How important is an online presence to the Tate? Extremely. The Tate.org site has ambitions to be the sixth Tate site, after Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Tate St Ives, Tate Liverpool and the store. The web presence helps people prepare for a real world visit and people can access the site after visiting a gallery, to find out to review and reconsider what they have seen. But perhaps, most importantly, the site interface is designed to provide those visitors who are unable to travel to the galleries with an opportunity to engage with the artworks on display.
What can visitors to the Tate site find? Details of what is going on in each of our galleries, including exhibitions listings and web casts of events. There is also information on 25,000 works from the Tate collection - we will have the complete collection of 50,000 online by spring 2002. There is an online shop where they can buy prints, books and gifts - even a new range of underwear designed by Agent Provocateur! We also have some fantastic examples of Net Art.
Is the net a good showcase for art? It is a fantastic showcase for art. It allows us to display more objects than we can physically fit in the gallery walls to people all over the world at a time that suits them. The net is also providing an extremely versatile and challenging new medium for artists to work with and curators to present on!
Is the net helping to make art more accessible? I think it really is. Most museums worldwide are digitising their collections and offering access to these via the net, as well as a range of support materials that simply would not be feasible to provide in the gallery. How can that not be a good thing?
What computer do you use? At work I use a Toshiba Tecra 8200. I started off on Macs, but I am now a fully fledged PC convert, which is a shame, as I would rather support the underdog! I also have a Compaq iPaq and a Psion Revo.
Do you have any favourite websites? I love www.heavy.com. The design and content are superb and work well together, although it is inevitable, but a shame, that they have now started charging. I am also a big fan of http://rhizome.org, which is the best online resource for new media art.
I also shop at www.tesco.com as it really works. Good examples of galleries online are www.sfmoma.org and The Whitney.
Do you have any favourite gadgets? My juicer, my DVD player and my Sony digital video camera. Oh... and a TiVop is top of my wish list!
Visit www.tate.org.uk
