Fair and, strangely enough, she doesn't like using computers. She doesn't even have an email, but here is her phone number». And so I left a message to this "un-connected" daughter of the inventor of the internet and, a few days later, I got back from her another voice message with her stepfather's number. We agreed to meet at his office in UCLA, the very same place from where Kleinrock had sent the first email ever. It was actually a word, or even better, just two letters: at 10:30 p.m, on October 29th 1969, Kleinrock tried to send the word "login" from UCLA's Boelter Hall to Stanford Research Institute's SDS 940 host computer. The L and the O letters were transmitted, but the system then crashed. Hence, this literal first message over the net was Lo - a shortening of "look". «The same Lo of the famous phrase Lo and Behold!» Dr. Kleinrock told me when we finally met. Behold comes from the Middle English beholden, and it means to hold, to occupy, to possess. That's what the Network said the first time it met us humans: look, here I am, I will take over! «Dr. Kleinrock, is it right that you aren't satisfied with the internet?» I had asked «You want us to be able to connect from any place, with any device, you want the device to be invisible, even immaterial... Nature is all that, maybe the internet you really dreamt of was nothing else but just another layer of nature?» «That's more or less right,» said Dr. Kleinrock «I never thought of it philosophically, I just thought it would be more practical. Just another layer of nature... it sounds good to me...» I was in Los Angeles and it was April already, when I found out that the verdict of The Pirate Bay trial had been announced. At 11:00 AM on April 17th 2009 Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström were all found guilty and sentenced to serve one year in prison and pay a fine of 30 million SEK (about 2.7 million or US$ 3.5 million). I was just back in town from Coachella where I was supposed to meet the singer M.I.A. The idea was to ask M.I.A to come to Venice and sing at the party of the Padiglione Internet, but she cancelled our meeting and I left Coachella for Desert Hot Springs and spent the night there.The day after, I decided to go for a ride and, while travelling towards Palm Springs, I noticed a sign for the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway. «We are in the middle of the desert.» I said to myself «An Aerial Tramway, which goes where exactly?» I followed the sign and, I can assure, an Aerial Tramway built by a Swiss company in 1963 was actually there. I bought a ticket and a little later I was into a much cooler temperature (40° F, 22° C) than in the desert, walking along nature trails, looking at the surreal snow and, finally, climbing on a rock from where I could enjoy a view that stretched northward for more than 200 miles (320 km), all the way to Mount Charleston north of Las Vegas, Nevada. Thinking of Mr. Kleinrock's words, I turned on my camera and started talking to myself and at the same time filming. NEWS In the context of 53rd Venice Biennale (Making Worlds), the artist Miltos Manetas and the curator Jan Åman, invited the pirates of ThePirateBay. org to create the first Embassy of Piracy in Venice. S.A.L.E's activists will provide the boats and the space. AN EMBASSY OF PIRACY Our intention is to re-define and re-write everything: all terms can be renewed, all systems can be destroyed and built again.The Internet is cool but it is also a nightmare: an empire of psychologically forced labor and a real desert of computer screens.We have a strong desire for a New Internet and we also desire to free ourselves from our machines.We want to be able to send an email without computers, Blackberry and other devices. Ultimately, we want to satisfy the 3 Kleinrock Demands: THE 3 KLEINROCK DEMANDS 1. We should be able to connect from any place. 2. We should be able to connect by any device. 3. The device should be invisible and even immaterial. THE INTERNETS Internet today is not some virtual entity, but a network that can materialize in everything: from court systems, parliaments and phone networks to memes, music and art systems. Forget browsers, files and computers, Internet is everywhere, it is wherever you are ready to receive it. Embassy of Piracy, 2009: Internets are those real places or contexts -such as the Venice Biennale- where it is possible to revert everything just by using the power and the possibilities offered today to anyone with a computer and a
