NEEN ACCIDENT?
“it’s crazy and quite spooky”
From: "Lisette Smits" <tesmi@ision.nl>
To: "miltos manetas" <m@manetas.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 2002 3:26 AM
Subject: crash
Hi Miltos
i write you to tell you that AFTERNEEN in CASCO is over for
the moment
last weekend we had a huge crash inside the gallery
A car has been catapulted from the street into the space (which is almost impossible, ask the NEENSTERS that were here!) and flown inside all the way towards the back which is 17 meters and destroyed everything: the AFTERNEEN installation, the office with our computers and networks and, worst of all, my colleague Evelien has been seriously injured.
i know this is a very bizarre story and i cannot tell you too many details; i was in London when all this happened and called by the police – the firebrigade has closed off the building so we cannot enter for now.
i'll let you know how things are going on from here
it's crazy and quite spooky
speak later
Lisette
AFTERNEEN, an ElectronicOrphanage exhibition opened simultaneously at Casco
in Utrecht, Holland and at The EO in Los Angeles. It was based on the idea that
today "real space is usually in bad taste" and that the most interesting
art of our times is happening on the web. The Internet was super-imposed over
the spaces of the exhibition. This is the NEEN World which exists in Active
Worlds.
In old Greek, NEEN means "exactly now". NEEN was introduced in May
2000 at a performance in the Gagosian Gallery in New York City. This was the
starting point for an international movement which has grown by word of mouth
and on the Internet. Miltos Manetas declared in an interview on Salon.com: "Our
times are Telic. But we want to see more NEEN happen.”
So what defines a NEEN thing happening? Some of the qualities that inform NEEN are spontaneity and appropriation, there’s a kind of brilliant flash of inspiration to NEEN. One might say NEEN “accepts” the world around it. So in this regard catastrophe can be very much NEEN as well.
The destruction becomes part of the existence in much the way
that death is part of life. NEEN has no pretense of being “for the ages”.
It doesn’t accept that something lives on beyond the moment of its existence
and initial significant purpose. It moves to incorporate the destructive influences
of the world into its statement. NEEN embraces its own oblivion.