:01.2006 Interview with Miltos Manetas www.manetas.com
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Miltos Manetas (born in Athens, Greece) lives between Los Angeles and Paris. His “signature” works are large oil on canvas paintings representing computers, cables, and people playing videogames. He is also known for his short movies made with videogames characters such as SuperMario and Lara Croft and his peculiar websites such as JesusSwimming.com.
In May 2000, during a packed press conference at the Gagosian Gallery in Manhattan, Manetas introduced "NEEN”, a name for a new art movement which he commissioned to California based branding company Lexicon.

Can you tell us a little bit about your work as an artist. Who is Miltos Manetas and what does he do?

Miltos Manetas was born in Greece on 06 Oct 1964.
In 1985 he moved from Athens to Rome.
In 1986 he moved from Rome to Milan.
In 1995 he moved from Milan to New York.
In 1999 he moved from New York to Los Angeles.
In 2003 he moved back from Los Angeles to New York.
Since 2004 he has been going back and forth between Los Angeles and Paris.

Here is a lot more about him although not everything;
www.manetas.com

It seems that you are the brain behind Neen. What is Neen and how do you work as a collective?

Neen is not a collective; it's a new approach or at least an attempt to find a way of existing in this Society of the Spectacle. As it happens, the alternatives we had until yesterday to escape from the traps of Spectacle are not valid today. Spectacle is now on its brand new version, a kind of cruel social videogame where your mere existence makes you a participant weather you want it or not. Because the difference between a producer of content and a consumer depends today only on our decision either to produce content or not. We are like pixels that are either value 1 or value 0. In any case, we are part of Spectacle's Screen; we collaborate on the creation of its images. As far as the concept of Art is concerned, I believe that anyone with a computer is today an Artist. The point is: how do we relate with all that, what do we still find enjoyable and somehow personal and what on the other hand is just Spectacles business?

But again, don't think of Neenstars as some nerds who are being over careful to not be manipulated by Spectacle. We play the game as well as we can. After all, Spectacle is sweet, why reject it? But through Neen, we try to keep some control over the fiction. Being an actor is ok but it's also important to know when the filming starts.

As for myself, I am just a Neen Projector. Neen is a concept I happened to fall upon- I know that this doesn't sound convincing but really, Neen arises from the few subliminal feelings we have through the computer screen and contemporary life: I feel as if me and my friends just happened to awake a sleeping demon.

Sonar focused one of its media art exhibitions on the Neen movement. I seem to remember that all the Neen crew seem very close friends. Is friendship one of the main elements of Neen as a group? How do you have to be to be considered as a Neen artist?

I don't know. There is no a fixed profile that defines a Neenstar. Anyone can become a Star of Neen, in pretty much the same way that anyone can become a Rock Star. If the people who are involved with Neen admire you for some reason, there it is: your Neen reputation grows. People invite you to exhibitions; include you in their Blogs, you become important for them. Friendship is not the point in Neen, although some of us became good friends. But there is another element that interrelates people involved with Neen amongst themselves and that's the creation of their pieces: A Neenstar can make pieces for another one, in other words, you don't have to make your Neen yourself, someone else can give it to you and still it belongs to and represents only you. There is Neen Karma for each of us. To some it's clear to others it's more hidden. If anyone of us feels the need for it, that's already enough to bring it into existence.

One of the things I think is very interesting in Neen is the rescue of Manifesto. Why do you use Manifesto as one of the devices to promote your ideas?

We live in simulation-times. We can use tools of the past-such as Manifestos, revolution and the like to give charisma to our game playing.

What does Neen bring to the art scene that could be considered different?

The idea of fluid identity I was talking about before is new. In Contemporary Art, the artwork is always the responsibility of the artist or at least the consequence of the artist's ideas and activities. In Neen however, the artwork is a mere possibility, something made possible because of the existence of the person. Here is an example: Rafael Rozendaal brought me a Flash animation he found online that could draw Jackson Pollock patterns for you because he had the idea that this animation was very Miltos Manetas. Then, Mai Ueda insisted that I register Jacksonpollock.org and put the animation in it. That's how a Neen work was born; my friends noticed the possibility of this piece of mine and put it together. But it wouldn't have happened without me creating the demand, even if I had never really asked them for a Jackson Pollock piece. Do you see what I mean?