network connection. (Miltos Manetas, everymanwithacomputerisanartist.com, 2000) Internets is a word first used by the former United States President George W. Bush during the 2000 election campaign: We can have filters on Internets where public money is spent. There ought to be filters in public libraries and filters in public schools so if kids get on the Internet, there is not going to be pornography or violence coming in. (George W. Bush, presidential debate against Al Gore on October 17th, 2000). I hear there are rumours on the Internet that we're going to have a draft. I don't know how many of these Internets are carrying these rumours, but they're just wrong. I think the problem here may be more of a question of getting rid of the bad Internets and keeping the good Internets. You know, 'cause I think we can all agree... There are just too many Internets. (George W. Bush, the day following the Bush/ Kerry debate, October 9th, 2004). MILTOS MANETAS After meeting Leonard Kleinrock at his office in the UCLA, I got into my car again and headed towards San Francisco. Two weeks passed by, in a very frenetic rhythm. I remember visiting absurd places such as the rest of Silicon Valley where the poorest people of the world live, American misery IN EVERY SHAPE AND FORM, next to the likes of Microsoft and Apple. Going back to LA again, where I had to meet Shaman Durek Verrett, I stopped for a night at the Big Sur. I had no idea that Henry Miller used to like it there, neither that there was such a thing as the Henry Miller Memorial Library. Still, that's where I found myself buying a copy of Homer's Odyssey and I took that book with me to LA and showed it to Durek while he was trying to explain to me about how computer screens are hypnotizing us. As I was leaving Durek's house in a taxi, going directly to LA airport and from there to my studio in London, I felt my ideas about the Padiglione Internet clearing up.What was wrong with today's internet and with today's computers altogether, was the fact that everything was based on screens. "Screen" comes from the Middle Dutch *skerm that means cover or from the Frankish *skrank which means barrier. As a verb, it means to shield from punishment, to conceal. Screen is a barrier that "covers in order to protect" but while it does that, it hypnotises us. There is definitely a great beauty about anything with a hypnotic power, as a matter of fact most of the art I like calling Neen has that power. But what about a network that doesn't depend on screens, a network where nobody is hypnotized? What if we start thinking of Another Internet, start thinking of the SlowNet? I arrived in the UK on May 20th, 2009. Only ten days were left before the opening of the Biennale: I should have been doing some last minute duties in London and then depart for Venice. But for some reason, I wasn’t going to buy my ticket, something inside me was telling me that I should be going somewhere else instead. But where? As the Padiglione Internet was officially part of the Venice Biennale, Vogue Italia had arranged an interview and photo-shoot at my studio in High Gate to be included in its traditional Biennale Issue of Uomo Vogue. The interview was held by Angela Maria Piga and as I was answering her questions, I had a revelation. Angela Maria Piga: «Paul Vilirio has defined as Dromology the logic of Speed. Such Speed has altered our perception of time as well as space: in some way, a monk of the Dark Ages, who would wander around the globe in conditions we can't even imagine, was more conscious of geography and history than we are today. As for communication, Internet was supposed to bring us closer, but on the contrary it only gave us permission to disappear, to isolate ourselves at home and to become more static than ever. Is this the desert you are talking about? A lonely person in front of a laptop, sending messages everywhere, looking at worlds he will never really come to know?» Miltos Manetas: «This is certainly another aspect of the desert: contemporary human misery, the fact that we have become some kind of a puppet, cables hanging all around us, cables that are loose, disconnected. What really interests me, though, is the metaphysical aspect of the desert, the desert intended as a place of learning and revelation. Do you remember Jesus? He also went to the desert and spent a lot of time there, if any contemporary prophet will ever show up, he will be coming from the desert of the computer screens.» While giving that reply to Angela Maria, I realized that I never believed God existed and I still don't. I wasn't trying to make a logical argument, I don't say that God doesn't exist or that he is dead, etc... I just know that I
2009.Pirates of the internets
Padiglione Internet
Miltos Manetas TOWARDS THE INTERNET PAVILION Video in handheld projector, Signed edition of 5 - 2009 Music by Mark Tranmer
