http://www.kiasma.fi


Soundbox2 is a project curated by Petri Kuljuntausta and hosted on the web site for Kiaska, the museum of contemporary arts in Helsinki. It brings together around forty works of electronic music that were created during the Nineties – the majority being produced in the last two to three years. Soundbox2 is a blend of different music genres: each piece is presented with information regarding the techniques employed and about each composer who has taken part in the initiative. The site, in English, French, German, Finnish – there is a brief presentation in Japanese too – also provides information on the building, its exhibition calendar, the didactic activity of the museum – including a program of workshops -, offers the calendar of events, and hosts an online version of Kiasma magazine in English and Finnish, which is edited by the museum.

http://brandon.guggenheim.org


Brandon is a conceptual art project created by Shu Lea Cheang and curated by Matthew Drutt, Associate Curator for Research at the Guggenheim in New York. The title derives from the true story of Teena Brandon who, having arrived in Nebraska in 1993 pretending to be man, was abducted and later killed by her friends when they discovered she was actually a woman. Between 1996 and 1997, the artist created four different interfaces, which bring together text and images linked to the theme of crime, and trace the history of Brandon. In 1998, the curators chose other artists and writers to make an additional creative input to the project, which is defined as a multi-artist, multi-author, multi-institutional collaboration. Numerous institutions have been involved in its realization, including the Banff Center for the Arts, a Canadian exhibition space devoted to the research and development of new forms of creative expression.

http://www.thecentralcity.co.uk


The winner of the CYnetArt 2000 award—organized as part of the annual Festival for Computer-assisted art in Dresden, now in its fifth year—is The central city, an Internet art project created by artist Steve Stanza. The city is a sort of collage made from texts, images, video, and sounds all linked together. The idea behind the project is to give consideration to the concept of the city and to the audio-visual world in relation to physical structures. The shapes burst forth from cellular structures and the space is transformed into a place for dreaming and meditating. The city is formed of more than twenty different areas, some of whose titles—such as universa, constructor, videotron, megalopotron—are rather bizarre. Within these sections, through numerous visual and audio stimuli, a multitude of material is brought together and, at times, it becomes difficult for the user to avoid getting lost. In certain areas the cells change and grow, giving life to new environments, in the host of viewing windows that keep opening up. In others, such as “citoxity,” the user is invited to interact with the program and create new formations and combinations. The background music, which draws on strong, industrial influences, is formed for the most part from the sounds and noises of the city.

http://turbulence.org/


Turbolence is a non-profit association that commissions Internet art works to explore the creative possibilities of this new media. Every year a number of projects are chosen to receive financial backing. The most recently presented work was The Apartment. The brainchild of Marek Walczak and Martin Wattenberg, with the collaboration of Jonathan Feinberg, the piece was realized thanks to funds from the Jerome Foundation. Users are invited to write words that, in turn, produce plans and images of imaginary apartments. The words overlap each other, floating freely around the interiors of empty rooms. The web site hosts links to all the projects that have been developed since 1996, including Crossroads by American artist Annette Weintraub. This project, together with another entitled Sampling Broadway, were hosted as part of the Whitney Biennial 2000, which in that year devoted a section to net art projects for the first time.

http://www.fabbricadelvapore.org


The Fabbrica del Vapore is a new space dedicated to the creative output of young artists in a variety of fields—from music to design, visual arts and photography to new media, theater and dance to creative writing. The Fabbrica aims to promote and develop these areas through the associations, workshops, and new businesses that have been created in this newly renovated building. The web site hosts information about the events that have been planned for this new space, an archive that contains images and documents recounting the history of the site itself—a former tram depot—, and a series of links to European galleries and museums that perform a similar role. For the moment, the site favors a rather didactic format, the texts and information taking precedence over the images and graphic layout.