The man from Neen | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

What's the worst shared quality?

There is nothing bad about them which [wasn't bad about] the generations before. They are an upgrade and upgrades are always better.

But aren't we bringing kids up in a more superficial world and aren't they themselves more superficial in some ways?

The world is superficial even if you live in a forest. You receive all information via your senses, which are a bad translation, an illusion. Your question is like a movie hero, who while he is playing on the fake set of the "Titanic," is wondering if there is a danger [of drowning]. There are not any seas around his boat, and in the same way, there is not any absolute reality in our world. The only reality is our theories about reality.

What's your vision of the future?

There are all possible versions of the future and according to quantum physics all of them will be realized. I don't understand what future you are talking about. There is a version where 23 U-Hauls will surround the Whitney next week and a version where nothing like that will happen. We don't really know in which one we will participate, we can only envision the possibilities.

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All right. It's now Wednesday, March 6, and I just found out that the U-Hauls were a hoax! People who expected to see these trucks with screens driving around the Whitney were seriously fooled. I was fooled! Tell me what you have to say about it.

It went great! The trucks were not there of course. The U-Haul idea was only an advertisement for the [online] show. They were invisible trucks. We would have never made them in real life even with the most great sponsoring. I don't believe in such '80s and '90s art. I believe in the Internet. The real U-hauls are the Web sites where the exhibition can be found. But people loved the trucks, so we diffused [this] news to give them something to visualize.

And I assume you view this -- the evening, duping me and others -- as a success?

The event went great. Many people showed up at the museum. We were there to explain to them that the U-Hauls were invisible and I was helping them to enter the Gala, where you were not welcome without an invitation. Inside the museum, many people were talking about the U-Hauls as if they had seen them! It was amazing! People would walk out to check for them. Also, most of the artists of the show liked the fact that the U-Hauls where invisible.

Other than playing on the idea of contemporary art and the emperor's new clothes, will you elaborate on the purpose?

We have to create new ways to show art. The real space is not so important anymore. The new, really international space for the arts, accessible by everyone, is indeed the Internet. But we should also create new urban legends to support us. The invisible trucks was one of these urban legends.

Are you sure it wasn't that you just couldn't make the U-Haul idea happen?

I never tried. I hate art made with everyday objects. I like classic forms. I got inspired for the tactics that I used in the promotion of this show, from the film "When We Were Kings" about Mohammed Ali. If you have to battle with something bigger and more powerful than you are -- the museum establishment -- you'd better let your adversary believe that you will use techniques which he can understand, and then simply do nothing, just let him collapse under his own weight.

Earlier you said jokes were '90s art. Wasn't this a joke of a kind?

It was not a joke at all. It was a powerful new way to invert the situations. Because of the Internet, some of the importance of real estate and what real estate represents -- to the Whitney Museum and to any museum -- is passed to the online estate, the dot-com. The old world, art dealers, media, etc., are terrified by this new condition at least as much Europe was terrified by the progress of America, but ultimately it will be a positive charge for both worlds.

There is nothing ironic [about] the invisible U-Hauls; they were there, because the Internet pages that host my show are everywhere. Just imagine a building full of screens with all the works of my show on it and you get the picture: a lot more interesting than the official show. Made out of nothing but pure creative spirit and collaboration, with budget [of] zero, in less than a month. It's a good show just because it could not be bad; the official show is not even bad, it's just a regular show, some bureaucratic extravaganza which will feed a small and tired art world for the next two years and then it will repeat itself.

Did you ever have any doubts or misgivings about essentially lying to the press?

I don't feel that I lied: I gave them what they wanted to hear. The press is not an objective observer; it's just another producer of simulation. They wanted the "U-Haul Manetas" and that's what I gave them, but there was no reason to actually do the U-Hauls. Just declaring it to the press was enough.

The invisible U-Haul idea seems like it operates in a much larger realm than the online show of Flash animation works it was intended to promote. Are you sure that digital tools are your main medium? Perhaps you are really a conceptual artist after all.

Digital is not a tool; it a landscape. In the case of WhitneyBiennial.com, the best way to visualize this landscape was to surround the museum with 23 invisible U-Hauls. So, I did it. Sorry.

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About the writer
John Glassie is a writer in New York. This text has been published after his permission