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along that road.'' Interactivity, he hopes, ``will destroy the elite divide between those who can create and those who can't.'' Such artistic egalitarianism is a guiding principle on the World Wide Web, which has become the Internet's showcase for visual imagery. Any artist can display his or her images -- whether paintings, photos, sketches or other forms -- to thousands of viewers at little cost beyond that of a modem and the requisite software to get on the Net. In essence, the Web offers a virtual mall of galleries, each featuring round-the-clock exhibitions, minus the jug wine. Hoping for recognition, some struggling artists scan in reproductions of their work, while others display more complex, computer-developed art. A host of budding Cezannes may yet emerge from the Web's galleries, but for now much of the work remains amateurish. ``I haven't been blown away by the online art I've seen,'' says Sarah Bayliss, the U.S. editor of World Art, a new quarterly focusing on emerging artists and electronic media. ``A lot of people online are very optimistic; they have an uncynical attitude. And that is what encourages really bad art. This `anyone can be an artist' mind-set is one of the most dangerous things we're seeing.'' Part of the problem, contend cyber-aesthetes, is that there are no established criteria for judging Net art. ``The real issue is how you find, develop and enforce standards in a brave new world,'' says the Whitney's Ross. ``Eventually more critics will begin to develop a vocabulary to say something meaningful about what they're seeing, and critical dialogue will help shape standards. But we're a generation away from that.'' The best Web art so far has been created by computers and designed specifically for them. These are works that would have no place in a traditional gallery or museum. Ross considers the work of conceptual artist Antonio Muntades a paragon of excellence in computer art. Muntades' File Room is an ongoing interactive dialogue on censorship featuring images, biographies and discussions of controversial artists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Annie Sprinkle. The Website CitySpace, co-developed by Los Angeles artist Coco Conn and the Ontario Science Center, features virtual metropolises in which visitors may add doors, freeways and parks. In this maze of infinite gallery space, where little is for sale yet, even the best artists must figure out how they will survive. Ross envisions a world where Websites are bestowed on worthy artists, who in turn charge visitation fees. In that scheme, an artist might receive a Website as he would a grant and then put himself in business. Since popular Websites are visited tens of thousand of times a day, he could conceivably make a pretty good living by charging just 25 cents a visit. Until the mechanics of such a system are worked out and an elite cadre of cyber-artists emerges, the most visible pieces of art will be the digitally reproduced museum masterpieces put online by patrons like Microsoft's Bill Gates. His newly formed company, Continuum Productions, is collecting the digital rights to many of the great works of art and creating electronic coffee-table books, available now on CD-ROMs and eventually on networks. Similarly, a mini-Louvre Website exists on the Net, allowing visitors to call up a grainy version of works such as Monet's Pont Neuf. Some in the real (as opposed to virtual) art world are concerned that on-screen viewing will deter actual
