http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0DE2DE103EF93BA2575BC0A9679C8B63
Balcony Scene (Or Unseen) Atop the World; Episode at Trade Center Assumes Mythic Qualities
Not as mythic as it will get!
By SHAILA K. DEWAN
Published: August 18, 2001
SNIP
Called ''The B-Thing'' and produced by four Vienna-based artists known collectively as Gelatin, the book is demure to the point of being oblique. What little explanation it contains appears to have been scribbled in ballpoint. Among the photos and schematic drawings, there are doodles of tarantulas with human heads. In short, the book belies the extravagance of the feat it seems to document: the covert installation, and brief use, of a balcony on the 91st floor of the World Trade Center, 1,100 feet above the earth. Eight photographs -- some grainy, all taken from a great distance -- depict one tower's vast eastern facade, marred by a tiny molelike growth: a lone figure dressed in a white jacket, standing in a lectern-size box.
The contemporary art world, of course, is rife with acts of subversion followed by boasting, which is known as ''documentation.'' In that context, the beauty of the balcony was that it so literally pushed the envelope. Yet since that Sunday morning in March 2000, when the balcony was allegedly installed and, 19 minutes later, dismantled, the affair has taken on the outlines of an urban myth, mutated by rumors and denials among the downtown cognoscenti. Although the book appears to seek notoriety, the artists have gone coy. Their dealer, who witnesses say watched the event from a hotel suite, now claims it never happened. Either the balcony was an elaborate hoax meant to look real, or the inverse is true: it really happened, and the closer it comes to being found out, the more those involved would prefer for everyone to think it was a hoax.
Eastern facade facing the Millennium Hotel indicates the North Tower. The art dealer held an all-night party to watch from a penthouse of the hotel. 91 is the right floor for Flight 11, wrong side (the plane hit on the northern facade). This is the same set of studios where Michael Richards worked, and died on the morning of 9/11.
Still, how did a balcony escape the notice of one of the most security-conscious office towers in the world? An examination of the security system revealed that it was focused on the ground floor and basement, Mr. Janka said, adding, ''There's no surveillance on the facade itself.'' That is true, said Cherrie Nanninga, the director of real estate for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which until recently ran the World Trade Center. Port Authority officials, shown a copy of ''The B-Thing'' by a reporter, reacted with disbelief, then outrage. Although their own investigation turned up no evidence, Ms. Nanninga said, ''we have no reason to believe it didn't happen.'' Window removal is considered so dangerous that when it is done the streets below are cordoned off, she said. ''It was really a stupid and irrational act that in my view borders on the criminal,'' she said, adding that the stunt had jeopardized the studio program, whose space is donated by the Trade Center.
Where was Marvin Bush? :)
Afterward, Gelatin appeared at the hotel, where their success was toasted at a euphoric breakfast, according to five other witnesses, including Tanya Corrin, a video producer and writer, and David Leslie, a performance artist. ''We just applauded the gutsy originality of it,'' Ms. Corrin said. ''I think we all left feeling, wow, we just did something amazing, and nobody knows.'' Mr. Koenig now says the balcony never happened and, at any rate, he didn't see it. The book, which costs $35 and was printed in a run of 1,200 copies, is meant to provoke questions about its veracity, he said. At the suggestion that the project might have been faked, Mr. Harris seemed almost offended. He produced March 2000 credit card bills bearing charges of $2,167.44 from the Millennium Hilton and $1,625 from Helicopter Flight Service.
At about the same time that Mr. Harris was digging up proof, Gelatin was removing almost every trace of it from their Web site. Moukhtar Kocache, the director of the studio program, insisted that the photos of the balcony were obviously faked. But digital manipulation experts disagreed. George Dash, the co-owner of Nucleus Imaging on East 30th Street, and a colleague, John Grasso, used magnifying loupes to examine a copy of ''The B-Thing.'' Neither could detect inconsistencies. ''The angles are all too perfect,'' Mr. Grasso said. ''It looks real to me. Absolutely. I've been doing this for 22 years.''
SNIP
''This building needs things like that to happen, because otherwise it would die inside,'' said Mr. Janka, who was under the impression that Mr. Petit had been deported for his action.
Oops.
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