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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.
IMHO, scam it is. Listing reported to Ebay.
The terms the seller is attempting to enforce appear to violate eBay's code of conduct for selling artwork.
In particular: "I agree not to knowingly participate in any way in the advertisement or sale of any work of art using any deceptive practices, including, but not limited to, false or misleading claims of the item's scarcity, value, provenance, condition or investment potential."
If eBay chooses to leave it up, so be it. Buyer beware!
We get it, we just don't think it's all that terribly clever, aside from the scam.
Mmm hmm. Jealous much?
So basically, you're a nerd that doesn't get art but don't have the nerve to admit it.
Who said there was anything wrong with not getting art?