Introduction by Tetsuo Kogawa, Art on the Net Guest Director

Theodor W. Adorno said all culture after Auschwitz is garbage. After September 11, all art could only turn into the fumes of debris or garbage, no longer holding any kind of forms after being severely burnt. Literally, this was an event through which the declaration of the ending of "art," which Adorno masochistically hoped for, was declared.

Adorno's garbage was still recyclable and displayable. That was why what he called "culture industry" recuperated the garbage endlessly to supply the "artworks" to the market. Galleries and museums managed to preserve the in-the-name-only method of exhibiting the works by extrapolating authorities of critics and connoisseurs, and auras of the tradition. Multimedia was welcomed for a while at the end of the 20th century as one of efficient methods of supporting this preservation. And thus came the multimedia art.

Fundamentally, however, the Internet is open to all, and authority and aura do not belong there. The Internet is a post-art technology that makes the "Adornist recovery of garbage" impossible. The Internet marked the end of the 19th century style "art." Broadband may appear a materialization of the multimedia dream of the past, but as long as it remains an open medium for all, authority and auras are ruled out.

Art on the Net first began as a challenging attempt to eliminate the exhibition element, which then had been already relativized by Walter Benjamin. It was a denial of the art as "fine arts" that are to be re-presented in the institutional gallery space. It was a deconstruction of exhibition through artists' voluntary act to construct a virtual "exhibition space." Even after art became "garbage," the structure that artworks have always been in existence as "substances" and that they were re-presented by the viewers remained unchanged. Art on the Net gave a fatal blow to this structure.

However, we still have a vestige of conventional art exhibitions -- a system that embraces competition and judging. We have witnessed the September 11. Shouldn't we move a step further and eliminate this system of competing and judging all together?

The system of election by mutual vote is a tentative one. There remains an element of judging and the works are still rated. However, we believe welcoming all contestants to be judges would deconstruct the system of judging and rating to move toward cooperation and reconciliation. We'd like to use this system this year as the first step toward more progressive reviewing method.

Introduction by You Minowa, Curator

Since 1995, Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts, Tokyo (MCMOGATK), has been hosting the world's first Internet art and web contents open contest, "Art on the Net." The project attempts to explore the potentials of the Internet as a medium of art. In the past seven years, more than 800 entries have been submitted from over 45 nations.

These seven years have been the time when various contradicting legacies of the 20th century surfaced. In the world of art, they emerged as reactions against the rigid, "closed" system of art where "masterpieces" were appreciated only through polite exhibition at the museums or galleries. This paralyzed the activities of the museums and induced complete apathy and indifference in art in the minds of the public.

What lies behind the drastic change in people's perception of art is their shattered faith in monetary value of art which represented the accumulated "auras" of art up to then, as a result of global economic crises. The change was also reinforced by the emergence of bilateral communications media such as the Internet that deepened their disillusion in conventional authority, values and structure that allowed unilateral communications only.

We believe that the art in the 21st century should be free of any of these "auras," any of the "forced learning" that had been imposed on us by conventional styles. The art system should be "open" to participation of all people, mutual and freeform influence, and it should carry potentials for a birth of new forms of art that is totally new.

The theme of the "Art on the Net 2002" is "9.11," the day that left us with many questions that demand answers. Having this event as our theme, we believe, compells us to SHARE the journey to search for its meaning. To best serve such nature of this project, and to express our desire to eliminate conventional style of judging artworks as explained in the Guest Director's introduction, we decided to leave the reviewing process in the hands of the participants and make the process itself a collaboration.

"Art on the Net" is a place of experiment where new state of art is continually pursued. The entries to the contest are at where the forefront of art history, latest technology and changing society meet --- As we all know, that is the very crossing point where new forms of art have always been born.

The deadline for entry is September 20. We look forward to your creative entries.