SITO

SITO is a pre-web Internet art community initially known as OTIS (an acronym for "Operative Term is Stimulate"), proposed by Ed "[Starstew]" Stasny on UseNet in January of 1993, initially making use of anonymous FTP sites to host works by digital artists (or "The Artchive") for free. After pivoting to the emerging web, circa 1996-1997 it introduced collaborative collages (still active!) similar to the "Tiles" hosted at [ice].org, called HyGrid and Gridcosm.

In 1995 Los Angeles' longstanding Otis College of Art and Design, est. 1918, served OTIS with a cease-and-desist for squatting their name in the art sphere online. Rather than fighting back, they embraced the opportunity for a refresh and reversed their name to SITO, not formally an acronym for anything, and have remained that way ever since.

SITO is currently maintained by Jon Van Oast remotely -- the hardware lives under the generous custody of Novia.net in Omaha.

https://www.sito.org/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SITO_(artist_collective)