Lina Kovacevic

“edit this banner”
“edit this banner” is an interactive web installation which deals with the most common commercial form on the internet, the banner. Usually banners that are bought on web pages present aggressive, money dependant and highly controlled web space. Project “edit this banner” experiments with the relationships between public vs. private on the internet and with the question of environment control, terminated by advertiser.

The installation consists of standard banner, dimensions 468X60, which is placed on one or more web sites. Clicking on it lets the end user change the text, choose layout and animation. The banner is then visible to everyone and stays unchanged until the new surfer comes. “edit this banner” lets you run an ad hoc intervention in a structured e-business world in a way that is accessible to the end user, yet without changing the standard form of banner. The space that is usually reserved only for commercial purposes becomes accessible to “anyone,” and the banner content and hyperlink becomes dynamic and unpredictable in its accessibility. The banner that announces the call for changing itself is an absurd and very usable way of self-commercing on the internet, but at the same time creates an anarchic space of “hyperlink graffiti”.

“Powering Up/Powering Down” is sponsored in part by the University of California Institute for Research in the Arts (UCIRA), the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA), and the UC San Diego Department of Music in connection with the departments of Visual Arts, Music, and Literature at UCSD along with the UC Riverside and Los Angeles campuses.