From Rebel:Art Magazine, 1 April 2004

 

How to provoke today?
Alain Bieber interviews 0100101110101101.ORG on Nike Ground

 

What kind of sneakers are you wearing?

I could even wear Nike. Don't expect coherence from me, never. People like to think at artists as honest and incorruptible guys, with no compromises, and artists try their best to preserve this romantic myth. Reality is extremely different. I am attracted by something at least as much as I refuse it. We live in this world and this work - Nike Ground - belongs to its time.

I don't know the current reactions of Nike... but I think they wanted to take legal actions. What's the stage of affairs and did you expected these reactions? Perhaps Nike is jealous because they had non got this marketing idea...

On October 14th 2003, Nike released a 20 pages injunction requesting the immediate removal of any reference to copyrighted material, and that any activity related to Nike cease immediately. Failure to comply with this request would mean that Nike will claim 78,000 Euro for damages. We ignored the ultimatum and brought on the performance to the end of October, as it was planned in the beginning. The Commercial Court has rejected Nike's plea for a provisional injunction on formal grounds. We basically won the first round, now we are ready to start the second one. I didn't expect such a reaction, I expected to deal with sporting people, not a bunch of boring lawyers! Where is Nike spirit?

Why have you chosen Nike? I really have no pity for them, but it's always Nike who is the bogeyman for the whole global industry (i.e. the sweatshop campaigns in the USA) and I don't think that Adidas, Gap etc. are acting more social...

We could have use any other brand, we just chose the most visible one. Nike is a perfect subject for a work of art: its logo, the Swoosh, is probably the most "viewed " brand on earth, more than any political or religious symbol.

With "Nike Ground" you were fighting for "artistic freedom": Are there really no limits?

Art is exactly the location of the limits, they never are where you expect them to be. I think that in contemporary art, subjects which are usually considered "provocatory" are, on the contrary, extremely conservative (i.e. naked bodies, genitals or corpses). Nike is exactly the opposite: banal, common, belonging to our everyday life, absolutely nothing extreme or "off limits".

Many activists never wanted to be called artists. They were saying that art is a sort of a jester's licence - in the end your art work ends up in a museum with hundreds of spectators you always fought against. Are you artists or activists and do you use the disguise of art for your actions?

We are neither artists nor activists: we are beholders. We stage paradoxical situations and then we sit in the armchair watching the consequences. A nonexistent Serbian artist, a virtual coup to the Holy See, a computer virus as a work of art, an unwanted advertisement campaign. These kinds of stories
spread through newspaper, in the streets, on the Internet and on TV, you get to know them from your neighbour. They spread by any medium and become modern myths. In the end they end up in museums too and there is no problem with that, they do not exclude each other.

Projects like "Nike Ground" are expansive. How to you finance your projects?

In this case the whole project has been financed by Public Netbase, a netculture institution in Vienna. Other times our projects have been supported by museums, like the Walker Art Center, or foundations, like Manifesta. Beside commissions we also sell works in the art market: right now we are selling a copy of our virus Biennale.py to a private collector. The proceeds will be invested in the next actions. Who buys our works supports our activities.

Can you change politics and social behaviour with your art work?

I don't care. My only responsibility is to be irresponsible.

Can you already give us a hint: What will be your projects for 2004?

We never reveal what we are working on. Many of our actions request surprise, that's why they are organized secretly, sometimes even due to legal reasons. If Nike or the city of Vienna knew we were organizing such a thing, they would have stopped us. But don't worry, any time a project ends there is always a trap set somewhere else.