Art Sells Itself on eBay

Small black acrylic artwork has an Internet connection to place itself for sale every week

How much would you pay for artwork that you could only own for a week? Well, the current price for artist Caleb Larsen's piece stands at $4,000 and its eBay auction is set to run another 4 days.

A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter, 2009, is a small 8" square black acrylic box that places itself for sale on eBay every seven days thanks to an internet connection, which, according to the artist's conditions of sale, must be live at all times. Disconnections are only allowed during transportation, says the creator.

Inside the black box is a micro controller and an Ethernet adapter that contacts a script running on server ever 10 minutes. The server script checks to see if box currently has an active auction, and if it doesn't, it creates a new auction for the work," Larson said.

Here's how it works. The purchaser can set a new value for the artwork, which must be based on "current market expectations" of Larsen's work, and which could be considerably more than the price they paid. When A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter decides it wants to be sold again, bidders will start their battle at the value set by the current owner.

Larsen says that responses so far have been generally positive but it will be another four days when the artist sees whether his impish bid to make money by combining technology, the internet and art has paid off.

WIRED