never believed he existed. But not to believe in something is not necessary when you actually need it badly. There was no way of coming up with any SlowNet in just ten days, there was no way of inventing another internet. But my wisdom for it was very strong as well as my desire to never look again at another computer screen. The last time that someone actually got something from God, it was in Sinai. That's where I had to go and ask for the SlowNet. I checked EasyJet's flights: there was one to Sharm El Sheikh and from there Sinai was just a few hours by taxi. I arrived there on May 24th, 2009. When I arrived at Sinai it was already late in the evening. I asked the taxi driver where I should spend the night and he suggested The Desert Fox Camp, located a short walk distance away from the Monastery of St. Catherine and right at the foot of the Mt. Sinai massif. Managed by Faraj "Fox" Mahmoud, the camp was a magic place and for some reason, I happened to be their only guest. «We are going to the desert to play some music» Faraj "Fox" Mahmoud told me as he was offering me some tea. «Do you want to join us?» I looked at him and at his company: all Bedouin men and only one woman, a British girl, married to Faraj. Bedouin women aren't allowed to go around with men, they spend most of the day at home doing jobs. «Because of the internet though, they are very well connected these days and they are actually controlling and managing everything from a distance» the woman told me. A little later, we were in a very lonely place in the middle of the desert. I watched the Bedouins preparing everything necessary for their improvised rave. Their traditional shabbabas, a length of metal pipe fashioned into a sort of flute, and the rababas, a versatile, one-string violin, lying on the desert floor as they were installing huge speakers on the top of their Hundais. Before starting to play, they also produced their smart phones, some very contemporary smart phones with strong internet connection. «Network is not a problem here, we have very good connection these days» they told me «It is necessary so we can share this with our people at home.» They went on playing and singing while some of them Skyped everything that was happening to their relatives and friends in Nuweiba. At some point, the people from the village also Skyped back sounds and songs to them, they amplified these songs through microphones and sent them to the speakers; a long-distance improvisation took place in the desert with music arriving from everywhere; a mystical "different network" was established! Filled with amazement, I paid no attention to the food they were giving me to eat. I consumed a large quantity of their bread and because I was on a strict no-gluten diet, the next day I woke
up with a very high fever. «Can you take me to Saint Catherine?» I asked the Bedouins. I knew that at this old Greek Orthodox monastery, that was built sometime around 548 A.D, there was a guesthouse and I figured that this would be a better place to recover than Desert Fox Camp concrete cold rooms. I spent the next two days there, my only company was a book about Moses and his quest to bring the Jews out of Egypt. That's how I learnt that after he returned from his first visit to the Holy Mountain, Moses had put 3000 people (some of whom were children) to death because they had worshipped a new God, the Golden Calf. Then Moses stood at the gate of the camp and said «Who is on the Lord's side? Let him come unto me». And all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together unto him. And he said unto them «Thus saith the Lord God of Israel "Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor"». And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men. (Exodus 32:26-28). In anger Moses also broke the commandment tablets God had given him and only later, when God gave him two new tablets to replace the ones he had smashed, the commandments were finally given. I had no idea -at that point- of what to do with this information, I didn't care about Moses, I just wanted to check if I could have some kind of Other Internet to bring to the Venice Biennale. At that point, my collaborators and guests had already arrived in Venice. I kept receiving messages asking where I was, what needed to be done, where we should meet for dinner. «I am here, but I am very busy» I would write back «I still need to talk with sponsors and with the people of the Biennale. I will let you know tomorrow»... I also received a message from the Venice Biennale: they wanted to make sure that the Pirate Bay wasn't involved any more with our Pavilion. «Of course they are NOT.» I wrote back to them «We will not be hosting any pirates, we will be hosting only artists. The theme of the Padiglione Internet of this year is the Second Wave of the Internet and is about digital art and new media culture, nothing really offensive, just art». I was faking it of course. Before leaving London I had received an invitation from S.A.L.E Magazzini del Sale, an alternative space located at Dorsoduro, near the Fondamenta delle Zattere, overlooking the Canale della Giudecca. S.A.L.E was taken over by a group of anarchists and
