For the first time since 1975, the Whitney Museum of American Art is including a new art form -- the Internet -- in its prestigious Biennial exhibition.

It's been 25 years since another new media form -- video -- was curated into the show, which is considered a barometer of what's currently hot in the art world.

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This year's Biennial marks the first major American survey of contemporary art to feature current developments in Internet art. It opens Thursday and runs through June 4.

"Internet art has reached a critical stage where a significant number of artists are producing works for this new medium," said Maxwell L. Anderson, director of the Whitney. "An impressive number of really exciting works have been made, and a substantial critical dialogue has developed that is slowly but surely drawing in mainstream art historians and theorists. As of 2000, Internet art can no longer be ignored as a legitimate art form."

The nine artists whose works were chosen represent a wide range of visual styles and multimedia content. Sites range from the literary to the abstract, from the conceptual to the satirical. Three presentation strategies are used to complement one another: a giant screen in the main galleries of the museum allows visitors to interact with the works in a public sphere, a suite of computers within the museum are available for visitors to interact individually with the Web sites, and the URLs are available as links on the Whitney's homepage.