Slashdot Mirror
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.
So.. each person who buys this will, in theory, try to do everything they can to make sure that the sale price tops their purchase price (including shipping) by 15%, so as to recoup all their costs. Sounds like a great scam for the artist.
If you can only own it for a week, then why the hell would you buy it in the first place?!
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
Only if the definition of art encompasses EVERYTHING. I like art too much to consider this an example. This is attention-mongering and marketing.
Remember, the current owner sets the starting price, so if you really wanted to hold on to it for a while and not sell, just set a very high starting price. As long as no one meets it, you keep the art.
...the art of making something (money) from nothing (black piece of plastic with a couple microchips built-in). Also could be considered the art of the pyramid scheme. Then again, the only people who would buy this probably have too much money anyhow, so at least it goes some distance towards the redistribution of wealth.
That's uh, all I really had to say
That's exactly what it is. Foolish fun. You should try it some time, it lightens up the day.
Not everything in life is about calculating that "you need to sell it at 118% profit to break even".
Maybe by purchasing it, and filling the ethernet port in with epoxy, you're creating a NEW work of art, that makes just as much of a statement as his did.
To everyone saying "scam" and "this will never work" and "this is not art": this auction and event is clearly not for you. I think it is for all those people who played and enjoyed "pass-the-parcel" as a childhood game. In this case, it is like playing pass-the-parcel in reverse. Remember, everyone who "buys" the work still has the right to "sell" it afterwards and this can go on until the value of the art drops. The person still holding the parcel in that situation is unlucky as s/he will lose money. So long as the artist stays in vogue or becomes more established, people will make (small amounts of) money on each transaction - up to a point. It's just a piece of harmless fun for those people who can afford to risk up to £2500 on a scheme like this. I agree with those who say that the artist should have gone for a monthly or quarterly rather than a weekly scheme. But I wouldn't think that their aim is any more than illustrating a principle.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
"Maybe the First Sale Doctrine works differently in the UK."
Or maybe it doesn't exist, what with that being an American law, and all, and the UK being a different country and all.
Why do Americans, and Slashdotters in particular, assume that the world's legal systems are based on the USA's?
With you being such a new country, you'd think you'd realise that your laws are an amalgam of what's gone before - and that Common Law or other branches were around a long time before your country existed.
The whole world doesn't want to be American you know.
Please define art.
I knew this story wouldn't go well on this site. Nerds typically don't get art. I don't get it either but am at least aware that the "art" in this case is NOT the physical black box but the entire concept. The concept of the black box (as a device that functions without you knowing what goes on inside) and the concept of it selling itself and needing to be resold.
A lot of art AIN'T about the physical product, but about the idea behind it.
Since I am a geek, I don't pretend to fully understand the artists thinking behind it and am even willing to admit that I personally think he might be blowing a bit of smoke. But the failing is mine, not his.
It is an interesting idea, but you got to be able to look beyond the mechanics. I predict that only a handful of real /.ers (as in people who don't think XP is the first and best OS ever) can truly get art. Forever outsiders looking in.
Then again, we get tech, which I notice some more socially aware just don't get... if only we could use both halfs of our minds at the same time :P
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Where do you draw the line? Simple example: Picasso. Mainstream or not? Once he was not, now he is. Rap was once extreme, now it is so mundane white people do it. Elvis Presley once shocked the world, now he is elevator music.
Movies were once extreme, daring, shocking and made in Hollywood, now Hollywood stands for everyday commercial crap.
When someone made the first shadow portrait, he or she was the first, pushing technology to new limits. Now it is old hat.
The paintings and photographs you mentioned all developed over time (get it, photographs, developed?) into different forms. The super realistic paintings that are considered "not proper art" anymore by the snobs but the rest of us buy (Rembrandt) were NEW once.
The media wants to show us new things. The first guy to break the 1 minute on the 10 mile run is news, the second isn't. The first moon-landing was news, by the time of Apollo 13, people famously didn't care anymore.
For art to be news worthy, it got to do something new. You wouldn't accept a slashdot story on a guy painting the ceiling of a church in high detail with just paint and brushes would you? Been done.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I took a look at some of his other 'art' on his website.
One of his pieces of 'art' is a dollar bill acceptor on a plain white wall. Once $10,000 dollars is reached, the money is split between Larsen and whoever owns the acceptor. Then it starts again.
Another piece of 'art' was the purchaser of the 'art' assuming Larsen's credit card bills.
Another was a 'donor plaque', in which the more you gave, the bigger your name was on the plaque.
All of his newest pieces of 'art' just seem to be money makers for himself that prey on people who want to seem like they are hip to the 'art scene.'
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
Whatever scam you can get away with.
--Andy Warhol
I'd say he's an honest artist. If you go back to DaVinci, or even Cimabue, no one does art without money/ resources. Every single artist in time did it as a *job*, albeit the famous one did it with passion and more talent than its contemporaries.
In short, artists make art for money; they use that money to sustain themselves in order to make more art. Larsen is being honest about his art and producing more work, unlike the execs at Enron, Goldman Sachs, et al showering themselves with extravagant vacation, parties, golf courses, and gambling on a market by "borrowing" your money - those are the real scam artists.
Art or not, the physical device is owned by whoever last purchased it. The device then lists itself using the artist's credentials. Caleb Larson is then offering for sale an item that he does not own, have physical possession of, or title to (title passed to the last Collector). Strikes me that, beyond the sale to the first "Collector", this is a flagrantly fraudulent auction and that no contract can abrogate the law. I wonder how long before someone that parted with a substantial sum to possess the physical item (it is a nice looking cube after all) decides to challenge this through eBay.
On the other hand, it does point out some of the ludicrous goings-on with respect to trailing commissions in all sorts of fields.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button