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Artwork Re-Sells Itself Weekly On eBay

Lanxon writes "How much would you pay for a piece of artwork that you could only own for a week? A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter, 2009, is a black acrylic box that places itself for sale on eBay every seven days thanks to an embedded Internet connection, which, according to the artist's conditions of sale, must be live at all times. Disconnections are only allowed during transport, says the creator, Caleb Larsen. Larsen tells Wired UK: 'Inside the black box is a micro controller and an Ethernet adapter that contacts a script running on [a] server [every] 10 minutes. The server script checks to see if the box currently has an active auction, and if it doesn't, it creates a new auction for the work.'" Another condition of sale is that the artist gets 15% each time the piece is sold. Maybe the First Sale Doctrine works differently in the UK.

2 of 372 comments (clear)

  1. Erm....15 % each time its sold? by tonywestonuk · · Score: 5, Informative

    according to the article '....give Larsen 15 percent of any increase in value ...', which is slightly different to what the story summary implies. I wonder, should the value decrease, does the seller get 15% back of any decrease?...I guess not!

  2. Re:Art? by Knuckles · · Score: 5, Informative

    Frank Zappa had a good point. He claimed that the only thing art required was a frame .

    With all due respect to Zappa, it's Marcel Duchamp who understood this first, around 1913.

    --
    "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns