http://www.deappel.nl


De Appel is an institute for contemporary art located in Amsterdam providing artists with space for projects, installations, and to do research. The foundation was born with the intent to present forms of contemporary art from an international point of view. In addition, the institute offers a course for curators. Every year, the institute organizes about six shows and produces several publications in collaboration with the artists. The website does not appear very linear, because it develops from a window with a rather simple interface, without navigation bar. However, the pages are well organized, and the index is present in each of them. The site provides useful information on how to participate in the various programs, and on the shows organized by the institute.

http://aleph-arts.org/


Aleph is a Spanish site offering spare and at the same time very carefully crafted graphics, born from the collaboration of artists, theoreticians, and technicians and directed by José Luis Brea. It is divided into four main sections. In “net.art” projects of Internet art are shown, such as 1.000.000 by Antoni Abad, a well-known artist who in the past created a net project based on the myth of Sisyphus. “E-shows” compiles a series of events and shows that took place on the net. In “Pensiamento” many interesting texts on the development of new media can be found. Among the authors: Roy Ascott, Timothy Druckery, Alex Galloway, and Mark Amerika. “Eco” is a sort of electronic bulletin board offering news and information on net art and digital culture.

http://www.emaf.de


EMAF is the acronym for European Media Arts Festival, usual international encounter taking place in Osnabrück for the production of films, videos, installations, performances, CD-ROMs, and Internet projects. The next date for the festival will be May 3-7, 2000. EMAF offers an open forum for presenting and debating the present scenarios of artistic experimentation related to the use of new media, devoted to artists working at the boundary of art, technology, and science. The site provides all information and requirements for participating in the festival and the downloadable application form in pdf format. In addition, the “Archive” section contains the festival history with all previous events since 1988. This allows the viewer to witness how the festival has changed with the passing of years, also through its Internet site graphic interface, different for every date.

http://www.ctheory.com


Ctheory is an international electronic magazine of digital art and culture directed by Arthur and Marilouise Kroker, authors of many books on contemporary culture, among which are Data Trash, Spasm, and Hacking the Future. The site, although lacking from the point of view of graphics, is rather strong in content, and collects many interesting articles. Among its collaborators and correspondents from all over the world are town planners, philosophers, artists, scholars such as Jean Baudrillard, Stelarc, Manovich, Novak, and Virilio. It is also possible to register for a mailing list to receive previews of the published texts. The most dynamic area in the site is Digital Dirt (http://ctheory.concordia.ca), presenting a series of multimedia events by bringing together works by electronic artists, performance artists, musicians, and video makers. Among the different sections: noise (with videos by Lynn Hersman and Lewis Cohen, and short pieces of electronic music by Steve Gibson); e-art (with Marikki Hakola’s digital performance, Triad Hyperdance), and the digital version of the Swedish artist Bjørn Wangen’s installation, Id.

http://www.ichistetwasanderes.de


Starting from Rimbaud’s famous sentence "Je est un autre" (The self is something else), The Kunstammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf organized a show investigating the concept of identity and self, starting from the Sixties up to the present. The museum, which already has its own website (www.kunstsammlung.de) offering information on the exhibitions, created a special site for this event, bearing the same title as the show. It is a very dynamic and lively site, with very carefully designed graphics. In order to access it, the user must be recognized by a "Server Apache" which, by some sort of virtual scanning, can capture the IP number (language chosen, date and day of access) of the computer from which one is connecting. Once an Internet Protocol number is given, then one can start navigating the site, accompanied by relaxing and at the same time disquieting music.