it ! Anyway, here it is :
http://www.manetas.com/almine/
Mmanetas: It is a show of large vibracolours
"marina": i will go there in the meantime tell me about it
Mmanetas: And a performance with Mai Ueda
"marina": what short of perf.
Mmanetas: She plays Big Brother while she sings
"marina": why you choose big brother
Mmanetas: You see the eyes of that boy (the guy who programed BBrother )
follow the mouse
Mmanetas: Pretty stupid performance
"marina": why you do things that feel are stupid
"marina": i mean that you feel
Mmanetas: I cannot help it
"marina": so you thing of your ideas as stupid
Mmanetas: Socrates was doing such things also
Mmanetas: Dementia: that's staged stupidity
"marina": oh i understand
Mmanetas: Like walking on clouds etc
"marina": tell me of your most valuable collaborators?
Mmanetas: Women of course
"marina": do you collaborate a lot with people
Mmanetas: and drugs and machines
Mmanetas: and books
"marina": name them
Mmanetas: No collaboration: I hate that
Mmanetas: Joint Ventures mostly
"marina": how would you call it
"marina": do you want to name them
Mmanetas: I joint ventured a lot with VB. We controlled each other's ideas
Mmanetas: She gave me form solutions and colors and style
"marina": for your paintings do you do joint ventures
Mmanetas: I gave her dialectical elements and clarity etc
Mmanetas: For paintings: no venture: they are very ego
"marina": why do you paint
Mmanetas: I use assistants but all decisions belong to me
Mmanetas: Stuff and humans: classic
"marina": are you fixated with the end product is this why you paint?
Mmanetas: I usually do a 40 % of a painting but I control somehow the 90 %
Mmanetas: Yes: I love End product
"marina": your next project where what when
Mmanetas: I also paint because it is successful
Mmanetas: I mean in both ways: for now and for after
"marina": you love success under any circumstance
Mmanetas: You see, a photo if it gets a little damage it is dead forever
"marina": in which parts of the world are you going to be next for shows
Mmanetas: a painting can lose all colors, or you can crop the composition or
whatever but it still keeps the idea
Mmanetas: I am finalizing now the ? WORD project
Mmanetas: I am planing it for 7 years ...
"marina": is there one major idea behind all the things you do
Mmanetas: The ? Word will be presented at Gagosian-NY on the 31 May
(http://www.name4art.com)
"marina": what is the world project it sounds grandiose
Mmanetas: ?Word is a new name for the art
"marina": it will be consist of what
Mmanetas: such as Cubism, Dada, etc
Mmanetas: I purchased the new word from Lexicon Branding
"marina": paintings and performances?
Mmanetas: The company that gave the name to Powerbook, Pentium etc
Mmanetas: They charge 100.000 $ for a name !
"marina": what do you mean you bought what?
Mmanetas: They just gave it to me yesterday at San Francisco
Mmanetas: But is a top secret until the 31May
"marina": what exactly did they give you it is complicated
Mmanetas: Just a name
"marina": why you wanted it
Mmanetas: A new name for the art.
Mmanetas: why you wanted it : what a QUESTION !
"marina": and why this is the new name for art according to your opinion
"marina": sorry you seem to want bizarre 'thinks'
Mmanetas: names have the power to visualize the World for you
"marina": tell me though why do you want to rename art
"marina": i got you
Mmanetas: Once the World is visualized, you can decide then if you really
want to be part of it or not
Mmanetas: You asked me before about the center of my production
"marina": can i publish this information on the 27 of may the day thiws
interview will see the light
Mmanetas: This is Word Visualization
"marina": is this your first show in Gagosian
Mmanetas: I am not interesting in Freedom-I could sell myself as a slave -
as Diogenes did
Mmanetas: But I am interesting in Visualization
"marina": yes but agathon was sold to ippias as a slave and i think he did
not like it
Mmanetas: Using your eyes or without their help
"marina": without their help complicated
"marina": are you interested in making a lot of money from your art
Mmanetas: I can see something without use my eyes-can't you ?
