http://ouija.berkeley.edu

And that's exactly what the Whitney Museum has done for its 2000 Biennial, culling several Web projects the Biennial's curators deemed representative of the medium's vitality and versatility. This is the first time Internet art has been including in the museum's bi-yearly statement on art in America. But, according to the Whitney, the year 2000 is the time when "Internet art can no longer be ignored as a legitimate art form."

Even if the art form is still defining itself, most online aficionados will find something of interest in the projects the Whitney's chosen to include. The art form has several virtues that will be obvious to most savvy Web surfers, since they're the same qualities that make the Internet such a revolutionary phenomenon.

Interactivity: A great deal of online art exploits what technology museums, petting zoos and strip joints have known for years: People like to touch things. Even though it may just mean clicking buttons or using a mouse, Internet art projects often invite the viewer to become part of the creative process by choosing the next step or controlling the pace of a work. Not only does this help hold someone's attention, but it raises interesting philosophical questions about how humans create subjective realities by making constant, mostly unconscious, choices about what information they process.

Internet art lets you — and you alone —master the controls.

Privacy: No one can see you. You don't have to look thoughtful or intelligent. You don't have to wear all black. In fact, you don't have to dress at all.

Accessibility: You can linger, ponder, stare, get a sandwich and a beer and return without paying an entrance fee every time. There are no school groups blocking your view and no security guards reprimanding you for stepping too close to an invisible piece of string. You don't have to listen to someone lecturing her companion on latent expressionist modes. You don't have to wait until you have a free Saturday.

Longevity: No end-date is necessary for Internet projects, although there often is one. Works-in-progress can be added to, revised and upgraded. As long the server doesn't crash, you have the very best the online art world has to offer at your fingertips.

The Best and Worst of Biennial Internet Art

The Whitney offers a complete list of projects at its Web site, but here are a few choice picks:

Most Amusing: Superbad by Ben Benjamin

www.superbad.com

Web designer Ben Benjamin has a brilliant — and generally hilarious — knack for stringing together images and text that makes for a mind-bending trip down pop culture's memory lane, intertwined with photos and scraps of memories from someone's — the author's? — mildly dysfunctional childhood. Meet the bees and find out where they like to go. Trust me, it's worth it.

Most 'Artsy': Grammatron by Mark Amerika

www.grammatron.com

Wired magazine says "Amerika's work exemplifies how online literary creations are developing into an entire multi-media experience." Grammatron uses audio (an eerie soundtrack), images and hyperlinked text (you can click on certain words or phrases that take you to other parts of the text.) The writing is meant (hopefully) to parody a typical cyber novel. For example, "The city moved like a cognitive abstraction devised by some hip, chaos-bound physicist with an artist's eye for program design. Golam had the feeling that he was surrounded by sexual algorithms that communicated with the pulsation inside his pants." Yikes. The non-linear narrative structure is an obvious and ideal use of the medium, with thought-provoking, though sometimes confused, results.

Most Game-like: Ouija 2000 by Ken Goldberg

http://ouija.berkeley.edu

Ken Goldberg's virtual ouija board uses "telerobotics," or mechanical operations that are activated by remote viewers through commands over the Internet. By dimming the lights and substituting a mouse for the ouija planchette, viewers are encouraged to feel the energy as the "spirit" answers questions that pop up on the screen. Although some will see it as merely an online parlor trick, Goldberg is drawing a neat comparison between ancient faith in mystical sources of knowledge and modern trust in the Internet and electronic media.

Most Satirical: @Trademark by ®™ark

http://www.rtmark.com

Pronounced "Artmark," this site promotes "the sabotage of corporate products" so subtly that most Internet users wouldn't know recognize what's going on here without clicking around more attentively than usual. Viewers can browse long lists of recent and past projects that call for mostly mild subversion of commercial efforts, including Project DISN, an invitation to "any group of twenty people who hop the fence at Disneyland, at different points around the perimeter, and simultaneously make a run for the security office/holding cell to turn themselves in. Maps of area available to interested parties." Funny and provocative, this type of thing seems to belong more to a tradition of literary satire than visual art. But like the rose, it smells just as sweet by any name.

Most Poetic: Blindspot by Darcey Steinke

http://adaweb.walkerart.org/project/blindspot

Writer Darcey Steinke's short story was commissioned specifically for the Web. The slice-of-life story is told in frames, with the central tale hyperlinked to smaller digressions that pop up on the screen when activated. In the context of the story, the visual deconstruction works well to reinforce the central character's mental wanderings and question the reader's absorption of detail and background. Graphics and sound add weight and interest.