SITO (artist collective)

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SITO is an online artist collective which began in January 1993,^[1] making it one of the oldest Internet-based art organizations. It was started by Ed Stastny and has been maintained by Stastny and a group of volunteers and supporters.

From its beginning, SITO had a mission different from many established Internet art resources, in that rather than be an electronic journal of discussions or writings about art, it chose to be a repository for artwork in order to facilitate sharing and exposure. As this was the Internet pre-World Wide Web, SITO accomplished this by using anonymous FTP sites. Another important part of the SITO mission was to be open to all levels of artists, and at no cost. SITO was one of the earliest online galleries, and this showcase of artwork has become known as the Artchive.

Popular pronunciations of SITO are SEE-toe and SIT-oh. SITO was originally called OTIS, which was an acronym for "Operative Term is Stimulate". The title SITO is merely a reversal of OTIS and is not officially an acronym, though some playful expansions have been suggested by users of the site. One such expansion is "Still I Think OTIS", which has the distinction of containing a nested acronym.