personal or social dedication. The new arts are about engagement. This engagement asks for a more conscious approach of the mediated environment artists, audience, but also critics and art institutions now work in. Since the new public domain extends itself not only into the home, but also into art institutions (through its media or network presence, such as Web sites, online forums, e-mail services, within the larger scope of media networks), art institutions and critics have become part of more intimate and more open, publicly accessible discourses which are often shaped and supported by artists. Art in the Public Domain 2.0 is therefore first and foremost a site of media awareness and power struggles.

(All e-mail exchanges quoted from in this text occurred between April and July 2004.)