Techno-Impressionist Art
This site's title sparks instant imagery of a neon-radiant-fiberoptik-glow traversing cyberspace with all the brilliance of modern art, classical painting and digital hipness. Perhaps what we have here is a movement of lofty ideals in search of a utopian something or other.

Riding a minimalist wave - far from the impressionism of Monet with which the masses may be more familiar - Techno Impressionists break, make and reinvent the rules. They are a group of conceptual artists who weave through the realms of computer-age tools, traditional mediums, and experimental routes to disseminate information and imagery.

The Web site echoes this concept with an appropriate blend of cutting-edge HTML tricks and standard, easy-to-understand layouts. The creators make certain we're aware they are not "computer artists" but, instead, artists who use computer tools. Make no mistake. The site includes all the requisite Web page devices. You've got your styly this, your styly that - bells, whistles, everything. Links. FAQ. History. And quite a bit of humor emerges after an initial glance. Many of the quotes in the Quote section are satirical, and the Tidbits area takes stabs at some tongue-in-cheek humor - sometimes successful, sometimes a bit too tongue-in-cheek.

The overall tone is exemplified by the following message posted in the Reviews section: "As for your critics - *Bad*, *Cheesy*, and the phrase *Cheap computer tricks* are phrases that we at MOBA do not like to see bandied about carelessly. As a director of the leading institution in the nation dedicated to bad art, I can assure you that your work is none of the above and we resent the author's recklessness." - Jerry Reilly, Museum of Bad Art (MOBA), officially declaring this work to be "not bad."Incidentally, all reviews are written by the artists themselves - artists that go by names like Vincent van Gui and Andrew Lloyd Webmaster. More than 100 images span 25 galleries, and the site is updated at least a few times each week with still more images.

There is minimal text. Sometimes this is frustrating. It might be nice to know a bit more - anything more - about the artists. But I'm assuming that the lack of information just falls in line with the overall theme. Maybe. Either way, the art is wonderful, the site is smooth and well-organized, and, overall, it's a fantastic look at the art world through the periscope of HTML.

A

Asian Arts
Before Monet and Picasso picked up paint brushes, art existed as a sacred form of expression. In the Asian Arts site, visitors learn how sculpture played a central religious role in Indian civilization. Much of the Asian art pays tribute to ancient deities such as the Vajrayana statue, which represents the five cosmic elements dominating the world: form, sensation, name, adaptation and consciousness. After gazing at the imagery, peruse extensive articles on the Giant Thangkas of Tsurphu Monastery, the Tsa-Tsa Votive Tablets of Tibet, a Taglung Lama, and more. -BJB

A

Dayglo's Animation
Flying sharks and neon pirates steer this Dayglo ship. You at home can download MPEG movie treasures of Mayan temples, robotic ferns, swimming schools of brickfish, and the superhero antics of Fifty P Man. Dayglo also offers a booty of free animation software and demos, and more links to amusing and weird sites that you can shake an MPEG leg at. The site should help beginning animators get a jump on their own creations instead of walking the plank alone. This, matey, is one ship everyone should sail.-BJB

B+

Designlink Here's your "Online Resource for Creative Professionals." It's well-designed and keenly organized, and offers to build networks among the denizens of the design industry, manufacturers, and other Internet resources. Complete with a portfolio display area, job bulletin board and a yellow pages directory, Designlink is definitely a good starting point for illustrators, photographers, interior designers and anyone else peering over creative visual edges.-SK

A

DesignOnline Artistically speaking, this is one of the most competent looking resource sites on the net. And as far as content goes, it's the cat's meow. Design Online is home to pages and pages of design-related everything: news, professional and non-profit organization info, discussion areas, files, fonts and links galore to keep designers, architects and artists connected both within the wired world, and outside the digital crusade. Many gold stars for this impressive accomplishment.-SK

A+

Graphite and Phosphor Graphite and Phosphor carries itself with an aura of mystery and discovery. Packaged with beautiful images and thoughtful layouts, this site pays homage to its creator's architectural and design passion, wonderfully displaying past and current projects. While some pages require a bit of patience (the site is almost exclusively composed of heavy images), the material at the end of the modem pull is well worth the wait.-KV

A

Idea Exchange
The Idea Exchange makes corporate art look cool. The site, sponsored by the Warren paper company, goes the extra mile by providing links to illustrators, finishers, photographers, pre-press houses, printers, professional associations, and more. In the Printer's Forum, desktop publishers can access information on flexography, thermal transfer, paper stock, sheet-fed offset, and other high-tech publishing issues. Fanzine editors and glossy magazine publishers alike will agree this is one of the brightest ideas on the Web.-BJB

