Toshiharu ITOH
(Professor at Tama Art University; Art Critic; ICC Committee)

The preparation of a completely new and unexpected site for creativity has now been commenced by the fusion of the communication system based on telephone lines and the computer as both technology and media.This new site contains the potential to do away with geographical boundaries and cultural differences, as well as the momentum to transcend the limitations heretofore posed by material physicality. In other words,it possesses the potential to re-materialize and re-describe human beings.

When IC '91: The Museum Inside The Telephone Network was held, the word "Internet"was still nothing more than something from a distance world. But over the past few years, the multimedia environment has rapidly begun to permeate the level of daily life. IC '91 used a network to create a museum of invisible packaging through telephones and faxes. With IC '95, a visibly expanding and evolving museum will come into being through the use of Netscape, Web Space and Hot Java on the Internet.

Will the emergence of a museum of this form be capable of turning into a new system for preserving art and lengthening its lifespan? Or will it be able to transform art into completely new and previously unimaginable forms? These are the kinds of issues that will surely be questioned by this network. The technology of information communications is a "technology of consciousness" that belongs to the realm of the spirit and the senses more than to the realm of practicality and function. Bearing this in mind, I hope to immerse myself within the fabric of the network.