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eBayaday Sells A View On eBay

eBayaday is an unusual art/business project that consists of twenty-five eBay auctions; the eBay listings are the artwork. The art was posted on eBay at the rate of one each day during December of 2006. eBayaday was curated by Rebekah Modrak, Aaron Ahuvia and Zackery Denfeld. Each posting was contributed by a different artist.


(View by Osman Khan)

The individual posting that really fascinated me was contributed by artist Osman Khan. It consisted of the sale of a view:

... we are providing for the first time the sale of a view (let me repeat on sale here is a view, a vista, a scene if you will... sorry no land for sale just literally a view, or rather a unique viewing angle looking at the vista will belong to you, that's right a private way of looking at the world can happily now be yours to own and yes call your own!), What you say, just a view for sale? Well if you remember the Natives Americans also once believed the land they lived on was not theirs to be bought or sold...

I was struck by the similarity to the idea of a scenedow, introduced in a 1968 short story by Bob Shaw. In the novel, a thick sheet of slow glass was left out in front of a natural scene. The light from the scene would slowly penetrate the glass, and come out the other side years later.

...A new piece was always jet black because nothing had yet come through, but one could stand the glass beside, say, a woodland lake until the scene emerged, perhaps a year later. If the glass was then removed and installed in a dismal city flat, the flat would — for that year — appear to overlook the woodland lake.
(Read more about slow glass scenedows)

Read more about modern day "slow glass" in these articles:

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