In my daily wander through the blogosphere, I came across a link that lead me to a site called "The Banner Art Collective" in which the site's managers/writers choose to highlight and extol the virtues of banner advertising.
Here is an extract of what they say about their site's purpose:
By creating and distributing art within the limitations of WWW advertising, net.artists are forced to work under stringent rules. In that regard, banner art follows in a historical tradition of working against and within the limitations of a strict, sometimes arbitrary, form. In exploring this form, they also explore the marginalization of net.art; in banner art, this marginalization is quite literal.
Banner art also forces viewers into a position of empowerment; as they discover banner art, they will become aware of the both the pervasion and possibilities of advertising space on the web, experience new art in new contexts, and be granted a sort of patron status, as they can host on their own websites work they find compelling.
This struck me because it seems to me that the writer of this text is trying to make the same kind of argument for banner advertising that I make for blogging, but is turning the argument on its ear. Normally, I would argue against corporate anything and for independent, grassroots efforts, online activism and netizen empowerment. The Banner Art Collective however, employs the same type of language I would use for those purposes and shoehorns it to justify or glorify an online strategy that has created gigabytes, nay terabytes, of Internet litter.
I take particular issue with the second paragraph quoted above, in which the writer has claimed, "Banner art...forces viewers into a position of empowerment". I'm not sure of their take of the term empowerment, but in my reality, that word means, "actively having and employing power". I would argue that banner advertising does the opposite. It intrudes on my consciousness, it forces its way into my line of vision, it demands that I view it and notice it, regardless of my wishes in the matter. Some of the more offensive advertising online, the popovers and "subvertisements" to use the Collective's own terms, is particularly onerous, because it literally takes over my computer and my online browsing experience. It forces me to click the ad in order to rid my screen of it, so that I can go back to reading the content I was trying to absorb. It takes my eyeballs hostage (and sometimes my ears too) and doesn't let them go until I give it back whatever it wants - be it a click or just a few seconds time to let the banner's message worm its way into my brain.
I do not agree that online banner advertising is a poor, beleaguered medium that requires artistic examination or fresher viewing, which, upon a thorough browsing of their site, seems to be the purpose of the Banner Art Collective. The ads presented aren't so much ads as un-ads -- the purpose of them is unclear, their sales message distorted, murky or just plain absent. Of course, this is part of an online advertising trend I've noticed in the last few years: Don't tell me what your ad is about. Instead, just put up something obscurely artsy in the hopes that I will click it and you can "claim" my eyeballs as proof of a visit from my demographic when you re-sell your services to other advertisers.
(I'm getting ahead of myself -- I'm going to deal with the corporatization of the Internet in a different blogpost, tomorrow or this weekend)
In an absence of hard information on the site telling me what the true purpose is underlying this site, I can make many assumptions, the most convincing of which is that the people producing these ads are actually looking for jobs as banner ad creators for actual corporate campaigns.
I guess I'm starting to rant a bit now, so I'll stop here. As always, note that this is my opinion and yours may be different. Thus, I urge you to take this post however you will -- ignore my framing of this issue and site and create your own meaning based on your own visit to the Collective's site.
[Banner Art Collective link found via the Creative Generalist]
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