Interview of Miltos Manetas and Yorgo Manis for CO2 news 10.2009

Where do you come from?

MM: From an age without Internet.

YM: From a green and quiet suburb of a small city, known (according to google maps) as 40.940397,24.389344.

Where do you work?

MM: At the Internets. ("Internets" are realities that exist online as well as in any different territories influenced by the power of the Internet.

YM: I dont really know what it means ‘to work’. Lately I have somehow mixed the concepts of living and working. I do what I do to survive by doind what I do, so in this case I work wherever I can sustain my existence while doing. I guess somewhere around Europe for the moment but I hope I will expand my territory soon.

Lowest common denominator among you, I‘d say that in addition to your friendship may be the common passion for an art close to Internet, how do you began your way?

MM: Yorgo worked sometimes at my London studio so I did my best to be a good Master to him  mostly by destroying what he had learned during Art School. He was a talented painter before learning how to be an artist, while I start painting only after being a conceptual artist already. The mere possibility of Painting is always a great surprise for me. I paint the way a computer programmer writes his code. Following Picasso's suggestion, I think only "with a brush in hand". In every other occasion -including this interview- I write down or say or even do the first thing that comes to my mind.

YM: I met Miltos through internet. I ordered his Neen catalogue from Amazon, I read his interviews and then I had the chance to meet him in person, while student at Goldsmiths, where he came to give some unforgettable (for many people) tutorials. From that point it seems he became my mentor and I enjoyed a lot going to his studio and talk constantly about art. For me painting is an escape, a black hole of reality with its own dimensions. So does internet. In my eyes they are the last caches, in a world that you cannot hide. As a fan of historical personalities that enjoyed great escapes (like Lord Byron and Christopher Columbus) it seemed for me like a ‘one way to go’ for my interest.

If you would to describe your country with the QWERTY language what symbol you’d use?

MM: I don't belong to any Nation. I have a Greek and Italian and American and British in me but more than anything I am from the Internets.

YM: ?

If you search the position of your studio on Google Maps which kind of monument-attractions appear close to it?

MM: My  London studio is surrounded by parks and music. My studio in  Milan instead is surrounded by Fashion and Fascism.

YM: Lewisham shopping mall and Tesco supermarket. Definatelly the most influential monuments around there.

What’s your favourite videogames?

MM: SuperMario for Nintendo 64

YM: Gmail.com. Role-playing and quite conceptual.

What’s the objective of your art?

MM: I am not in a mission, I don't have an objective. But while I am doing Art, I always remember to destroy my convictions. What's left-once you destroy your illusions about reality- can only be  Art.

YM: I feel too young to have an objective in art. It feels like asking someone ‘how was your vacation’ while he is packing his suitcase to leave his house. Let’s say that I just want to survive for start and do what I want to do. The rest will follow.

For the next generation now completely dependent on digital technology, do you believe that the Internet will increasingly become a means of disposal or emancipation?

MM: I believe that Revolution doesn't exist once violence is over and in the same way, "Internet doesn't exist no more. We are now left with a huge incomplete database, the World as we always knew it. We need to start from scratch..

YM: I have the impretion that step by step, Internet will become our new TV.

In the creation of your works there is a strong link with the virtual reality. Do you think it is more pragmatic and reliable of the material reality or it’s only a language to talk about our contemporary history?

MM: There is nothing unreal in "virtual" and there is little reality in what seams "real".

YM: Internet is the only place today, that can provide so efficiently the illusion of freedom. I am not sure about it, but right now I tend to believe that humanity was trying in all its history of art, to take a bigger piece from freedom and put it in a cage to sing. If there is any piece left, for sure internet holds it for the moment.

Miltos at last Venice Biennale you partecipate with an experimental project of strong and conceptual impact, an Internet Pavillon never exist before, is it the start of a revolution without weapons?

MM: I don't know. I did an InternetPavilion just to see if there will be any consequences. Until now, there were no reactions which makes me suspect-and hope- that everything changed! We need to be careful these days when it comes to analyse appearances. That's also because we all work for the industries of fiction; art, spectacle, politics and Science are jobs that pay to alter and hide away everything that's really special.The Show don't shows but destroys what is supposedly showing.

Yorgo in your first italian show you created a trip inside an historical city like Rome, without involving the contemporary elements and architectures of this city. Do you think the ancient history is more important than the actually history or is it a choice of conceptual contrasted elements?

YM: None of them. I was basically looking for some popular touristic attractions, in the same way that a tourist would try to find the ‘must-see’ places of Rome and get a piece out of them. The places he used to see in postcards or in touristic souvenirs, the grand spectacles, the brands of a city. If it was in his hand, he would treat them in the same manner they do in  Berlin wall. Collecting it sadisticly like ants, piece by piece.

Next projects?

MM: A one-man show at Niklas Belenius Gallery in Stockholm where I am exhibiting my latest "Pirate Paintings". You will be able to visit the show with your laptop and download pirated movies, music and software directly from the paintings!

YM: At the moment I dont even want to think about the future. My mind is in the opening of my solo show in CO2 Gallery this September.