Report on the Mail Art NetworMn6S con8ress
with Mayumi Handa, Shózó Shimamoto and Ryosuke Cohen at Kóshienguchi Art Space about " Computers Ln Networking"

we agreed in our distrust of computers as tile supposed one and only new art medium, seeSn8 the ongoing technological revolution as chance and danger at the same time.


Computer gmphics/ e.g. dmstically demand a new definition of art, the artwork is hidden in the software, the printout, is "ars multiplicata" I
We might be confronted with Michelangelo Re\isited: the loss oi individual art, tile reverse of the Renaissance. the ultimate in mass
production.

3 years ago P. Petasz came through hlinden. smuggling his first PC under his tiny old car into Poland . Now he already organizes computer-aided networkes' workshops. Computer artists like scott X in Australia have difficulties ey,ressing themselves other than in E-mail terms. Time to (re-)act?

Mayumi is savin8 up for a computer, hut only for documentary purposes. Shózó prefers for his own works definitely his own "traditional" much more personal tools and media, i.e. paint. thou8h no brushes. He also is familiar with computer graphics through his universit?' work. Peter and Angela find themselves in an integrative anachronism: transporting floppy discs by hand within the network.

All participants see that we cannot simply ignore this new medium in the network, also as a creative tool. If we do not use it, ,thews will brainwash us with it and eventuall?. kill us as social art dinosaurs, nightmarish '1984 in perfection.