net art : adwords happening

net art : adwords happening: "The Google AdWords Happening
Christophe Bruno, April 2002
http://www.christophebruno.com

Honorary Mention at the Prix Ars Electronica 2003

Honorary Mention at the Prix Ars Electronica 2003 (Net Vision / Net Excellence)

>>> press-book
>>> Google.Art
How to lose money with your art ?

At the beginning of April, a debate took place on rhizome.org mailing list, about how to earn money with net art. It suggested to me an answer to an easier problem : how to spend money with my art (if you understand everything on how to spend money, you should in principle understand also how to earn money, because of conservation laws...)

I decided to launch a happening on the web, consisting in a poetry advertisement campaign on Google AdWords . I opened an account for $5 and began to buy some keywords. For each keyword you can write a little ad and, instead of the usual ad, I decided to write little 'poems', non-sensical or funny or a bit provocative.

I began with the keyword 'symptom'. The first ad I wrote was :

Words aren't free anymore
bicornuate-bicervical uterus
one-eyed hemi-vagina
www.unbehagen.com

As soon as the campaign was launched, I was able to see the results. Every time somebody was looking for the word 'symptom' in Google, they could see my ad in the top right corner of the page."