social agitators headed by Marco Baravalle, a friend of my friend curator Riccardo Lisi. Riccardo had talked to Marco about the Padiglione Internet and the Pirates and Marco had offered to host everyone at S.A.L.E. Even if I had a very clear idea about the fact that the Padiglione Internet should NOT occupy any physical space at all, I had accepted this offer, because this was the only way to involve the pirates without being sued by the Venice Biennale. To make things look even more convincing for the Biennale, I had put together -at the very last minute- a virtual exhibition called New Wave of Internet Art and I had involved in it some very valid second-generation internet artists such as Petra Cortright (US), Martijn Hendriks (NE), Harm Van den Dorpel (HO), Sinem Erkas (UK), Elna Frederick (US), Parker Ito (US), Oliver Laric (AU), Guthrie Lonergan (US), Rafael Rozendaal(NL) and Pascual Sisto (ES/US), Scott Kildall (US), Nathaniel Stern (US), Aleksandra Domanovic (SE). Finally, I had arranged for a performance of the Network of Love, the latest work by AIDS-3D. All this stuff would divert the attention of the Biennale and the Italian Government, in those days, strongly anti-piracy and antialternative internet. Now, after learning that there was a physical location in Venice, all these artists were excited and many of them had decided to bring their own beamers to Venice and to showcase their work as best as possible. I wasn't paying much attention to them, thinking that anyway, once in Venice, I would calm them down and convince them that the Padiglione Internet should stay online. I was wrong.... I never made it to the top of the mountain... I was too tired, too exhausted from the fever, too worn out from my quest for another Padiglione Internet. I just made it half-way up, with the company of a Bedouin teenager who actually taught me one or two things, but that's a whole other story, a story that I will start to realise only a year later. I never met with any God and never brought to the Venice Biennale the Internet Dr. Kleinrock was dreaming about when he was a teenager. I flew from Egypt to Italy empty-handed; I went straight to Fondamenta delle Zattere, straight to the Magazzini del Sale. The Pirates from the Pirate Bay were there and sure enough, they had set up their Embassy of Piracy already! Every day the anarchists of Magazzini would share their boats with them and they would go around with pirate flags, speaking about copyright and freedom to a completely uninterested art crowd, singing the beautiful Pirates of the Internet song. The artists I had invited were also there, they were projecting their websites in a sort of pathetic but sweet improvised installation that later would inspire Rafael Rozendaal's amazing BYOB operations: I knew that all that didn't look particularly good, that it wasn't art at all, imagine a
proper Padiglione Internet. But I was too weak to argue with them and to try to convince them to turn off their projectors. In the middle of Magazzini stood the skeleton of PAGES, the Internet-Space-turned-into-Place Christian Wassmann had projected. It didn't look good though: somewhere in the conversion Wassmann's beautiful idea had lost its proportion and its glamour and it had become just another piece of real-world furniture. On the other hand this wasn't Wassmann's fault, it was the way things are dominated by gravity in a world. I don't think that Le Corbusier's Phillips Pavilion looked that great in real life either. What's important, is to keep searching for what Christian calls "excess material", stuff that nobody asked us to create, stuff that nobody thinks is necessary. On my very last day in Venice, after a photo-shoot at Magazzini for Dazed & Confussed and while Dazed's photographer Matthew Stone was packing away his cameras, I watched as Rafael Rozendaal leapt into the waters of the Giudecca. For a second, we saw him suspended over the edge of the water, a very temporary sculpture, the final artwork produced by the First Padiglione Internet. Matthew Stone also turned and as he turned, he fired the trigger of his camera: a snapshot of the moment was frozen onto the wall of Digital, a reminder of the fact that gravity can be avoided. JAN ÅMAN A couple of weeks ago, the Pirate Bay temporarily renamed itself as the Persian Bay -installing proxy servers and many other elements designed to help the preservation of the internet and free communication in Iranwell, then it was obvious. The Embassy of Piracy, the pirates, and a whole generation of internet users are digging into and even changing reality. For me, getting a glimpse of the pirate generation has been a learning experience - the world truly is changing and big things are at stake. We are at a crucial moment. The pirates are confronting it all, they are not letting reality down. They act. And they do so with a smile. So, the Padiglione Internet has only just begun. The other entities the internet shows on this site, the AIDS 3D performance, the stuff that will be added during the summer and up until the closing of the Venice Biennale, will all add to the story, forming a real allegory of today. Palle, Kristin and Tobias of the Pirate Bay... laughing; Daniel Birnbaum smiling, the board of directors behind him, worrying; François Pinault (art collector) as the new Walt Disney of Venice; Joseph Brodsky; Jay Jopling in a boat taxi; the people in Iran... and in the middle, the artist, still alone, with a desert of black screens and the sound of an ever changing wind. (Jan Åman, PADIGLIONE INTERNET: Some Simple Starting Points)
