GIF by Rene Abythe re-enacts the recent "Paddles down" cyber-auction where my OptiDisc GIF was "bought in" by a consortium of private investors and will now be viewable only on approved institutions' "art computers." A mobile device (above) was used in the bidding, employing a complicated algorithm developed in a recent Rhizome "Seven on Seven" symposium.
This is all nonsense, of course, pertaining to the ongoing obsession of new media types with $$$, and the uneasy marriage of start-up culture with the anti-capitalist avant garde. Have an art idea? Don't starve like Van Gogh -- get backers and monetize it! No backer likes your work? Crowdfund it! The crowd hates your work? Then maybe you aren't really an artist!