Since 1995, the Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts (Tokyo, Japan) and the "Art on the Net steering committee" has been hosting the "Art on the Net" project promoting the Internet as a space for artistic expression. This project has been calling on people around the world to investigate the relationship between Art, the Internet and the Society. In 2004, to celebrate the decade of our "Art on the Net" project, we launched a new project named "netarts.org." From 1995 to 2009, we've received over 800 nominations from almost 40 countries / areas, and totaly 393 net.arts are exhibited now.
At the same time, this project is an attempt to construct a new model of the art museum in the age of post-modern, of "Art without rarity / monetary value," and in the era with the inter-active media, such as the Internet.
If we were to define the Internet as something that has a potential of going beyond the existing system of the modern times, then artworks on the Net should also be regarded as something that is gradually growing out of the current system of the "ART World" operation, typically seen in how art museums today.
Our final aim is, not to "recuperate" the net.arts in the art museums, but to make this project "open" to anyone. There will be no distinction between the artists and the audience, anyone can communicate each other inter-actively, and we strongly hope that an completely new forms or definition of Art / Art museum would emerge from our virtual museum project.
