The first Edinburgh International Internet Festival was launched back in 1999 as a freely provided gift to the online international creative community from Edinburgh based artist and self taught web designer PóL Steele.

A community worker for almost 20 years, PóL turned to his art after becoming disabled in the early 1990's. In 1998, following prolonged ill health which included a two year period of being almost totally housebound, PóL came to realise that the Internet offered the best possible opportunity for personal development with regards to both his artwork and perhaps even a return to some form of employment.

In June 99', having only used a computer for the very first time the previous January and designing his first webpages only few weeks earlier... PóL founded what was soon to become the largest annual online international arts project ever to be held in Scotland.

It all began at the beginning of May when, with a new website to feature his own artwork and illustrations, PóL went looking to see what online and 'real world' resources were available for visual artists in the forthcoming Edinburgh festival 1999.

To his immense surprise he found there was absolutely no provision within the festival for the online creative community... And almost no representation of the visual arts at ANY level within ANY of the multitude of events which made up that year's Edinburgh festival season!

With only a matter of weeks before the launch of the Edinburgh festival PóL decided to send out a few invitations to some of his own personal favourite artistic websites.

The aim was to host a 'prototype' online festival during August aimed at providing not only a desperately needed platform for the visual arts during the Edinburgh festival.... But also to create an Edinburgh based 'Digital Hub' for the online creative arts.

"As we had very little time to get the festival together and find artists, galleries and creative websites to participate." Said PóL "I thought we might be lucky and get 20 or 30 participants in total." However, the idea seemed to capture the imagination of the online artistic community and over the next few weeks news of the event spread rapidly.

"The final 24 hours prior the to the event's opening are something I will never forget!" PóL has said. "My e-mail programme was set to check for new messages every 15 minutes and every time it connected there were 2 or three new applications to join the web festival. I was totally stunned, delighted, ecstatic and scared utterly witless!"

The first Edinburgh International Internet Festival launched in August 1999 featuring artists, galleries, writers and online resources from over 40 nations. The event also featured a wide selection of locally produced content including festival news and reviews, festival photo galleries, an international reading room and online theatre.

At an international level the event was a massive success with the festival receiving enthusiastic media coverage from New York to Hong Kong. More importantly, those who had participated also seemed delighted over it's success with the event being described by one participant as "An unofficial ambassador for Scotland's arts" -: John Horne USA.  

Why had the festival been such a success?
...PóL is perfectly clear on that score "It was purely down to the assistance, advice, co-operation end encouragement of those involved in the event who were willing to freely give of their greater web experience and the faith, trust and enthusiastic response of everyone involved."

At the end of the first web festival, PóL did a typically Scottish thing... and invited everyone involved to gather again in order to celebrate the forthcoming millennial Hogmanay (New Year's Eve 1999).

"It had been a fantastic experience!" PóL said. "During the festival I kept in touch with everyone involved via a regular news bulletin.  As I was putting together the final update on the final day, I was in an extremely happy but also (I freely admit) in an extremely tearful state. However, before I had finished, a few close friends arrived and my partner of the time surprised me with a bottle of champagne. By the time the news bulletin was sent off, during the closing minutes of the event, I was... errr... a little merry and raring to go again! I closed the final update with a suggestion that we could have another event over the New Year holidays to celebrate the dawn of the new Millennium."

That casual suggestion was to lead to 'The Gathering:- Scotland's Millennium Arts Project'. Initially intended to last for a six week period over the new year holiday season, the Gathering proved so popular with visitors and participants alike that the event was extended to cover the full year.

55 nations were represented within the year long gathering which also included the second Edinburgh Internet Festival. However, thanks to the hard work and commitment of Pat Elliott Shircore of Hong Kong's Opus Gallery who acted as Area Co-ordinator for Asia during the Internet Festival and The Gathering... By far the greatest response came from the online creative communities of Hong Kong, China and throughout Asia.

Opus Gallery's own 'Signed and Sealed' exhibition - A unique and highly original portfolio of Fine Art Lithographs by Pat Elliott Shircore - featured in the first festival and has been a popular element of the event ever since.

In order to share the special new year celebrations with the people of Edinburgh, the Hung Li Gallery and the K.M.NG Gallery brought together a selection of China's finest artists and calligraphers in two remarkable online exhibitions under the combined heading of 'The Gathering - Asia'. Later in the year, the Hung Li Gallery's online summer exhibition was a highly popular inclusion in the Edinburgh Internet festival 2000.

Also featured in the Gathering and the festival 2000 was a specially produced online exhibition and review based around the 'Exposed' exhibition hosted at Edinburgh's Queens Hall by the photography students of Stevenson College.

The students participating were fully involved in the exhibition's design and layout and the online event was co-produced by the Internet festival and photographer Andrew Ansell in co-operation with the Photography Department of Stevenson College.