Then there's Mumbai-based Shilpa Gupta, whose art merges subtle comments on global exploitation, disparate identities and body-politics. It all comes together at some of her Web sites and installations.

In stark contrast to a more direct, mimetic approach taken by many of their peers, these artists are at the core of a new genre called 'New Media.'

"The term springs from a substitution of old media for new, to create art. My work is consciously created using the Internet and software as a medium," says Gupta. A web designer by profession - "one has to earn some money" - Gupta works online as well as offline, though her forte lies in installations and interactive work that flout the rules of commercialism. They are exhibited for brief periods of time and cannot be purchased.

Subversion is definitely the name of this game, with images and virtual environments coming in where canvas and palette have held sway for centuries. Styles differ, but emerging results are fairly vocal critiques on culture, commerce, and modes of industrial development.

Using technology to create art is hardly a new phenomenon. Some artists have done it for years, though critics don't always agree on the validity of these creations. 'Is this the end of new media art?' asks writer Mitchell Whitelaw, pointing out that it may simply be the reluctance of our established art-world to accept their work that prompts artists to gather under generic banners like 'electronic art,' or 'new media art.' Shilpa Gupta disagrees. "One cannot simply jump on to the bandwagon," she says.

She may be right. A look at some of these works leaves one in no doubt about their creators' sense of purpose.

Finding Baiju Parthan's interactive work online is not easy, as much of it is displayed at galleries and rarely uploaded for prolonged periods of time. Among his past successes is '24 Cups of Coffee', where viewer-participants are invited to click sense organs of the artist's self-portrait. They are then confronted with a mass of various images, one morphing into the other; now a fruit, now a woman's lips.

Narratives are built participant by participant, on the basis of customised options interweaving through text, images, and sound. Like his probes on aspects of reality, '24 Cups' questions the consumerist culture that envelops us all. It reinforces our latent desire for emancipation from all predetermined structures - whether societal or psychological.

Prema Murthy's work is more graphic, not just in terms of content, but the means she uses to her advantage. Based in the US, she is one of the founders of NY-based performance group Fakeshop, built on poetic uses of CUseeme software. Calling upon her background in art history and women studies, she created Bindi Girl.

"I'm meditating upon the questions of life. What is the reason for my existence? Why am I confined to this space?" asks Bindi Girl, whom Murthy describes as someone born out of the "exotic" and "erotic". She is Murthy's avatar, the incarnation of a Hindu deity, as well as an embodiment of the 'goddess/whore' archetype.

Disguised as a porn site (because the artist's research revealed that those sites had the best technology) Bindigirl uses pornographic images to challenge notions of tradition, which have long defined gender roles in society. When Bindi, therefore, says, "…At first I thought technology would save me, arm me with my weapons. Then I turned to religion. But both have let me down…" she draws strong parallels between technology and Indian religion, where our ostensible achievement of a greater cultural understanding is constantly questioned.

The message "women are heaven; women are dharma; and women are the highest penance..." set beside a woman caressing her vagina is powerful, and consciously incongruous.

Though still nascent in India, New Media has a strong advocate in Shilpa Gupta. Based in Mumbai, Gupta imbues her Web-based projects with subtle humour, powerful images, and critical analyses of labour and global exploitation.

Diamonds and You, for example, examines the popular belief that diamonds are a girl's best friend, juxtaposing this desire with the case of Sierra Leone's 'Blood Diamonds'.

On the one hand are local rebel-terrorist groups who take over mines and trade gems for weapons, initiating a vicious cycle of cheap child labour through cities like Surat and Mumbai. On the other hand is Gupta's Web site, with its innocuous-looking advertisement for that perfect diamond. As your go about placing your order, you find everything from sordid facts to graphic images of diamonds hidden in various parts of the human anatomy.

Sentiment Express takes on another issue: the back-office nature of the Indian IT market. It analyses the forced switching of 'identities' rampant at call centres or transcription businesses, looking at it as yet another example of globalised exploitation.

However, can't one also look at the Internet as yet another exploitative device? "Of course," she says, "Which is precisely why I use it as my medium and then subvert it. For me, it is also an undeniable medium of change."

Currently on display in London, the installation invites viewers to dictate love letters into a microphone attached to the computer. Using pull-down menus, you can then select the type of paper, scent with which to perfume it, and appropriate words. Gupta's back-up team in Mumbai promises to hand-write your letter and send it too, free of cost. In an interview, she explains: "It's as personal as you can get….The whole thing is that information is vulnerable to manipulation if it travels across continents."

Aesthetic sense notwithstanding, a more valid question about these emerging genres is asked by the writer of an article titled 'It's New Media, but is it art': Is artwork "serious" simply because it has been done using a previously unexplored medium?

Ultimately, some believe that, whether mimetic or not, art ought to question boundaries. It must move beyond societal ideologies to expose inherent flaws. Will these artists always play watchdog? "I will continue doing what I do," says Shilpa. "It's what I'm comfortable with."

Amen to that.


Also Read:

-- The Browsable Canvas - The Net is redefining Art
-- Art Stopping - Looking for Husain? Find one online.
-- New Media Art - India
-- Art India - on RediffSearch