SITO is an online

artist collective An artist collective is an initiative that is the result of a group of artists working together, usually under their own management, towards shared aims. The aims of an artist collective can include almost anything that is relevant to the need ...

which began in January 1993, making it one of the oldest Internet-based art organizations. It was started by Ed Stastny and has been maintained by Stastny and a group of volunteers and supporters. __NOTOC__ From its beginning, SITO had a mission different from many established Internet art resources, in that rather than be an electronic journal of discussions or writings about art, it chose to be a repository for artwork in order to facilitate sharing and exposure. As this was the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

pre-

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...

, SITO accomplished this by using

anonymous FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

sites. Another important part of the SITO mission was to be open to all levels of artists, and at no cost. SITO was one of the earliest online galleries, and this showcase of artwork has become known as the ''Artchive''. Popular pronunciations of SITO are ''SEE-toe'' and ''SIT-oh''. SITO was originally called ''OTIS'', which was an

acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

for "Operative Term is Stimulate". The title ''SITO'' is merely a reversal of ''OTIS'' and is not officially an acronym, though some playful expansions have been suggested by users of the site. One such expansion is "Still I Think OTIS", which has the distinction of containing a nested acronym.

Collaborative projects

Another focus of SITO that soon developed was an active interest in art games and experimentation with collaborative art projects using the Internet as a means of communicating. The first few such projects dabbled in dividing digital canvases amongst several artists (e.g. ''Grid'' and ''Crosswire'' projects) or translating traditional art games such as

exquisite corpse Exquisite corpse (from the original French term ', literally exquisite cadaver), is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. ...

to the digital medium. These projects were in full swing by 1994 and were grouped together under the heading ''Synergy'' on SITO. In 1996, the SITO Synergy project ''HyGrid'' was honored with a

Prix Ars Electronica The Prix Ars Electronica is one of the best known and longest running yearly prizes in the field of electronic and interactive art, computer animation, digital culture and music. It has been awarded since 1987 by Ars Electronica (Linz, Austria) ...

award. ''HyGrid'' is a twisting, looping, multi-dimensional maze of small panels of art which is built up by hundreds of artists. It is still active today.

Gridcosm Gridcosm is a collaborative art project of the online art collective SITO, in which artists from around the world contribute images to a compounding series of graphical squares. Each level of Gridcosm is made up of nine square images arranged i ...

started in 1997 and proved even more popular with over 22000 contributions to its recursing collaborative collage and continues to grow daily.

OTIS vs. SITO

SITO originally was announced as "The OTIS Project", with a subtitle of "The Operative Term is Stimulate", which is where the

OTIS came from. This mostly whimsical choice became the name of the project and, in mid-1995, became an unexpected problem. An art college in the United States named Otis was troubled by the fact that OTIS made use of the term "OTIS Gallery" and used the domai
otis.org
They sent a

cease-and-desist letter A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop alleged illegal activity. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not dis ...

and various other threats. The collective discussed the situation and decided something so whimsical was hardly worth fussing over and elected to simply reverse the acronym, thus becoming SITO.

References

{{Reflist

Collaborative projects

OTIS vs. SITO

See also

References

External links