Another difference between Neen and Contemporary Art is that while in Art you need to build a whole career in Neen, one little thing is enough to make people think high of you and give you as much as they can. Neen is also a back door that permits you to enter Contemporary Art. This year's Biennial in Valencia featured two Neenstars, who don't have a long exhibition history, next to very famous international artists.


Neen currently has an online project about copyright and anti-copyright. What does it consist of?

Iamgonnacopy.com Neen is amateur in terms of social Theories. We are looking for them though and our first interest was the discussion about copyright. We designed a logo against intellectual property and copyright and we encourage people to graffiti it around. We believe that all ideas are open source -if you can get their source of course- and that there is a lot of glory in appropriating the right source at the right moment.


What upcoming projects are you involved in?

SuperNeen in Milan. This is a show at the Gallery Pack, curated by myself and Nina Vagic. The space of the exhibition is created by Andreas Angelidakis (www.angelidakis.com) ) and it's a development of his NeenWorld scenario. In Neen World, Angelidakis designed a Neen Village where every place represents either aesthetics or ideas of the different Neenstars. There you had a new architecture that was similar in a way to fashion: people could have their building made in the same way that you could have a suit made for you by a fashion designer. But it was all for the computer screen, you could visit it online using an avatar body and it was part of the Active Worlds universe (www.activeworlds.com). ). Now, Angelidakis is bringing all that one step further, animating some of those spaces for the real place of the gallery. While other architects use computers and the Internet as a tool, Angelidakis sees them as a place and then in the real World brings back the memories of that place in the form of regular architecture. At SuperNeen in Milan, his NeenWorld will host projections of different Neen Websites (for Neenstars, Websites are their most beloved artworks) and it will also function as a meeting place for people involved with Neen and the public at large.


Could you recommend us a special website and tell us what it is and why you like it?

There is a new website that Angelo Plessas made. It's a hidden website; its name is not announced you need to find it online. Start by looking at www.angeloplessas.com

Your readers can send an email to Angelo Plessas (A@angeloplessas.com) to get more information.


Here is the Neen Manifesto:

a few things I know about neen"


Neen, stands for Neenstars: a still undefined generation of visual artists. Some of them belong to the Contemporary Art world; others are software creators, web designers and videogame directors or animators.


Our official theories about reality -Quantum physics etc. - proved that the taste of our life is the taste of a simulation. Machines help us feel comfortable with this condition: they simulate the simulation that we call Nature. Opening the door of your room or clicking on a folder on your computer desktop will send you to similar destinations, two versions of reality which are apparently impeccable and dense, but they will start dissolving after you analyze them.

Computing is to Neen what Fantasy was to Surrealism and Freedom to Communism. It creates its context but it can also be postponed. Neenstars glorify machines but they get easily bored with them. Sometimes they prefer just watching others operating them. But anyway, they always buy the newest products and they study how (these products) create momentum. They also like teaching weird stuff to machines: they will animate a character and send him sit on a corner.

Neen is about losing time on different operating systems. "Take the stairs and go back to get the elevator": Neenstars find their pleasure in their in between actions. They also love copying, in the same way that the city of Hong Kong multiplies its most successful buildings. The same a little different: Names, Clothes, Style, Art and Architecture, are important for Neenstars. So they do all that from scratch, as if what has been done before them is not so important.

Neen is very sentimental but it's not about identity, although the Neenstars occasionally use their identities as passwords in order to receive privileged information. Because the identity of a Neenstar is his state of mind, he is free to use the identity of another Neenstar if he/she needs to do so. But this works also in reverse: sometimes a Neenstar invents the artwork of another and that is the major difference between Neen and Contemporary Art.

While in Contemporary Art you need to be yourself all the time, a certain type of "Hero" who is polishing always his image until he/she becomes a mirror of his/her lifetime, in Neen you are a kind of "screen". A Neenstar projects a temporary self which stays always under construction and moves from the Present to Past and Future without limitations. And because a Neenstar will publish everything on the web, his/her state of mind reflects on the public taste. Neenstars are public personas.

If fantasy brought Surrealists to the ridiculous and revolution drove Communists to failure, it will be curious to observe where computing will bring Neen






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