Our lifestyle is now updated in real time.
At the same time, all kinds of distances
are cancelled. Everywhere in the world South
and North become just one: NORTH.
In the Western territories of the Northern World
and mostly in Europe, a new MIDDLE SOUTH is born.
In the NORTH, the deal between society and government was always clear. If it deals with fascism, society has to obey; if it deals with democracy, society has to debate. In both cases – in the NORTH – art is the authorized voice of society. Therefore, during democracy, art HAS to debate.
In the old South, the deal between society and government was never clear and it is not clear at the new Middle South either.
This new MIDDLE-SOUTH is already visible in the self-transforming territories such as Greece and Italy below Rome. People there aren’t perfectly comfortable: even if they accept the ultra-modern NORTHERN lifestyle, there are those who are searching for an art that’s somehow different from the very successful industry of isolation that contemporary art has become.
In the NORTH, most public money is spent to protect. When fascism reigns, culture is protected by regulation. But even when there is democracy and culture seams free, it is still controlled in elaborate, quite religious ways: art institutions are the new Temples and their directors the new high priests. As for the artworks, these have to make it to the collections of the Museums as a sacrifice: artefacts of propitiation and worship.
The people of the new MIDDLE SOUTH are not fully happy with the Church of Art and they are already looking for alternatives. Art forms in websites, videogames and software, can pass from one computer to another, from one network to another, can belong to collections and at the same time to everyone: they are digital graffiti.
In cities such as Rome, where real graffiti are either immediately erased or blackened out, such things as Digital Graffiti are absolutely necessary. Speaking about Rome, I believe that this city is the capital of the new MIDDLE SOUTH. It is an important city, the way Berlin was once important, because in Rome, like in Berlin once, there is an emblematic wall: the Vatican Wall. On that ancient wall, the new wave of the Middle South crashes. The Vatican Wall is the first obstacle that the new MIDDLE SOUTH needs to throw down. In the process, all kinds of signed graffiti such as Sistine Chapel will be liberated and that will bring an air of good luck to the entire art of the new MIDDLE SOUTH…
MILTOS MANETAS, Greek-born artist, is the Founder of the Art Movement Neen.
He is the ideator of the project MACROeo (electronicOrphanage), platform about new technologies and perspective of new media.
Lives and works in Rome.