Visual artists in Japan often feel they must choose between subdued expressions of beauty that honor their national tradition or the wild techno-pop imagery found in video games and anime cartoons -- two modes of expression that are as different as green tea and Jolt Cola.

But there is at least one place in contemporary Japan where pen and ink can connect with point and click: the InterCommunication Center, a new-media art museum and laboratory in Tokyo.

The institution's second biannual art exhibition, which opens Thursday, is a perfect example. Ten new interactive works by an international cast of boundary-breaking electronic and digital artists will have their premiere at Biennale '99, and all the pieces reflect a refined aesthetic sensibility that would never cause a Brooklyn-sized sensation among the nation's cultural elite.

Takuo Komatsuzaki, a senior curator at ICC, said in a telephone interview that the biennial is meant to introduce the Japanese to new-media art, a genre with which they are generally unfamiliar. "I'd like visitors to be infused with surprise," he said. "New technologies bring about surprises of visualizing something for the very first time."

Works that might dazzle museumgoers include the American artist Perry Hoberman's typically witty "Timetable," a console that dupes users into believing they can alter the passage of time with technology, and the Brazilian artist Eduardo Kac's "Uirapuru," a fish-shaped blimp that can be controlled by both gallery and Web visitors as it flies over a recreation of an Amazonian forest.

The ICC also dazzles the participating artists -- with money. Each artist who survives the lengthy nomination and review process gets a maximum budget of 10 million yen (about $94,000) to build their works.

"I know of no institution in the world that, in one go, gives away $1 million in commissions for a biennial," said Jeffrey Shaw, director of the Institute for Visual Media at the Center for Art and Media Technology (or ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany, and a Biennale '99 juror. "It's unprecedented. For those artists who get this money, it's one of those very rare opportunities to produce major works."

On Thursday, Biannale '99 jurors also awarded a grand prize of 5 million yen to Hoberman for "Timetable" and runners-up prizes of 1 million yen each to Kac for "Uirapuru" and the British artist Martin Riches for his "Interactive Field."

The ICC is backed by the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), the nation's telecommunications giant, which opened the center in 1997 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of telephone service in Japan. Filling three floors in a high-rise building, the center also houses a permanent collection of commissioned works and mounts exhibits like its own branch of ZKM's "Net_Condition" Internet art show.

NTT's involvement means that the ICC has an international outlook -- indeed, there is only one Japanese artist in the biennial -- as well as sufficient financial and technical resources to attract well-known new-media artists.

At the same time, the corporate sponsorship may account for a rather conservative approach to new media, and one that overlooks a new generation of Japanese digital artists. Although the Biennale '99 theme is "Interaction," only two works in the show involve the Internet. Also, the chosen artists are mostly well-established, even though one of the show's goals is to "discover... outstanding newcomers."

As a result, several digital artists were restrained in their remarks about the significance of the biennial to the Japanese new-media community.

Tetsuo Kogawa, an artist and critic who is the director of an annual competition called Art on the Net, said: "ICC has always supported big-name artists or recycled artists who have been already found. In fact, in the ICC, there are few curators who have been following the important trends in the arts. So, I have been keeping a distance from them."

According to Taketo Oguchi, publisher of the dynamic graphic-design zine Shift, Web art and design in Japan are developing independently from the contemporary art scene, which is more static. "I regret that they don't cross over each other," he said.

Barbara London, associate curator of film and video at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, plans to file a report from the biennial next month as part of "dot.jp: A Curator's Japan Diary," the latest in a series of Web projects documenting her annual voyages in search of new art.

London said she selected Japan for this year's Web-based travelogue because "there's a lot of work being done that has not hit the charts."

"Since the [economic] bubble burst, the younger generation and the unconventional types are being heard a little more. It's an energetic moment," she added.

The ICC is not the only Japanese institution sponsoring new-media art. For example, the Canon Artlab has been responsible for a series of highly regarded projects.

But Tom Vincent, a graphic designer in Tokyo involved in the arts-oriented Network Museum & Magazine Project, explained that Internet art is almost non-existent in Japan, with a few exceptions like Takuji Kogo's candy factory.

"On the whole, artists here -- and not just media and digital artists -- are supported much more overseas than at home," Vincent said. "Many have to go to London and New York before they are taken seriously. And digital art tends to get mixed up with computer graphics, which in turn leads to commercial work rather than art."

"The ICC is a great resource," Vincent continued. "It is sometimes criticized for being too much of a museum and not the laboratory it was intended to be, and it is shackled somewhat because it is the baby of a huge corporation. But all things considered, it is a great space that handles the difficult balance between cutting-edge events and crowd-pulling shows."

Louise Dompierre, executive director of the Art Gallery of Hamilton in Ontario and a biennial juror, said the ICC "occupies a special place."

"I don't think it's as widely known as it deserves to be," she said. "I think that many more people, if they had more access to Japan, would be impressed by this biennial. It's certainly worth a long visit."

Dompierre said that in talking with Japanese artists who are not part of the new-media field, she found that "people are aware of it certainly, but it's a bit marginal." But, she added, "It's no different than here" in North America.