would be highly influential for the development of Net art: Public Netbase in Vienna, Internationale Stadt in Berlin and cybercafe.org, irational.org in London. [21] The latter was only an online project, as was DDS primarily, whereas the others had physical meeting places, too. And except for DDS, all these projects were conceived by artists as art projects.

In an e-mail interview Becker writes: «Indeed I saw this as a continuation of my art work … in fact even as the logic of a new artistic practice in an information network society, away from artifacts and singular artistic gesture. … Setting up small, temporary platforms and conceptualizing events already in my pre-Internet incarnations as electronic musician, performer and artist projects like [Public] Netbase and WIO [world-information.org] naturally grew out of it.» Internationale Stadt was initiated by, amongst others, the artists Karlheinz Jeron und Joachim Blank. Through e-mail Jeron tells me that this project was also initially perceived as art: «In the very first beginning of IS (1994) at least the majority of us looked at it as an Artwork. After a little while it turned to something I would call a social- cultural project with a business

oriented part.» irational.org was most of all the initiative of the artist and activist Heath Bunting. When asked if he ever saw irational as an art project he writes: «Yes—its form and process were as important as its function.»

It may seem irrelevant whether the initiators of these projects thought their work was art initially or not. The fact that they did, however, shows that the boundaries of an artwork are not just blurred; in the course of its development this particular type of artwork dissolves almost completely. In the words of Heath Bunting: «I always thought that a good piece of art should in fact be invisible, … immediately incorporated and quickly taken for granted. So not self evident, but democratic by constant use.» [22]

These projects were definitely incorporated almost instantly, and their function quickly exceeded that of any other artwork. They not only offered Internet access and Web space, but also education and an active attitude towards the development of Net cultures.