It has been a little over fifteen years since commercial services were first made available in the Japanese realms of the Internet in the early 1990s. The subsequent development of broadband connections, and the popularization of so-called smartphones and other pocket-sized terminals paved the way for 24/7 Internet accessibility as part of our daily routine. Considering the layering of reality and information that takes place here, one may describe the present situation as a constant back-and-forth between real environments and the virtual world of the Internet.

The Internet enables us to figure out what relatives, friends and acquaintances, and eventually even unknown and unseen people in other parts of the world are doing right now. The background of this is defined by data of individual Internet users recording/describing themselves and their daily habits. The community of Facebook users has grown to a global scale, and it is said that approximately one million images and about two hundred million messages are posted every day on Flickr and Twitter respectively. These numbers alone are so large that a human lifetime is not enough to view them all.

Such data is being openly modified, processed and reconfigured as necessary through the respective services’ application programming interfaces (API). The frequent trade of data between different services reflects a reinforcement of mutual connections, and in the present day the Internet itself is definitely penetrating our conscious mind as a medium that mirrors everyday life. Quite certainly, this is where new, different kinds of realities, textures, modes of communication, and ideas of human life are being generated.

Focusing on "post Internet" art originating in present-day network environments generated in a world in which the Internet has become an everyday matter, and reality is being subsumed in the world of information, this exhibition put together by the Internet Reality Study Group* examines previous examples of artistic work, and attempts to offer a preview of future developments of the Internet in connection with art.

Featured works and their displays will be updated in the course of the exhibition.

*Internet Reality Study Group
This study group around core members exonemo (SEMBO Kensuke & AKAIWA Yae), OAMAS (TANIGUCHI Akihiko + WATANABE Tomoya) and KURITA Yosuke was launched in July 2011 for the occasion of a discussion titled "What Is Internet Reality?" While aiming to define that particular Internet "reality" that we are supposedly perceiving in our daily online activities, the group explores forms of "post Internet" artistic expression and exhibition.
http://www.ntticc.or.jp/Archive/2011/InternetReality/index.html