Be fore discussing the issue of art on the Internet, I would like to introduce five distinctive projects in multi-user virtual environments [1] that were recently done in Brazil. The first, Imateriais 99, used videogame technology to explore some key issues regarding contemporary thinking about the relationship between the real and the virtual. The other project, created by me in 2000, is titled Desertesejo, and involves the use of VRML for artistic purposes. The other projects are: The Xamantic Journey, created by Tania Fraga in 1999; Vozes, done by Suzete Venturelli in 2001; and The Wanderer Project, begun in 1999 and developed by the group SDVILA.
IMATERIAIS 99Itaú Cultural [2] put together the Imateriais 99 exposition in which visitors were invited to step through a sensorial space (called "hypersensibilization space") and were seated in front of computers to negotiate a common virtual space using earpieces, microphones and joypads. Twenty-five people could meet one another simultaneously, have conversations and explore six different virtual environments together, consisting of an entrance plus an environment for each of the five human senses-touch, hearing, taste, smell and sight. In these spaces, one could meet other avatars and share experiences with them ( Fig. 1). The Imateriais 99 exposition was modeled after an exhibition in 1985, in which Jean-François Lyotard and Thierry Chaput intended to create a "display" that would show how much the quotidian is based on language and fluid information. It was evident that the issues Lyotard and Chaput brought up almost 15 years ago were still pertinent, though in another dimension.Imateriais 99 aimed to show the visitor that the border between "natural" and "artificial" is becoming less definable and the border between material and immaterial is increasingly fluid. The exhibition was designed to show that the virtual is progressively assimilated into daily life (i.e. a good part of daily life, at least for the wealthiest fraction of humanity, takes place in the virtual world). To do this the artists used an entrance through an exhibition environment in which visitors were exposed to the main problems they will have to face later, when immersed in a realistic interactive virtual environment. To realize the exhibit, Itaú Cultural assembled a team of artists, designers, screenplayers and programmers to create the multi-user virtual environment (Fig. 2) [3].