In reply to Josephine Bosma's announcement of the "Mister Net.Art '98"
competition [RHIZOME CONTENTBASE, 1.19.98], Natasha V. More wrote:

What a wonderful idea way to celebrate achievement. But tell me please,
does the "Mr" mean that the criteria pertains only male "male" or XY
candidates? What about androgen women?

Josephine Bosma replied:

We will round off this celebrational year (1997) for net.art with a
Mister Net.Art competition [www.irational.org/7-11/mr]. The attention
for net.art has been, maybe involuntarely, focussed on the personae of
its male representatives mostly. Whether this is an inevitable general
social phenomenon, not induced by the artists in question, we will leave
undiscussed. In some cases I think we can conclude at least advantage
was taken of this well known symptom of history-creation. This could be
considered in the granting of points to the individuals involved, when
online and offline appearance will be discussed within the jury. This
competition is meant to bring order and balance into the reporting on
net.art in the future.

With the calls for a net.art criticism piling up, a refocussing on the
diversity of its creators and their work is necesary. We will not leave
benefactors other then the artists themselves out of this playful
evaluation.

Art on the net, net.specific art we mean, is not served by common art
criticism. Values important in the offline artmarket, and
classifications that even in that same artmarket have been out of order
for many years already, keep haunting the perspective and the
representation of the artwork in outdated criticism and theory,
obstructing the work of people of all sexes. This contest is *one* way
of dealing with the creation of a different art landscape, in which
disciplines are much more diffuse and flexible. One way of achieving
this refocus is the particular angle we take here, as in this case, it
is not so much the winner, but the players of the game that count.

carmin wrote:

Ok anyone can submit work–male, female, in-betweens and others. But the
contest appears to be judged by women & called Mister Net.Art. That
bothers me. It parallels men judging young women in bikinis. Yet
Josephine wrote that this is playful–so it's OK by me, in that respect.

Still, being a person who sports many scars from stereotyping and
collusion, I wish you were not perpetuating the stereotype of males as
the important artists. Please don't welcome the old ghosts into this new
arena. Your contest is perhaps offered as a playful gesture, but it may
not play out that way in history. People see what they want to see, and
most people have filters that make stereotypes the first thing they see.

Also I do hope you keep in mind the fact that technology changes faster
than it can be documented. So technical criteria established for
measurement will be outdated quickly–maybe even before the contest
ends. Yet you must include technical efficiency considerations, else why
bother classing it as net.art? (oh, don't get me started on 'bad
code'…)

Have fun, grrrlz!