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Above: screenshots of the bannerart.org website.

The Banner Art Collective creates, collects, and distributes net.art and poetry within the limitations and context of web advertisements. Most view net advertising as a necessary evil. But creating an effective ad requires a strict adherence to voluntary standards that strictly control both the pixel and file size and limit the interactive behaviors of the ad. Designers must produce work that will be viewed in a variety of contexts on a variety of pages, and they must create an ad that uses its position within the marginalia of a webpage to its advantage. In addition, ad designers must be hyperaware of accessibility issues–an unviewable ad is a dead ad.

Above: 100000000000000 by jimpunk

Above: SAVE YOUR SOUL by Zebra3

Above: KRN by KRN

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.

The Banner Art Collective has been exhibited at numerous exhibitions including Total Überzogen, Edith Russ Site for Media Art, Oldenburg, Germany and Chiang Mai New Media Art Festival, Chiang Mai, China, mentioned in publications and the press including Internet Art by Rachel Greene, Liberation and Rhizome Net Art News.