The two media - CD-ROM and the Internet - showcased in the transmediale's multimedia exhibition are enjoying increasing acceptance by artists who recognize their potential as creative vehicles, but also by recipients whose awareness is growing that these are autonomous art forms deserving serious attention. Viewed from a distance, there is little difference between the two media: both are accessible via the computer in its capacity o f transformer, and share almost identical interfaces. The viewer o f these media projects is no longer merely a spectator, but a user who is required to act - and the word„user" by the way, is no less a stopgap than the other terms applied to people who navigate through CD-ROMs or the Net in order to try out purely artistic content.„User"promises a practical utility seldom offered by art, while a„surfer" by definition remains on top o f things, skims the surface withoutpenetrating below. Tosome extent, these terms are indicative o f a dilemma faced in particular by network art, in spite o f its growing reputation: individual Net projects have to hold their own against a vast ocean ofanything from informative to commercial URLs, must win over the viewers, seduce them into sacrificingsomeoftheirworkingorleisuretime.Theartprojects demand concentration, technical proficiency and perseverance - as opposed to the average 10 seconds spent on looking a t a picture hanging in a museum. This effort is an obstacle which makes it seem all the more crucial that the time and trouble invested should be rewarded by a worthwhile result.
We think the exertion-to-performance ratios o f the Internet and CD-ROM projects displayed at the transmediale are not unreasonable. Carefully directed interactivity and well thought- out navigation were selection criteria alongside the merits o f the artistic concept and graphic realization. At the same time, we looked for works that conveyed something o f the unique, individual characteristics made possible by the choice o f one technology or the other: attributes such as the mature VRML and incorporation o f film specific to the CD-ROM medium, or the communicative concept and the reduction that makes the Internet distinctive.