The
Boys Behind Etoy
by
Steve Kettmann
3:00
a.m. 2.Feb.2000 PST
ZURICH
-- If the Santa Monica-based executives of eToys never quite understood
their opponents in the art group etoy, they are not alone.
There
was plenty of confusion among etoy's own neighbors in a part of Zurich
that taxi drivers offer warnings about. The Turks selling doner kebab
in a shop on the corner always assumed that Zai and Kubli and Gramazio
and Mono were pimps or drug dealers.
Victory
for Etoy is At Hand
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more Politics -- from
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-- from Wired News
"Then
one day they saw us on a TV news program and then every time we came in
it was 'Boss!'" explained Zai.
The
night after etoy and eToys finally cut
a deal that will -- eventually -- dissolve the "hold" placed on the www.etoy.com
domain name and give etoy US$40,000 in expense money, the four celebrated
by heading to a nearby Spanish restaurant. The proprietor greeted them
warmly, and asked, jokingly, "Pistol?"
A
little while later, a Swiss television program reported on the victory
over the big toy retailer and the proprietor was back. "Big project? Big
project?" he asked, genial in his bewilderment.
That's
exactly what etoy wants to do: keep people guessing, make them take a step
or two toward a new position. Sly laughter has been the hallmark of its
war with eToys -- and now Network Solutions, which has yet to restore its
domain name.
Zai
(they still don't use full names) studied media art in Vienna and was among
the etoy agents who spent time in San Diego and San Francisco. That was
where etoy built its container -- 12 tons of steel, self-contained, and
puzzling to anyone trying to figure out why anyone would build such a thing.
The main spokesman for the group, Zai also turns out to be one of the key
strategists.
Back
in the early days, all etoy agents were interchangeable -- bald, wearing
sunglasses and life-vest orange jackets. They used to make a game of starting
and finishing each other's interviews without an unsuspecting reporter
even noticing. It was one of their concepts, the relativity of identity
-- especially in the Internet context -- where everyone chooses whom he
or she wants to be.
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