Ever since its beginnings in the early 1990s, Net art has been associated with a dual hope. For art it promised a direct connection to the social reality of the data networks and a world beyond the usual art system. The net artists on the other hand strove to achieve political effectiveness and create democratic networks and a new aesthetic practice through visu­al means and rapid communicative exchange. Net art was fashionable in the media departments of museums. The net-aesthetic actions and projects presented ever- new interfaces which analysed the computer and found a broad audience. Yet, while society’s dependence on the ubi­quitous computer has not diminished, not much new is currently happening in the field of Net art. The NetSplit symposium investigates the reasons for the emerging split between an art that produces objects and a net activism that merely defamiliarizes the technical surfaces in order to facilitate a politicized public domain. Has the Internet been overestimated as an aesthetic medium? Are the possibilities of monitor-based art too limited? Or will the recession of Net art be inevitably followed by a renewed upswing?