Cyber art evocates the so called "primitive" African masks : a sociological approach to the new relationship between art, science and new technologies.

Science and new technologies were not acceptable in the field of art for most of the so called contemporary art critics in the eighties. When we started the international exhibition IMAGES DU FUTUR 1986 in Montreal, we were criticized by most of the recognized intellectuals : this was criticized as no art, but a demagogic " arcade " to attract audience with gadgets and interactive games.

Cyberart is now recognized; science is accepted as a source of inspiration - scientific imagination may be compared with artistic creativity; the pionners struggle for " art, science and new tech " is over. It happened in less than 10 years, which is surprisingly fast.

But this revolution has incredible consequences which ruin the ideology of the Beaux-Artss system (including the Avant-garde art paroxistic exploration), its institutions like museums, the art market, the unicity and eternity of the art piece, of the artist, the symbolic and political function of the art in favor of a ruling social elite, etc.

As a paradoxe this revolution of the art production is overcoming the contemporary lap between art and society, and restauring the older integrated functions of art in society, which we believe to have worked in the traditionnal older societies before the Quattrocento revolution. Cyberart evocate more and more on our contemporary cathodic screens the traditionnal status of so called ' primitive' african masks.

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