A+

Internet Art Emporium
The Art Emporium may not be magnetically captivating - could anything sporting the name "emporium" be captivating? - but it certainly has its art-added value. The site features works from esteemed and not-yet-esteemed artists worldwide, with hopes that Web surfers may want to spend some money. Pricing and ordering information is well-displayed; however, the site's proprietors have yet to initiate any support of online transactions (though you could place, not *pay* for, an order via e-mail). The Emporium also includes the ubiquitous link list of other art-related resources. It is indeed well organized and useful.-LS

B

Kiernan's Wavefront Homepage
While some net kids dabble in animation, others become MPEG movie geniuses. Wavefront separates the greatness from the gunk with a collection of Kiernan Holland's own MPEG creations. Download and watch short animations of cyber insects, hand shadows, rolling walrus heads, and blazing infernos. And, after viewing these curiosities, check out the Resumes Of Wavefront Experts At UNM section; prospective employers are encouraged to give jobs to Kiernan's classmates. The next George Lucas or David Lynch could be an MPEG hack in disguise. -BJB

B

may you live in interesting times
The momentum of this site swings far and wide with energy, creativity and an overwhelmingly large collection of images, artwork, and ideas. AdaWeb fills its server with digital exhibitions, examples of creative HTML design, and flurries of abstract concepts. At first, you'll need to trust your intuition to click with reckless abandon (few options are clearly indicated, though many are presented). But, as you find yourself pouring through the site, it becomes apparent that this sort of random access works well with all the presentations, and adds to its enjoyment factor. Stunning creativity.-SK

A

New Mexico Album Chili pepper vistas and orange sunsets saturate Philip Greenspun's online photo essay about New Mexico. This unique take on the Land of Enchantment explores the housing crunch, satellite dish invasions, and native people hiding from Sante Fe yuppies. The site is only one page long with a few scattered sentences and a total of 17 photos. Created by the same guy who brought us the popular travel Web diary Travels With Samantha, this photo journal falls short, and needs more personality to justify its download time.-BJB

C+

Picture Project Gallery
Beautiful and immensely moving, this site serves as a photo documentary of the horrors and suffering that has consumed the scope of all life in Bosnia. The archive contains dozens of astonishing, gut-wrenching and heart-warming photographs with simple (and painfully confrontational) commentary, laced along margins as captions to photos. It's an outstanding Web site to visit, especially on days of deep melancholia. Guaranteed to instigate introspection.-SK

A

Post Industrial Potrero Hill
Examine the atmosphere within an artists' live-work space collective on San Francisco's Potrero Hill. Drown yourself in wonderful architectural drawings, or research the history of the group members as they fought to keep their previous space, a renovated hotel on Geary Street that was home to many artistic legends: Janis Joplin, Wes Wilton and Terry Fox. This site is well-designed and presented, although, when I wrote this review, the weekly newsletter was a few months behind.-SK

B+

Scultura Arts Forum
At Scultura, everything has a price. This online gallery is more like a shopping mart, encouraging visitors to buy art, pay for a membership, and browse classifieds. After swimming through the dollar signs, visitors can enjoy a broad spectrum of art from abstract oil paintings to Crayola portraits drawn on brown paper bags. The Global Arts links page is scarce - perhaps because this online gallery charges $199 to link your site to Scultura. If Scultura focused more on tuning in to, instead of cashing in on, the Internet artist community, this site would be worth its price in pixels.-BJB

C+

Survival Research Laboratories
A blazing background supports the content of Survival Research Lab's post-apocalyptic-demolition-style-techno-art extravaganza. A mouthful of rusty nails and battling robotic droids are sure to captivate the fascination of at least a few sadistic net surfers. And the pages devoted to Burning Man - a giant wooden sculpture that is annually erected and torched in a Nevada desert - are exceptionally inspiring. Survival Research Labs lives on the fringe of an over-exploited bleeding edge, and its web site will back this up. Outstanding.-SK

A

Zero Tolerance
Zero Tolerance is a hodgepodge of creative efforts spanning digital media, photography, and philosophical goo - all rolled into a cool-looking but kind of messy package. It's hard to nail down the site's intentions, other than it's a place to store ideas, however chaotically. Perhaps no other point is required. The images are sometimes spectacular and sometimes lacking, but overall, the site is entertaining, thoughtful and worth visits from curious types.-SK

B+


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