The event, titled 'Is Technology Art?,' drew a crowd of local business leaders representing about 100 different companies and groups, including the Canadian Embassy, Booz Allen Hamilton, and area tech companies. Held at the Tech Entrepreneur Community Center in Arlington, VA, the event was co-sponsored by three of the region's most active technology organizations. That night, the Washington, DC, CoF cell, Women in Technology, and The New Media Society of Washington joined forces to experiment with a new networking format.

Mike Smith, president of the New Media Society, likened the idea to a physical analog of an online threaded discussion. After being presented with food for thought by an expert panel on the topic of art and technology, the audience would use the question, 'Is Technology Art?' as a springboard for conversation with each other and for networking.

The panel featured an artist, an architect and a technologist. Susan Waters-Eller, a Maryland artist who uses and teaches technology as a medium for art, premiered her work, 'Cave.' Waters-Eller has used Macromedia and Virtual Director software to create animated interactive pieces. On a screen linked to a laptop appears a black and white version of what seems to be the chambers of the human heart. Viewers can, with the help of mouse, click on various parts of the picture and enter representations of what the artist calls 'the shadowy parts of the human psyche.'

In a scene reminiscent of 'Brave New World,' rows of workers move like ants on multiple levels of square U's. The only color objects in the picture are two shafts illuminated by shifting rainbow lights, running up and down the middle of the scene. Waters-Eller clicks on a top corner of the picture and one of the body falls through the height of the picture with a yelp. The scene then transforms to the opening of an elevator. 'With technology, we have opportunities now to create things that have never been thought of before,' commented Waters-Eller. To her, art results in structures that evoke a feeling or correspond to a felt state. The technology has evolved into a medium of her art.

The second panelist, Marcia Hart, took the stance that technology is not art. Hart is an architect at OP.X, an architectural firm that helps groups understand the connections between design and organizational objectives. To her, the difference between art and non-art lies in motivation. Work or non-art is driven by functional requirements established by others. Hence, while architecture and technology may convert an idea into reality, engage participants on an emotional level, and create relationships that are previously elusive, their motivation is function. Technology, is therefore, not art.

The last panelist, Neeran Saraf, a technologist with more than 20 years of experience, strongly disagreed with Hart's assessment. Saraf, an entrepreneur who broke into the domain name market six years ago, is president and chief technology officer of SARAF Software Solutions. The scientifically based software consulting company merges the latest technologies with existing, proven and robust system design. Saraf's vision, from computers' punch-card days, to today's complex software and hardware innovations, sees technology as a creative effort emanating from a need, but necessity is not the only mother of invention. In her argument, she also referred to the language used to describe technology. 'If technology is based on pure need, it would not be where it is today,' Saraf commented.