Mmanetas: I am not interesting in money: there was never a problem for me
"marina": you are right i can see my inner wishes
Mmanetas: They are falling from the sky every time that I need them
"marina": i do not mean a problem but I mean that some artists are measuring
their success in dollars
Mmanetas: Money: its an issue of visualization again.
Mmanetas: If you can see them: there they are
Mmanetas: $ are easy: they are all green
"marina": what do you think according to what you see in terms of art making
and the general audience is it a fruitful dialogue
Mmanetas: There is not dialogue
Mmanetas: Audience is cool exactly because it doesn't care much
"marina": for me this is a problem is it not for you
Mmanetas: General Audience is like a wall: you can hang a picture on it: it
will not change its attitude
Mmanetas: It will remain a tall and heavy beast
"marina": I think that audience is starting to care much more and that art
works as a virus good one to the society
Mmanetas: Art means nothing to society
"marina": even if art is a fatal disease to everybody i am too self center
to admit it is going to do well
Mmanetas: Here is the secret: when you look at art you don't see any "art"
"marina": it means a bit....
Mmanetas: Because if something is "art" then its new
"marina": no you see life in a sense
"marina": very avant-garde point of view
Mmanetas: and if it is new, it is unbelievable
Mmanetas: When it becomes believable, it is not any new anymore
"marina": you don't think that we need some unbelievable issues to believe
to ?
Mmanetas: Then, you see what you know
"marina": I learn from what I see and off course I reflect myself into them
Mmanetas: Which doesn't really effects you if you are not already available
to change
"marina": miltos you seem a bit tired i could make a text from what i have
Mmanetas: And the Big Public is not available to changes
Mmanetas: I am not tired
"marina": do you want to go on or you want to quit
Mmanetas: I can go on.
"marina": ok i was just playing mummy i missed you when are coming here
Mmanetas: Depends: if you really want to know something more...
"marina": tell me of what exactly will consist the project in new york
"marina": in gagosian i mean
Mmanetas: I am putting on a large presentation with important people from
different directions
Mmanetas: Such as J. Kosuth, William Gibson, The man who invented the
computer mouse,
"marina": to go back to the big public they are open to changes there are
just used to get them in their sleep that is why i feel art should work like
a virus
Mmanetas: Bjork, etc
"marina": are you putting portraits of them
Mmanetas: No: the real ones
"marina": are they going to be there
Mmanetas: A big conference table with them
"marina": one day
Mmanetas: I will present the new name and they will speak five minutes each
Mmanetas: Its not a show: it is a presentation
"marina": i feel that this is very important to the society and themselves
Mmanetas: It will be a presentation for a new name
"marina": it contradicts a bit what you were saying on the idea of dialogue
Mmanetas: A new name for all that landscape of the screen
Mmanetas: It will not be a dialogue
Mmanetas: They will just say something
Mmanetas: Then, a Sony laptop, will announce the new name
"marina": each one individually?
"marina": and paintings?
"marina": ok stupid question it is not a show
"marina": what about a new show except Paris where else
Mmanetas: Its not a show. Anyway, there will be the shadow paintings of A.
Warhol around
Mmanetas: And I also asked for ten Jeff Koons puppies with flowers
"marina": what is a Warhol around
Mmanetas: And I'll have some screens with art of different people that
fullfill the new nme
Mmanetas: There will be a Warhol show but we keep the pictures
Mmanetas: Because its a nice coincidence, isn't it ?
"marina": miltos do you want to go on another corner for more pictures while
we talk
Mmanetas: It will be a Manifesto /presentation
"marina": i lost you
Mmanetas: Let me find a cigarette
Mmanetas: Do you see the paintings in high resolution ?
Mmanetas: There is an update in the program now, you know ?
