Click Here... is an interactive installation built around a curated archive of early web banner ads, all featuring the phrase "click here" and its translations in various languages. The banners are sourced from the Wayback Machine, pulled from late '90s and early 2000s websites.
The setup: a CRT monitor, a mouse, and a wall projection. Click the mouse to browse through banner ads on the monitor. Each click also pulls up the original webpage where the ad appeared, projected on the wall. The banner and its native habitat, side by side.
"Click here" might be the most repeated command in web history. By collecting it across languages and cultures, patterns emerge. Universal design instincts show up alongside local quirks. The same two words, styled a thousand different ways.
The piece sits in the gap between dot-com nostalgia and the reality of what that era built. Those gaudy, flashing banners were the foundation of today's ad-driven internet. Easy to romanticize from a distance.
Exhibition
2024, SPAM New Media Festival, Georgetown Steam Plant, Seattle, WA.
