The web has provided a communication network that has put Sala 1, and metonymically Italy, on the map of world art communities via international collaboration. By having an open call internationally for artists working on the web, the Netizens project collects a database of web artists who may otherwise go unnoticed in the art communities in Italy and in their own geographic areas. Sala 1 offers the selected applicants an opportunity to have an exhibition at the gallery the following year in addition to being shown in the virtual exhibition on the gallery's online portal. Thus, this project propels web art to beyond the virtual and into the physical space of the gallery. This concept of grounding web art in the gallery reflects important goals of Sala 1; the Netizens project meets these mandates by showing works of artists who may lack an audience or venue for experimental art while also providing each participant with a recognized portal that contains their artistic projects. Thus, the Netizens portal becomes a type of "imagined community" of web artists.

Benedict Anderson's term "imagined community,"9 initially used to describe sovereign nation-states in his theorization of nationalism, generally refers to a communion of persons who share a common way of imagining, or thinking about their community. Anderson explains that the community is imagined because "the members of even the smallest nation [or a web community] will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion."10 Anderson adds that the communities are distinguished by the way each imagine themselves and by the particularities of the ties between the members of the community. Like MacLuhan's concept of "global village," Anderson's explanation of a nation-state as a communion of people, who may never see each other, but share the social space that each imagine as distinctly their own, precedes the rise of the Internet, but can be applied pertinently to the virtual web communities. The web communities and net-citizens ironically subvert the physical national territories and concepts of sovereign states. The rise of the nation-state coincided with the Enlightenment movement. It emphasized rationality and a belief in a scientific progress wherein nations could be categorized in a hierarchy of various states contingent on scientific development. Thee national boundaries that relegated certain geographic areas and are exactly what Schroth, as the director of Sala 1, wishes to transcend by using the web to collapse these barriers and enable artists to exhibit directly in the gallery and online.

The Netizens project serves its local community, that is, the citizens within in Rome. While the Netizens project frames itself and Sala 1 in the global currency of art, with artists, curators and (virtual) visitors from around the world, the focus has been to present new and experimentative works to the community of all again by translating this web art portal into physical exhibition at Sala 1. The exhibition's audience present at the gallery is primarily Italian while English is available on the website to enable the Netizens site meet the project's international aim. While tying the Roman locale and exhibition on international audience through the net, the gallery also pushes the boundaries of net art by encouraging these digital artists ways to translate their works into the physical. Schroth admits the physical re-presentation of web art to a visual exhibition is one of the greatest challenges of the Netizens project for both the coordinators and the participant.11 The physical exhibitions and the web portal along with printed materials available for circulation during the show play an important role in shaping the understanding and the reception of the Netizens project in Rome and abroad.

The constraints of geography, socio-economics as well as knowledge and interest in web art have affected the production and engagement or artists, curators, and others with web-art communities. Thus the gallery's tactic of giving shape and weight to a virtual medium by organizing a physical exhibition with distributed printed catalogues promotes this medium to all communities equally. Schroth points out that web art "will take a bit of time to reach the general art public and involve more artists."12 Since the web provides access to unparalleled amounts of information with great expediency, it may be seen as undemocratic given access is limited to those who can connect and have access to it. North America, Asia, and Europe, have witnessed a strong emergence and adoption of web art in part because these regions have resources available to initiate web art projects. As for the communities who lack digital resources, contextualizing web art through recognizable materials, such as catalogues, banners or posters, becomes another critical method of delivery and awareness. The physical exhibition of web art at Sala 1 as well as the catalogue, as Schroth so notes are all important in educating the general13 (art) public, particularly its Italian audiences, that this medium is viable and constantly evolving. With public funding from the European Community and regional civic institutions behind the project14, the Netizens project further aims to reach beyond Italian communities to acquaint each with what Sturken and Cartwright believe have wished as the potential of technology to democratize knowledge. While Italian net art is still emerging, Netizens offers an opportunity to experience net art both as a physical and virtual object. This offering will enable and inspire Italian and other artists to re-consider the media. Indeed, as Schroth states, the Netizens project "attempt to open the doors, each year with a different outlook and exhibit that will reflect the current status of this art."15

Footnotes:
9 Benedict Anderson is a British-American political scientist who has written Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, a famous book that studies the history of nationalism.
10 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), 6.
11 Mary Angela Schroth, "Re: Responses Sala 1" [email] (19 March 2005).
12 Ibid
13 "Mary Angela Schroth, "Re: Responses Sala 1" [email] (19 March 2005
14 Although the Netizens project has been publicly funded, the gallery has no public funding excepting annual grants from the Cultural Ministry.
Mary Angela Schroth, "Re: Responses Sala 1" [email] (31 March 2005).
15 Mary Angela Schroth, "Re: Responses Sala 1" [email] (19 March 2005).