D
uring the last two years, things have changed. Now the Net has partially moved from the Network to the independent devices of iPod/iPads and the other Internet tablets. If networks are “clouds”, these devices are “islands”. Our psychological connection to these, differs significantly from the relationship we have with computers. We believe that these “soft islands” -because of their design- are a first step towards a neo-analogue turn in technology. At the same time, they can potentially host the SlowNet, an Internet that does not depend on servers, remaining so, a free land. On the occasion of the Second Padiglione Internet, we are now introducing the concept of SlowNet on the Island of San Servolo. We also have in mind the concept of Metascreen. Mr. Leonard Kleinrock, the father of the Internet, complains that we aren’t serious yet with Internet, that our information bodies are still trapped in devices such as monitors/projectors/computers and so on. Mr. Kleinrock wants us to be able to connect from any place and by any device - even with a fork or an old shoe. He also wants the device to be invisible. What Mr. Kleinrock ultimately wants is that Internet should become nothing but another layer of Nature. He wants us to start having a natural relationship with the database, to start relating with internet objects, in the same way that we relate with clouds, sheep and ocean waves. We can’t satisfy Mr. Kleinrock’s requests, not yet at least. Still, we can talk about it and we can start dreaming of the day when we will quit serving these new Pyramids of Tech we are now building everywhere. In such context, BringYourOwnBeamer by Raphaël Rozendaal, is a perfect portrait of the current situation. It consists of a one-night event where people can bring their own machines and project on any space that they can grab. In a desperate attempt to open a window of fantasy and creativity over a heavily nested “real space”, BYOB is one of the few original expressions
-even if it is somewhat of a grimace- that are still possible to be achieved with visual arts. It is the cry of our extended selves, trapped between computer keyboards and the unnatural light of the projectors. Miltos Manetas on Padiglione Internet 2011. PARTECIPATING ARTISTS Agnes Bolt, Alterazioni Video, Albertine Meunier, Andreas Angelidakis, Angelo Plessas, Anna Franceschini, Billy Rennekamp, Boris Eldagser, Britta Thie, Claudia Rossini, Cristian Bugatti, Elisa Giardina Papa, Emily Jones & Sarah Hartnett (Year of the Hare), Hayley Silverman, Interno3 and crew, Iocose, Ivano Atzori, Jaime Martinez, Jeremy Bailey, Julien Levesque, Les liens invisibles, LG Williams/Estate Of LG Williams, Luca Bolognesi, LuckyPDF, Marc Kremers, Marco Cadioli, Marisa Olson, Marlous Borm, Martin Cole, Matteo Erenbourg, Michael Borras aka Sys- taime, Mike Ruiz, Miltos Manetas, Nazareno Crea, Nikola Tosic, Parker Ito, Pegy Zali, Petros Moris, Priscilla Tea, Rachele Maistrello, Rafaël Rozendaal, Rene Abythe, Riley Harmon, Sarah Ciraci,Tele Ghetto Haiti, Theodoros Giannakis, Travess Smalley, Thomas Cheneseau, UBER- MORGEN.COM,Valery Grancer,Wojciech Kosma,Yuri Pattison INVITED CURATORS Margherita Balzerani, Gloria Maria Cappelletti, Caroline Corbetta, Silvia Ferri De Lazara, Marina Fokidis, Elena Giulia Rossi, Valentina Tanni, Mara Sartore,Yvonne Force Villareal, Doreen Reemen, Jan Aman, Manuel Frara, David Quiles Guilló, Miltos Manetas, Lev Manovich, Angelo Plessas, Domenico Quaranta, Rafael Rozendaal, Francesco Urbano and Francesco Ragazzi. In Collaboration with: Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia (corso di Applicazioni Digitali per l’Arte del Dipartimento di Nuove Tecnologie di San Servolo)
— After the Embassy of Piracy and Island of the Net, surfing in the Padiglione Internet has reached a new landing-place. Near the Maritime Terminal in Venice, a small 16th century chapel has been re-named “the church of the Unconnected�. The antique oratorio of San Ludovico has rediscovered its ancient vocation and meets with the cult of Miltos Manetas. A cult which is at the same time temporal and spiritual, profane and reclusive. The Internet population is mustered. The journey becomes withdrawal. Let us celebrate the Unconnected!
