Could you present 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 Shangai, China and Goa, India.

With who are you working 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, Miltos Manetas*production art, 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 (Gnac) * music, Nikola Tosic * 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 expereiences. 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 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 present your villette numerique’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.