United We Stand. Europe has a mission is the title of the non-existent, fully EU-produced Hollywood-style blockbuster: “A brilliant mix of espionage and sci-fi political stereotypes in which Europe, not the US, saves the world from impending doom”. The project that convincingly invents and promotes this movie is disseminated into public spaces and media realm all over the world through city-scale urban installations and viral communication tactics.

The streets of Berlin, Brussels, Barcelona and, now, New York have been plastered with thousands of posters perfectly mimicking the iconography and the rhetoric of Hollywood-style visual propaganda. This is the first stage of a long-term communication strategy that began in late 2005 and will gradually cover the whole media spectrum from blogs to magazines and TV. Full page United We Stand ads have been spotted all over Europe, in magazines devoted to art, youth culture and life styles. More are to come.

United We Stand touches on themes of subliminal art, cultural propaganda and European identity, clashing against expectations and exploding cultural stereotypes. Like Mattes’ previous large-scale work Nike Ground, United We Stand provokes an unexpected wave of collective hallucination where over-identification, falsehood and consequent disclosure are key elements that foster critical thinking.

Eva and Franco Mattes, known as 0100101110101101.ORG, are a couple of restless European con-artists who use non-conventional communication tactics to obtain the largest visibility with the minimum effort.

In the last decade they have been devoted to what they define as “media actionism,” where truth and falsehood become indistinguishable. They invented and promoted a nonexistent artist; spread a computer virus as a work of art; challenged and defeated Nike Corporation in a legal battle for a fake advertisement campaign.They have been called media scammers, myth-makers and extremists as well as Internet stars, info-dandies or, simply, geniuses.

Their works have been shown internationally including: Lentos Museum of Modern Art, Linz; New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; ICC, Tokyo; Manifesta, Frankfurt; Venice Biennale, ZKM, Karlsruhe; Generali Foundation, Vienna; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.