THE UNCONNECTED by Francesco Urbano Ragazzi
The boundless Internet nation summons them: the few who do not use e-mail or do not connect with any social network, who still today remain outside the borders of the Internet world. The missing inhabitants. And they, uncontaminated, could remain oblivious. In the Internet state there are no Sans Papier, but only the blessed Unconnected. And we, the Franciscan officials of the Net will not be proselytes, we will not try to convert them nor will we become missionaries. Neither, on the other hand, do we wish to deprive ourselves of technology in order to affirm the absolute value of being Unconnected. The Unconnected are not models to imitate, but rather living proof of a divine, ancestral existence. The chance for us to achieve redemption, though never complete, from a ever-increasing connectivity. Through them we can reconnect to an intimate part of ourselves, to a primordial solitude. Not that the Unconnected are intrinsically more lonely or isolated, it is just that they are still able to experience that state of definite solitude that belongs only to those who remain unconnected. An analogical binary situation: to be alone / not to be alone. The third Padiglione Internet is perhaps the tale of a journey along this ever more uncertain course. At times it seemed to be ensnared in a web of singularity, at other times in the heart of relationships. Thanks to the Unconnected we can reach the Pillars of Hercules of the Internet. The last bulwark before the point at which there is no turning back.
THE UNCONNECTED
SATELLITES, ORPHANS AND SAD TREES It all began in 1991 when Miltos Manetas began drawing a series of old women aimlessly wandering around. Women from an old world, from the old south, out of step with time yet inexorably continuing along their way. He called them Satellites. Miltos continued drawing them until 1994. They multiplied – on paper, in photos, in performances – without ever meeting. Each moving along their own personal course, following their own mission, dressed in dark clothing. The following year Manetas officially began his career as a painter with a work called The Sad Tree: a painting of three trees, the first two straight and upright, the third bent and sad. The Sad Tree, against every expectation, was to be the only painting present in Traffic by Nicolas Bourriaud, the exhibition of relational aesthetics. Then came the video-games and the machinima1, the Neen2 together with a vast pictorial production. Until 2001 when the first ElectronicOrphanage was created: an international club for Orphans of ideologies founded to produce art and theories, related with the world of the computer screen and the internet.3 As in a temple, the ElectronicOrphanage gathered around Manetas the illegitimate offspring of contemporary culture, the Connected of past times: times in which the Net was a far west promise of gold and fortunes. The Satellites, the Sad Trees, the Orphans and the Unconnected could all appear to be separate works but they are in fact chapters of the same story: as if these figures of the Spirit are subject to the same forces that hold the electron near the nucleus yet without contact. A distance which is also attraction, a nearness which is also a removal. Manetas is not a new media artist, a total victim of the Internet or a product of the web. Manetas remains a scientist of a new solitude, a seclusion which is nonetheless a part of a relationship. You can’t help but love the other orphans, the Satellites, the Sad Trees, the Unconnected and all the other close relations of these homeless families. CHAPTER THREE Only a week remained before the Venice Biennale was due to open. And with it the Internet Pavilion, for which Miltos Manetas and myself were jointly responsible. I had just arrived in Venice. I had had time to meet Chiara, our local hostess, and her friends. I had visited S.A.L.E., where Marco had offered us his beautiful old salt warehouse. I had been out with Nik, Helga and Daniel from AIDS3D. I’d been out drinking wine with Jan Håfström and Lotta Melin. But I hadn’t really done anything. I spent my days mostly wandering around by myself. Which admittedly is one of the things Venice is best for. But the reason I was there – Miltos – was nowhere to be found. He didn’t answer my calls. He didn’t respond to emails. It wasn’t like him. Miltos is always wired up, always online. Always reachable. But now, when we were to meet in Venice to finalise a project which was essential for both of us, he seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth. Why? [On Miltos, Moses and Marcel by Jan Aman]4
