BOULDER, Colorado, July 2, 2001 – Digital artist, novelist and web
publisher Mark Amerika, Founding Director of the Alt-X Online Network,
will have his first Japanese retrospective at the ACA Media Arts Plaza
in Tokyo, Japan. "Avant-Pop: The Stories of Mark Amerika" showcases much
of the early work Amerika pioneered during the dot.com Nineties. The
exhibition will launch on July 1, 2001 and run through September 10,
2001.

Amerika, who was recently named a "Time Magazine 100 Innovator" as part
of their continuing series of features on the most influential artists,
scientists, entertainers and philosophers into the 21st century, is the
creator or principial investigator of many Internet art projects
including GRAMMATRON, PHON:E:ME, HOLO-X, ALT-X, and the recent How To Be
An Internet Artist, all of which will be featured in the "Avant-Pop"
exhibition in Tokyo. A complete catalogue of essays and interviews with
Amerika will appear online in both English and Japanese translation.

According to Amerika, "The notion of an Avant-Pop cultural practice
evolved from my early work with artists, writers and critics in both
America and Japan, so it's only fitting that my first major show in
Tokyo would reflect this transnational cultural phenomenon and its
effect on both digital art and literature."

As part of the "Avant-Pop" exhibition, Amerika will be invited to Tokyo
by the Graphic Arts Society of Japan where he will present his work to
the general public.

Tracing Amerika's rapid emergence into the contemporary art world, web
mavens, art critics, historians and web surfers the world over have seen
his multi-media narratives work their way into various art and writing
scenes while being distributed through a wide array of formats including
hypertext, 3-D VRML environments, mp3 concept albums, ebooks, Palm
Pilots, live digital dramaturgy, and highly-acclaimed published novels.

His GRAMMATRON project (http://www.grammatron.com) was developed while
he was a Creative Writing Fellow and Lecturer on Network Publishing and
Hypertext at Brown University. Released in June 1997, it is one of the
most widely accessed art sites on the World Wide Web and in 2000 was one
of the first works of Internet art to ever be selected for the
prestigious Whitney Biennial of American Art.

The "Avant-Pop: The Stories of Mark Amerika" exhibition will be
available to the public at http://plaza.bunka.go.jp/amerika.htm, as of
July 1st, and is sponsored by the Computer Graphics Society of Japan and
the Agency for Cultural Affairs in Japan.