"In contemporary art, there is always an element of negative reaction," Gansallo said.

He should know. The museum's annual Turner prize -- Britain's top award for contemporary art --­ was recently given to Chris Offili, whose dung-laced painting of the Virgin Mary drew protests that nearly shut down the Brooklyn Museum of Art last fall.

But since the site went live June 27, there has been surprisingly little controversy. Museum officials say there have been some "confused" responses, but say public reaction has generally been positive. Gansallo said the reception suggests a "bright and interesting future for the museum and for Net art."

Benjamin Weil, curator of media arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, said any controversy around the site is "incredibly old-fashioned." He went a step further by saying that Harwood's project -- "the good old class fight" -- is nothing new in the art world.

Seemingly unimpressed by "Uncomfortable Proximity," he said artists such as Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, and Hans Haacke have done plenty of offline work that critiqued the "dark forces" of museums.

Taking over the websites of museums and galleries is also nothing new. In 1996, Yoko Ono built an unauthorized art project disguised as the homepage of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. Rhizome has recently invited artists to "remix" its site. And in June, the artist Service 2000 launched "29 Uncommissioned Websites" ­-- a humorous series of garish, low-tech homepages named after London's leading galleries, including the Tate.

But admirers of Harwood's project say it is something different. It is one of the first times a major museum has commissioned a Net art project or let an artist take over its "public face," said Matthew Fuller, whom the Tate commissioned to write critical texts about the project.

Galloway agrees, and he praised the site for its "unsettling" treatment of "racism, bodies and flesh."

"It's great that the Tate, which is such a big institution in Britain, is letting Mongrel do their own work on their own terms," he said.

The Tate's second Net art commission, "Le Match des Couleurs," a sound and image work by Simon Patterson, went online July 12. Both projects will be online until June 30, 2001.