Masashi Kawamura celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Web.
The Webby Awards commissioned artists, filmmakers and writers to celebrate both the past and the future of the Web on its 25th anniversary. Japanese designer Kawamura and his creative lab PARTY created an interactive art piece, giving new life and meaning to banner ads.
Banner ads have been an important part of the internet and its expansion, but nowadays people often ignore and block them by using “ad blocking” programmes.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Web, we wanted to give these poor things a chance to become stars, by transforming them into something fun and beautiful, says Kawamura.
For the Banners project, Kawamura and PARTY used a database of “ad blockers” in a completely new way to automatically collect blocked banners around the world. These banners were then coded by CTO Qanta Shimizu to create multiple animations, ultimately transforming blocked banners into interactive artworks.
Banners forms part of Webby’s 25 for 25 project in the lead up to the 2014 Webby Awards Ceremony.