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This year it has been hard to find a net art project to award the Grand Prize to. It has been hard to find net art projects at all. Year by year the Internet shoots up becoming completely different from what it has been in first place. Today there are more chances to meet people, to share everything and to communicate to the world but there is less room for the unknown and the unexpected. Creativity is bounded into the structures of web 2.0. For this reason I'm glad to award the Grand Prize

to Visitors Studio. Visitors Studio is away from the rules of social networks and it works as a real social space. It's light and easy to use and anyone can join in. Visitors Studio is an endless creative process sharing bits and crumbs of every participant to become part of a bigger picture.

A similar process applies to "Gridcosm" which is awarded with an honorary mention. Each collage of each contributor is just a small part of a potentially endless tunnel of images. Apocalyptic visions and shared creativity since 1997, Gridcosm has to be mentioned for the ability of going through the decades of Internet and its changes.

Another very interesting project is "G-maybe?" the last frontier of the narcissism of social network. Thanks to G-maybe? you can finally go completely public sharing your whole mailbox with your contacts. This project manifests the voyeurism inside every social network and provokes
users to become totally transparent to play the "Game of truth": the trill is the naked real.

SOCIAL [net.work music] is a funny way to play music browsing through myspace music band's pages until your browser crashes. The simplicity of the concept together with the unobvious use of a network makes SOCIAL [net.work music] a work to mention in the rame of this year competition.

With the mention to Dotred.fr we recognize the importance of using web social networking games to bring users together for humanitarian and social purposes.

The project netarts started in 1995, this year reaches its natural end with the Grand Prize to Visitors Studio. It's an homage to the craft of independent programmers and networkers that aren't carried away by over-hyped networks but keep working on the developing of new possibilities for online creativity.

Agnese Trocchi