Miltos Manetas, Andreas Angelidakis, Angelo Plessas (Eng)

Could you introduce the ElectronicOrphanage ? What is the aim of the EO ?
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). We are planning to open soon an EO in Sangai, China and Goa, India.

Who are you working with in the EO ?
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), 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 (also know as Gnac, music), Nicola Tosicn (EO's CEO and webdesign), Mai Ueda (production, art).

Could you describe the orphans ?
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 experiences. 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.

What do you think about this new creators generation ?
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.

What are you looking for in network performances ?
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), but the artworld has been slow to catch up, mostly because they are Apple users and Active Worlds (www.activeworlds.com) are for PC. After Chelsea, we builded WorldPlusPlus (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.

Could you introduce your Villette numérique's performance ? What is NEEN ?
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 and www.whitneybiennial.com

Do you think that art is for everybody ? If yes, what is the strategy ?
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.

Video games in the world of the 11 September ?
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, architect :
« I try to achieve virtuality with regular building materials »

Where are you from ?
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.

How did you meet Miltos Manetas ?
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.

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

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

Do you work differently to build spaces for the Internet or for the physical space ?
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 achieve 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.

I guess I understood that you will create the Neen architecture for the Villette numérique's performance. How do you imagine Neen's world ? And then how will you create it with the help of the others ?
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.

What do you think about the concept of "event" in architecture ?
I prefer buildings without people.

Have you ever worked before on stage or performances ?
Yes, a long time ago I used to do the sets for the art-techno band called Stereo Nova, and recently I did Pause space in Stockholm's Fargfabriken, where the photographer Jean-Pierre Khazem staged performances with models.

What is your next project ?
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, net.artist, webdesigner : « With a computer, to have the same fascination as looking at a beautifull sunset »

Where are you from ?
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.

How did you meet M Manetas ?
Through Andreas Angelidakis.

What kind of collaboration do you have ?
He buys domains and I design flash animations.

How do you work with the other orphans for webprojects?
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 website was finished after half an hour.

What is the meaning for you to create for internet ?
I dont know if it means something, it is just the only place. It's 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.

You often take internet or computers interfaces in your artwork, do you think that there is a new aesthetics in it ?
That's the only thing I do. I make web sites as an artwork. I'm not sure if the aesthetic is new, but definitely 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. It's always the same but something makes us look at it.

What would you like to explore now ?
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.

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

Your next project ?
I have just finished the website 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.

Interview made by Isabelle Arvers in Paris, August 2002

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