The Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York have both served as spring boards for ®™ark's efforts.

A press conference was hosted by ®™ark on December 20, 1999 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The event was originally scheduled as a presentation of ®™ark's promotional videos ("Bringing IT to YOU" and other ®™ark titles) as part of an ongoing educational series about contemporary video at MoMA entitled "Video Viewpoints." ®™ark requested that the allotted time be utilized instead as a press conference that would bring attention to the plight of etoy, a Swiss art collective embroiled in a legal battle with online-retailer eToys in regaining the use of their domain name, www.etoy.com, after online toy retailer eToys.com slapped them with a lawsuit.

Claiming brand dilution, unfair competition, and trademark infringement due to the similarity of their names (i.e. "eToys" has an "s," while the artist group "Etoy" does not) eToys.com sued the Swiss artists in California court. In November, a Santa Monica judge granted eToys a preliminary injunction that forced Etoy to cease using Etoy.com, which for Etoy was like a death sentence. ®™ark, EDT, Fakeshop, Rhizome.org, and countless other artists, activists, lawyers, designers, and academics joined Etoy in an unprecedented global protest.

This dispute was clearly not about "cyber-squatting," for Etoy had been using www.etoy.com as their online residence a full two years before eToys.com came on the scene and the two had been co-existing online in a peaceful manner for more than a year.

MoMA allowed the change of plans and opened up the Museum to potential criticism (not to mention angry artists, a marching band, a frenzied evangelist, and friends of the movement) by allowing ®™ark to invite speakers to explain the situation to the art community at large and members of the mainstream press. Suzanne Meszoly, Director of the Etoy advisory board, Douglas Rushkoff, National Public Radio Correspondent and Etoy advisor, among many other speakers addressed the gathering in the Museums's main auditorium. Representatives from ®™ark dressed in Santa costumes and beards moderated the event and introduced each of the guests who each gave rousing speeches to an audience bedecked in Santa Hats.

After weeks of protests, denial of service attacks, and $50,000.00 in lawyers' fees, use of www.etoy.com was restored to its owners. Proving a representative of ®™ark correct in this cheeky statement to one reporter: "If you ask for trouble loudly enough, people are going to be very afraid to give it to you. It's not worth the bad publicity for them."

"This case merely demonstrates who has the right to conduct business, operate, express themselves, and exist in cyberspace."

-Suzanne Meszoly, etoy.CURATOR

What this boils down to is, indeed, a turf war, where the museum is implicated as site of the struggle. Before the event, the atmosphere outside the museum on 53rd St alternated between festive and giddy as the Hungry March Band played rousing Christmas carols despite the rain to the sidewalk-cloistered crowd. The evangelist/performance artist Reverend Billy preaching his way through the museums door, a large crucifix complete with sacrificed Mickey Mouse over his shoulder and the Bible under his right arm, preaching as to the evils of the "commodity culture." In the auditorium, the Reverend would later compare the actions of eToys to those of his "abusive daddy," only minutes after a heavy-set museum guard so sternly confiscated his "prop" as he entered the main lobby. (I assume he was given the crucifix back after the event from the man at the coat check booth.) Entering the museum, a hush came over the crowd, the music stopped; tubas were tucked neatly under the arm, as if they were all entering some sort of temple. Under the watchful gaze of the guards who, like ruler-brandishing nuns, would jump at the chance to slap anyone across back of the hand if they even breathed on the door wrong, MoMA invited Internet Art into the inner sanctum.

And the cautious attitude was not without justification. Previous art activist organizations have cause much frustration to museums, especially around the big New York-style institutions that show works of contemporary art, MoMA being a prime example. The history of artist/activist groups goes back a long way. There are countless who work within the artistic field to form such collective operations goes way back.

Visitors to the "Internet Art" section of this year's Whitney Biennial were greeted with the above statement from the activist organization ®™ark (pronounced "art-mark") upon entering ®™ark's website via a link from that of the Whitney's. "This is not ®™ark.com!" the page heading read.

On the occasion of the Biennial opening (March 23, 2000) ®™ark changed it signature splash page, the main entrance to their online presence, to allow viewers, who came to it via the Whitney Museum, an alternative entry into their practice. ®™ark replaced the content normally appearing on their splash page with that of other websites submitted by Whitney website visitors. ®™ark has in effect curated an open Biennial, accessible to anyone who comes to them via a link from the Whitney. Type in ®™ark's URL (www.rtmark.com,) however, into any other browser window and you go right to the original, non-altered ®™ark website. ®™ark pledges the Whitney space to provide a vehicle whereby those they deem worthy of support could be recognized under the umbrella of the Biennial at large.

This intervention, architectural and conceptual in nature, draws attention to the difficulties inherent in bringing online art practices, ®™ark being a particularly good example, into the museum. In recent months, ®™ark's is gearing it strategy increasingly toward the museum as more and more connections between this group and art exhibition structures are forged. Though the stance that ®™ark's actions in 2000 Whitney Biennial takes appears to be somewhat abrasive, the intervention is not so much about giving art institutions "the bird." Rather, this action exposes the difficulties inherent to displaying online artwork within the gallery walls­ difficulties that are increasingly apparent as more and more Internet Art projects are being brought in under the auspices of institutions.