The story of the Internet Pavilion began in this way. With a disappearance. It sounds like the prologue to a tragedy where the narrator speaks about the disappearance of the protagonist and of all the events that follow. If this were so, this Internet Pavilion would be the third of the Trilogy. And the Unconnected would perfectly close the ring. This story has however the chorus of a tragedy: that of the pirates, the artists of the Net, the Unconnected. But despite all this, despite the ternary rhythm and the Greek roots, Manetas does not embody a tragic hero. Because the Unconnected are like a bent tree among other straight trees, they are a comic variation rather than a tragic omen. In this we can find an irresistible yet subtle sense of humour. Separate any object, as a particular bodily man, a horse, a turnip, a flour-barrel, an umbrella, from the connection of things, and contemplate it alone, standing there in absolute nature, it becomes at once comic; no useful, no respectable qualities can rescue it from the ludicrous.5 Manetas seems to come close to this idea of humour but without descending into derision, ridicule or irreverence. His is not a ungraceful , but a type of Comico con grazia6. A sort of humour which celebrates and sanctifies our humanity. The unconscious acts, the obsessions and the habits of our day-to-day life become enfolded in art to then re-emerge in an original angelic, rarefied condition. A group of men looking at a Blackberry calls to mind The Anatomy Lesson by Rembrandt. As if the people were gathered around the fire that they had just discovered for the first time. A lyrical and unique moment, returned to the present and to eternity. The paintings of Manetas have always been focused on new human habitats and technology to then collocate them into History. It is, at the same time, both a votive and innovative style like The Miracle of the Slave by Tintoretto. In the church of San Ludovico this double character finds its ideal setting. A sort of polyptych invokes the Unconnected in a choral performance which serves to both record and consecrate. The pictorial cycle re-writes the story of the Padiglione Internet. Rather than the end of a Trilogy, it is the beginning of a saga. 1. Machinima is a term deriving from the fusion of the words machine and animation, or machine and cinema. It is the use of real-time 3D computer graphics rendering engines, especially video-games, to create a cinematic production. With a series of works titled "Videos after Video Games” (1996-2006) Miltos Manetas is considered the founder of the art of machinima. //2. Neen is the first Internet-based art movement. It was introduced at the Gagosian Gallery in NYC, on May 31 2000 on a conference with Miltos Manetas, Yvonne Force (Neen project's producer), Peter Lunenfeld (writer), David Placek (President of Lexicon Branding), J.C.Herz (writer and journalist), Steven Pinker (MIT Professor, and writer) and Joseph Kosuth (artist). Cfr. Miltos Manetas, Neen. New Art Movement, Edizioni Charta, Milano 2006. http://superneen.com //3. From 2001 to 2004 the Electrnic Orphanage had its first seat in Los Angeles (Chinatown LA, Chung King Road). Later it took on a mobile form, travelling, more or less temporarily, between Venice, Athens, London, Amsterdam and the Internet. Since 2012 the headquarters of the Electrnic Orphanage is the Macro in Rome, where Manetas holds the position of curator. //4. Venice, May 2009. http://cargocollective.com/ manetas/filter/PadiglioneInternet/PADIGLIONE-INTERNET-MiltosMoses-Marcel //5. R. W. Emerson, The Comic in The Work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, vol. VIII, Fireside Edition, Boston and New York 1909. //6. Trad. Eng. Comic Serif (font).
SATELLITES 1993. Drawings on paper, Collection: Polla, Geneva
Miltos Manetas
SAD TREE 1995. Oil on canvas, 200x300 cm. Courtesy Private Collection, Geneva
SADTREE in SECOND LIFE 1998-2013. Vibracolour print on superglossy paper, 70x100 cm. edition of 3
CABLES (on Raffaello book) 2005. Oil on canvas, 170x220 cm. Courtesy The Artist, Athens
Miltos Manetas
TWO DICTIONARIES (NEEN) 2006. Oil on canvas, 288x190cm. Courtesy Private Collection, Milan
UNTITLED (CABLES) XI 2008. Oil on canvas, 288x190 cm. Courtesy The Artist, Rome
CABLES (Selfish) 1999. Oil on canvas, 213x171,5cm. Courtesy Private Collection, Chicago
Miltos Manetas
LOOKING AT THE COMPUTER SCREEN (Myself in Brooklyn) 1999. Oil on canvas, 182.88X213.36 cm. Courtesy The Artist, NYC.
ALPHA MANETAS 2013. Computer drawing on photographic paper, 50x66.95 cm. BABY & PC 2013. Computer drawing on photographic paper, 66.95x50 cm.
Miltos Manetas
CATALINA ON SKYPE (Speaking with herself) 2013. Oil on canvas, 200x300 cm. Courtesy the artist, Rome
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UNTITLED (THE UNCONNECTED) 2013. Oil on canvas 300x600 cm. Courtesy the artist, Rome
SCREENSHOT 2013. Looking at "Catalina on Skype (Speaking with herself), photo by Gaetano Alfano Manetas painting "Looking at the Blackberry" photo by Gaetano Alfano "Enrico Ghezzi preparing his Collegamenti performance", Manetas Studio, Rome. Photo by Miltos Manetas
Miltos Manetas