Currently, the media of the inter-world called the web is weaving a new articulation with the traditional aesthetics that constitute the resources of Japanese experience and sensibility. The digital web, spreading across the earth like a nervous system, is evoking great changes in the physical world, in communication and the formation of communities in cyberspace, as well as in the industrial, economic systems which will be revolutionized by the digital network. We are facing the question not of how to design the completely new electronic world of cyberspace, but rather how to embody it. The historical experience and knowledge that human beings and the natural world have woven together will become an important factor in the design of this new ecosystem of information, the new world that has appeared on the earth, unaffected by gravity and whose concepts of time and space cannot be evoked by the old media. The emergence in the real world of an imaginary real society, in which unrealizable worlds are produced without end, conceals the complicit relationship of desire between human beings and the media. What we must consider seriously is the fact that media is the reflection of man's limitless desire. In the next generation of desire-designing media, we will need to discern an exquisite interval that reflects life-sized bodies and cultures. We are now rushing forward into the historical shift known as the digital revolution. This revolution is not limited only to communications and industrial society. It is a tremendous transformation that affects our entire way of life -- our nature, lifestyles, and culture. The background for the birth of Research Center for Media Aesthetics can be traced two years back. We investigated the role ar the entire design industry that followed -- ranging from crafts, furniture and automobiles to electronic goods -- but also served as an ideal for the grand design of human society in the 20th century. With the advance of high level information society, the goals of our society have shifted from material enrichment towards sensual and experiential satisfaction. Transcending the inherited framework of unilateral media society, information communications have shifted towards bilateral communications, and digital multimedia is bringing about great changes not only in our conception of objects and material production, but even in our conception of physical space and time. Needless to say, the digitalization wave now surging through the industrial economy has a great influence not only over pre-existing media, but also over the culture of daily life. The word "digital," which once had an impersonal ring to it, originates from the word "digit," which means finger, and by extension, the numbers counted by fingers. When we consider the human being as a huge organism, the act of transposing all information into numerical values can surely be perceived as a technology that lies at the farthest remove from human existence. Yet the meaning of "digital" has changed today, and it is already being perceived as an important metier for approaching and decoding the human being as a cosmos of information. What does it mean to "create form" in a digital society? Digital technology is not the mere visualization of invisible bit data onto a display screen. Rather, we believe in the importance of developing an "aesthetic possessed of form" to meet the needs of a multimedia/network society, and to endow digital society with a human form, just as Bauhaus designed and produced new furniture for an industrial society. Research Center for Media Aesthetics is the Bauhaus of a digital society; it is a new institution. By taking full advantage of the resources and networks that have been developed on various media fronts, Reserch Center for Media Aesthetics is realizing a form of reserch organization for the next generation through cyber-collaboration, and a wide variety of digital domains are taking on concrete form on the Web, a new medium for bringing talent together. The kind of new institution we venture to proclaim consists neither in the concentration of digital technology nor in the development of the content of digital media. It is a group of associate reserchers who develop and commercialize the type of intersectional, multi-perspectival work that will put people at the helm of digital society. Mitsuhiro Takemura (Founding Director, Reserch Center for Media Aesthetics) Born in Tokyo, 1954. Graduated from the Art Department of Nihon University. Joind the Arts Research Institute of Nihon University. At present, Library director, Associate Professor@Kyoto University of Art and Design. He is directing lecturer of Media Theory (Media Aesthetics) and Information Design and Media Arts at Kyoto University of Art and Design@Kyoto University of Art and Design. From late '70s conducting research into post-modern art in electronic media. One of Japan's leading experts on Cyberculture and media art based on advanced image technology. As media critic presently working with an extensive international network, keeping close scrutiny on developments in entertainment engineering and Virtual Reality, for use in media design of the future. Current publications include "Cyber Media Galaxy" (Film Art Publishing), "Media Ecstasy - Information Ecosystems and Aesthetics" (Seido-sha), "Digital Japanesque" (NTT Publishing). RCMA INDEX