Just when every media art festival is attempting to select and exhibit network projects, major overview exhibitions are being organised and the first publications on network art are out, the competition entries in this category have proved largely uninteresting. The same applies to the CD-ROMs.
While there was certainly no lack ofcompetition entries, there was a definite lack of inte­resting works and projects. Has network art passed its peak? Or have the artists simply moved on to pastures new?Some ofthe works the jury liked best were computer games and software projects, an area artists have seldom turned their attention to in the past. Are innovations and developments, therefore, more likely to come from programming digital artists in the future?
Some of those who have made a name for themselves as network artists have now quit the field and are working in other areas. However, they continue to work with the com­puter as a creative tool, so there may be some interesting developments ahead here. Perhaps the key role of network art was to encourage artists to use computers in the first place and to familiarise them with the basics of programming. This might lead in the futu­re to a different kind of computer art than ‘interactive media art’, which for a long time gave a bad name to every kind of use the new technologies were put to. This would necessitate a different name than ‘network art’, though. And for a festival like the transmediale it would mean setting up a new category for such projects.