Seattle’s Lawrimore Project Gallery is currently exhibiting a work by artist Caleb Larsen which, whenever connected to the Internet, automatically auctions itself off on eBay.
The sculpture, titled “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter” (a loathsomely hipster appellation, but what can you do?) comes with an ethernet cable and an agreement stipulating that it must be connected to the Internet at all times. If it is ever connected when an Ebay auction for itself it not in progress, it begins a new one. And considering that the bidding is up to $4,250 as of this writing the artist’s claim to have created an “eternal transactional flux” seems to be accurate.
What’s more, the agreement is, in Larsen’s own words, platform-agnostic. Even in the far future when Ebay is replaced by a tachyon-suspended neural bazaar where users auction off avatar-enhancing code fragments in exchange for Whuffies, “A Tool” will still be bouncing from collector to collector.
Larsen’s other works include “The Day the Internet Told Us We Would Die” and a work which, upon purchase, forces the collector to assume the artist’s credit card debt.
At press time, Android Galatea could not be reached for comment.
