I invited Maria Chatzichristodoulou (AKA Maria X) to be our opening keynote speaker for the Art of the Networked Practice Online Symposium because as a performance scholar she is uniquely committed to chronicling, critiquing and contextualizing live Internet art. Her work falls well outside the radar of most critics. Chatzichristodoulou has not only written extensively about experimental performance, but she is deeply committed to engaging personally and professionally with those who are working at the bleeding edge: including Annie Abrahams and Matt Adams (co-founder of Blast Theory), both of whom we are fortunate to have as featured artists in the Symposium. For her keynote, Chatzichristodoulou will discuss the histories and current practices of the telecollaborative arts, how artists have “set out to challenge the boundaries between bodies and countries imposed by borderlands.” She will also address the difficult and thorny questions, asking: “to what extent have those practices fulfilled their aspirations to connect artists and audiences across geographical boundaries?”