www.ebayaday.com
Part of the www.ebay.com page where my voice was up for auction
A section of the hand copied Bengali translation of the Communist Manifestowww.ebayaday.com
2006
online interactive work with real objects
using the website www.ebay.com
Dimensions Variable
ebayaday was a month-long serial exhibit, that used eBay as a site - literally as well as conceptually. The project started at 9 a.m. PST, Dec. 1, 2006 and closed on January 1st, 2007. Though it is not possible to bid on the artworks anymore, one can still view them and their respective bidding histories on eBay or on the project site, www.ebayaday.com
Curated by Rebekah Modrak, Aaron Ahuvia and Zackery Denfeld, ebayaday invited 25 artists to produce work that would respond to the spaces and practices of eBay. For many of the artists, eBay became the very material of the work that actively deployed the format of the eBay listing - item for sale, descriptive text and imagery and placement within chosen categories – for its conceptual traction. The attempt was to challenge the idea that online auctions are primarily for the exchange of money for goods and to figure out ways in which the space of the auction could be opened up for further dialogue, debate and even resistance.
www.ebayaday.com started off with an original manuscript where an anonymous author had copied out the entire Bengali translation of Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto by hand. Abhishek Hazra, one of the participating artists, later tried to unearth the identity of this dedicated communist–copyist. The results of his investigation are narrated in the small essay, “Up for Auction: A Devoted Communist’s Labour of Love” first published in Sarai Reader 2007: Frontiers. In the other work, I offered up my voice for sale. The winning bidder could get recorded audio samples of my voice from which he would be free to do whatever he pleases as he would then own that ‘voice’.
2006
online interactive work with real objects
using the website www.ebay.com
Dimensions Variable
ebayaday was a month-long serial exhibit, that used eBay as a site - literally as well as conceptually. The project started at 9 a.m. PST, Dec. 1, 2006 and closed on January 1st, 2007. Though it is not possible to bid on the artworks anymore, one can still view them and their respective bidding histories on eBay or on the project site, www.ebayaday.com
Curated by Rebekah Modrak, Aaron Ahuvia and Zackery Denfeld, ebayaday invited 25 artists to produce work that would respond to the spaces and practices of eBay. For many of the artists, eBay became the very material of the work that actively deployed the format of the eBay listing - item for sale, descriptive text and imagery and placement within chosen categories – for its conceptual traction. The attempt was to challenge the idea that online auctions are primarily for the exchange of money for goods and to figure out ways in which the space of the auction could be opened up for further dialogue, debate and even resistance.
www.ebayaday.com started off with an original manuscript where an anonymous author had copied out the entire Bengali translation of Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto by hand. Abhishek Hazra, one of the participating artists, later tried to unearth the identity of this dedicated communist–copyist. The results of his investigation are narrated in the small essay, “Up for Auction: A Devoted Communist’s Labour of Love” first published in Sarai Reader 2007: Frontiers. In the other work, I offered up my voice for sale. The winning bidder could get recorded audio samples of my voice from which he would be free to do whatever he pleases as he would then own that ‘voice’.
posted by Abhishek Hazra at 1:52 PM
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