Art isn’t all about what you see. This sleek, black, obelisk-looking cube does little for the eyes but fascinates with nothing blemishing its surface save for a single ethernet port. Housed inside this “Tool to Deceive and Slaughter” (hereinafter known as simply “the box”) is a mechanism that serves a single purpose: every ten minutes the sculpture(?) pings a server in a hidden underground bunker in the heart of a frozen glacier volcano (or just somewhere in Arkansas). With this simple communication the box is able to tell whether or not it is currently listed on eBay. If the ping comes back false, the box proceeds to list itself on eBay to the tune of $7,500.

Purchasing the box requires agreeing to a lengthy contract with clauses that make it illegal/impossible to keep, destroy or otherwise ruin the fun for everyone else. A few of the most important requirements of owning the sculpture are as follows:

“Collector agrees that the Artwork will remain connected to a live Internet connection at all times, with disconnections allowed only for the transportation of the work from one venue to another.”

“Collector is responsible for any and all fees and charges generated by the Artwork on the Auction Venue.”

“If a person buys it on eBay, the current owner is required to send it to the new owner. The new owner must then plug it into ethernet, and the cycle repeats itself.”

A work by Caleb Larsen, part of the idea behind “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter” is that it exists in “eternal transitional flux.” The idea is reminiscent of a magical item with ideas about its own fate, a la The One Ring. While the components used to create the device could probably be counted on one hand, there will always be something outside of human control housed within.

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