In this paper, the author discusses the then current (1997) status and trajectory of media art and media technology. His discussion moves away from the usual technological concerns towards the sociological, economic, and political relationships of electronic media art and its modes of production and dissemination. He highlights his concern that new media do not seem to be helping to solve the crises of aesthetics, audience relations, social relevance and economic power in which the arts find themselves. He gives a particular focus to web-based art, sceptical of the web's future ability to remain, what he terms an open, non-commercial anarchy.