DIGITAL L.A.; EXPRESS YOURSELF, GET RICH BIG CONTEST ON WEB FOR SAKE OF ART.

Byline: David Bloom 

As with so much else, the Web is making a mess of the starving artist paradigm. Exhibit A: The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Webby Awards will be giving away a $50,000 prize this year honoring distinguished artistic work on the Web during the Webbys' May 11 ceremony in San Francisco.

``It's almost like an auteur prize, for someone who's consistently done interesting work,'' said Tiffany Shlain, the Webbys' executive director. ``Fifty thousand dollars to an artist is certainly significant. So much attention is paid to many, many zeroes (in huge Web financial deals), but there's a lot of really provocative and expanding work in the digital arts.''

An anonymous donor financed the prize through SFMOMA, mandating that ``it has to be something that has to distinctly use the Internet as part of its experience,'' Shlain said. ``It's not just a piece of artwork that's shown on a computer.''

The all-star judges panel of visual artists, curators and professors will have to hash out some fascinating questions about what qualifies as interactive art, Shlain said.

To help spur the debate, the Webby site will post highlights of a recent colloquium on the issue at the University of California, Berkeley, Shlain said.

``Is (Net art) like graffiti art because you can't document it?'' Shlain said. ``So many of these things are browser dependent, so will we have to keep old versions of browsers available to view them? What if the links don't work? There are so many interesting questions. We're really inviting the dialogue.''

If you want to join in that dialogue, or nominate someone for the prize, the call for entries ends March 22. Go to www.webbyawards.com for more information.

Look into the Abyss

Back before he became a director of ``Titanic'' proportions, James Cameron put out a terrific and offbeat underwater thriller called ``The Abyss.'' As with his subsequent hits like ``Terminator 2'' and ``Total Recall,'' it blended brisk pacing, solid performances and ground-breaking special effects into a compelling mainstream entertainment.

Well, ``The Abyss'' is now on DVD and it's really been done right. The two-disc ``Special Edition'' set comes loaded with the kinds of goodies not seen nearly often enough on this wonderful new format (though truth be told, not a lot of movies deserve this level of attention).

To start with, it has both the original 140-minute theatrical version and an ``extended'' version with another 28 minutes of often striking footage. All told, the discs are crammed with more than seven hours of video.

An hour-long documentary on the film's sometimes difficult creation is included, as is a really nifty feature, a text-only commentary track that runs in the black space below the film's letterboxed frame as it plays onscreen.

The set also includes the 20-minute reel of special effects shots put together for the Motion Picture Academy's ``bake off'' of finalists for the 1990 Best Visual Effects Oscar (which the movie won).

For people who have computers with DVD-ROM players, it offers three(!) games and options that let you click between storyboards or the script and the resulting filmed scene.

On something of the same idea, you can work through the ``pseudopod'' scene, clicking between four levels of development from storyboard to final shot to get a sense of how the special effects were imagined and brought into reality.

And of course, there are all the usuals, like cast and crew interviews, tons of trailers from various Cameron movies and behind-the-scenes footage.

At last year's Video Software Dealers Association meetings, director Brett Ratner talked about how he would use directors' commentary in laserdisc versions of films like ``The Player'' to understand how great directors did what they do. This is the kind of set that provides the same sort of education, only more so, for film buffs and budding directors-to-be. All in all, it's an impressive first try by Fox Home Entertainment at taking advantage of the DVD format. Here's to more like this.

Dress address

Call it the dress that launched a million browsers. E! Online says Jennifer Lopez's barely there Versace dress-like thing on Grammy night (you do remember, don't you?) was a big reason behind the amazing 10.3 million hits on the site the day after the awards show.

The cable channel's extensive Web site (at www.eonline.com) runs a ton of photos from the runway at each of the big awards shows. Needless to say, E! types can't wait to see what Jennifer's not wearing Oscar night.

Is that your final item?

People played more than 51 million games of the online version of ``Who Wants to Be a Millionaire'' between Jan. 9 and Feb. 27 at www.abc.com, according to parent site Go.com.

Even more interesting, of those 51 million, people have reached the $1 million winner's page 3 million times.

As one Go.com spokeswoman said, ``Good thing we're not paying out money.''

That goes double for the TV show's insurer, which was already trying to get out of its contract to pay off the big winners, complaining that the TV show questions are too easy and that ``less educated'' contestants should be included.

SITE OF THE WEEK

--What: A hot new Net-only radio station, featuring some former Y-107 FM disk jockeys and other talent from around the globe.

--Where: www.soundbreak.com

--What's cool: The look of the place - a wild mix of offbeat Flash animation that's fun to watch (as it looks back at you) while still managing to be fairly navigable. And the tunes are an eclectic mix, from Elliot Smith to underground dance tunes to alt-rock, all programmed by Mark Goodman, one of the original MTV ``veejays,'' who is the site's vice president of programming.

--Features: You can watch video feeds of the digital jocks, chat with them, rate the music they play, buy it and more. The jocks said they get a lot of grief from fans, who already tune in from all over the world, every time they step away from the chat-room keyboard, even for a bathroom break. And having the camera on them at all times makes sure they don't come in too hung over from the night before.

--You'll like this if: If you like the jock's personality and preferences - since they pick the music, which is listenable but not mainstream. And the jocks themselves have an interesting new position, because they're also online and talking to fans in the chat rooms, and on video feeds as well. Look for a few new Web mixed-media stars to be born, if not here, then from others trying to do similar things with the notion of Web ``radio.''

Think your Web fave is good enough for Site of the Week? Send your suggestions to davidbloom(at)earthlink.net

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