Mmanetas: You can see all the details
Mmanetas: I can send you some images after that
"marina": i will change the resolution afterwards
Mmanetas: Chelsea is impressive after this update
"marina": yes but i have to give the interv. in may 18
Mmanetas: Ok: here is my program
Mmanetas: I have the Elysian Fields in Pompidou on the 23 May
"marina": can you send more images by than
"marina": the elysian field is the performance you showed me?
Mmanetas: I'll have 2 paintings there and maybe a performance using a
famous rock star
"marina": which one?
Mmanetas: (to "marina") I cannot tell you yet
Mmanetas: (to "marina") I'll know in a few days if yes
"marina": ok why you choose to have a famous rock star
Mmanetas: (to "marina") It will be an Abstract Super Mario Performance
"marina": explain?????
Mmanetas: Like that :
http://www.manetas.com/art/performances/abstractsupermario.html
"Nina": hi everybody
"JOZEF": hi Nina ;
Mmanetas: The girl is playing Super Mario but you see only pictures running
on the screen
"marina": i will go and see after tour meeting and after Paris and New York
Mmanetas: Elysian Fields is the show made by Purple
Mmanetas: a very important show
"marina": in what sense important
Mmanetas: With artists but also designers, composers etc
"marina": so again dialogue in interdisciplinary fields
Mmanetas: There will be live show of people such as Sonic Youth etc
Mmanetas: No dialogue: its a show ....
Mmanetas: Commes de Garsons made an installation
"marina": could you arrange for a poor art critic ticket expenses i can do
something for intervista flash art and symbol in greece
Mmanetas: (to "marina") I'll try to do that
Mmanetas: The environment of the show is made by architects
"marina": a dialogue that stems out of a show I meant before
Mmanetas: It will be a contemporary village inside Pompidou
Mmanetas: After that, I am going to NY for the ?Word presentation
"marina": i could be in paris the 23 rd if you tell me before hand for the
ticket and i could send you letters of ass. from g. if that helps for the
covering of the ticket politi
"marina": giancarlo politi imean it did not print right
Mmanetas: and then back to Los Angeles to start my electronicOrhanage
http://www.elecrtonicorphanage.com)
"marina": which is what
Mmanetas: (to "marina") I am waiting from Olivier to see if they can cover
expenses
Mmanetas: EO will se a store front that I rented in Chinatown
"marina": what is the orphanage
Mmanetas: I'll hire young people to play videogames and do Internet all day
long
Mmanetas: You can spy on them from the window
Mmanetas: or on Internet, real time
"marina": in order to become 'educated'?
Mmanetas: No education: just a window
Mmanetas: They will do everything that we don't have time to do
Mmanetas: and we will watch them
"marina": you are opening new windows to peoples eyes?
Mmanetas: Its again a landscape: like a mountain
Mmanetas: Put windows before peoples eyes...
Mmanetas: Again, its not an art project but a citizen one
"marina": that is what i mean ....help society to open its eyes
"marina": even more if it a citizen project
Mmanetas: ?Word, ElectronicOrphanage, ChelseaWorld, they are all citizen
projects
Mmanetas: You know the book of Lenin: What to Do ?
Mmanetas: I never read it but I like the title
Mmanetas: We must do some citizen job: its a new century after all !
"marina": me either what do you think that it comes out of despair
Mmanetas: I mean: we better change everything: its easy anyway...
"marina": i think so too but you were saying that the big public is like a
wall
Mmanetas: You don't make the changes for the BP...
"marina": you are an elitist
Mmanetas: No, I have a very crisp idea of my public
"marina": you make changes for everybody i think
Mmanetas: You really want to hear it ?
"marina": yes
Mmanetas: Ok, here it is:
Mmanetas: 80% of dead people
"marina": miltos you mean dead people you admired?
Mmanetas: Yes Referents.
Mmanetas: Dostoyevsky- Picasso etc
"marina": and appart from those nobody?
Mmanetas: Then a 20 % of alive ones
Mmanetas: From them, a 15% are connoisseurs
"marina": changes seem to me that come through people in life with the
supervision of the dead referents
Mmanetas: Art people, writers, etc
Mmanetas: Elite
Mmanetas: And another 5% normal people
Mmanetas: My mother type
Mmanetas: So hen I do things, I try to satisfy that combination
"marina": i think that the best output i had lately for a show i was invited
to participate as a curator was from a cleaning lady of a hotel that hosted
the show
"marina": so you do art to change or to satisfy minds ?
Mmanetas: Lets say you do something: If 5 in a 100 cleaning ladies like it
then you have your 5%
Mmanetas: Then you need the consensus of 15 people from 100 from the elite
"marina": it is not a matter of liken it it a matter of feeling its 'change'
Mmanetas: The beauty with this scheme is that you never know if you are in
the right direction because the opinion of the dead remains unknown
Mmanetas: At least during your lifespan
"marina": so you are a bit afraid of hearing opinions
Mmanetas: You can only guess if Picasso feels a "change" because you paint
some cables
Mmanetas: I love opinions: they help statistics
"marina": do they affect you
Mmanetas: Thats the reason I give interviews: It s active job to me
"marina": interviews not always contain opinion
Mmanetas: It may feel strange to you, but I am actually doing now that we
are talking is painting
"marina": beside the interview
Mmanetas: Interviews are opinions because they always reflect the opinion of
the interviewer and not of its subject
"marina": or because you are bored?
Mmanetas: I mean painting in the sense of decision making for subjects
Mmanetas: I am bored of boredom: its such a 20th century issue!!!
"marina": especially when the interviewer is a fun of you like me and not
objective?
"marina": i am bored of boredom too
Mmanetas: A fun is a fun for the same wrong reasons as a not fun..
"marina": is not wrong i like you
"marina": i am human and you speak to something like my 'soul'
"marina": do not start crying ha ha
Mmanetas: It not wrong but the reasons are wrong: i mean: every calculation
about the present of things is necessarily wrong
Mmanetas: Because we watch the picture from inside
"marina": a fun is life and it is acceptable to my personal world after
years of psychoanalysis
"marina": i admit it when i like something lately
"marina": Miltos is there anything else you can tell me that reflect your
opinion and not mine i have to go in 15 minutes
Mmanetas: Go near the yellow painting please
Mmanetas: I am taking some pictures too : )
"marina": which painting
Mmanetas: The girl over the table
Mmanetas: Here
"marina": why you want to be here ?
"marina": i like a lot I can see you i can go where you want i can see you
in the camera new senses thank you i feel great
"marina": speak to me babe i feel lonely
Mmanetas: Sorry I was taking pictures: )
"marina": how do you want to close the interview ?
"marina": it is up to you
Mmanetas: I don't know...
"marina": actually can you take me for a ride in your scooter?
"marina": how can i join you there in the scooter
Mmanetas: Click on Araki
"marina": i did
"marina": where are you
"marina": i find you where are we
Mmanetas: Around Chelsea
Mmanetas: Can you see the televisions ?
"marina": yes
Mmanetas: You see all images or there are greys ?
"marina": that is how you want us to end?
"marina": i see the images
Mmanetas: Ok
Mmanetas: Lets end then!
Mmanetas: Did you kept all the text ?
"marina": lets see tv together than
Knekkebroed: i have a friend on icq that want to download AW.....what's the
address ??? anybody ?
"marina": yes i did
Mmanetas: www.activeworlds.com
Knekkebroed: thank you :)
"marina": bye miltos nice to see you now i realized i missed you
Mmanetas: Come in NY on the 31 MAY !
"marina": no money but i will come in paris if you can help me
"marina": bye
Mmanetas: I'll be there only if I can do the perf
Mmanetas: lovexxxxx
"marina": take good care of yourself
"marina": love xxx