Going, going... gone!

Yadda · 6 Oct 2018 at 15:38

So Banksy has been at it again.

One of his works shredded itself infront of bidders moments after being sold at Sotheby's.

Priceless!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-45770028

Yadda · 6 Oct 2018 at 16:13

Brizzles said:
Think i've found Banksy ;

Haha, or the frame at least.

steve_c said:
The notoriety will no doubt double the value!

Yes, setup/hoax or not, this won't do him any harm.

I'd have loved to see the reactions in the auction room when the shredder fired up and the painting/stencil began passing through it.

Yadda · 6 Oct 2018 at 16:25

jsmoke said:
So does the sale just get cancelled?

Apparently the winning bidder is unknown and nobody seems to know what'll happen next. All a bit fishy tbh but still a cracking stunt even if all isn't as it seems.

I bet Sotheby's are still clearing up all the dropped vol au vents.

Yadda · 6 Oct 2018 at 20:46

The genius is that it doesn't matter whether it's "real" or a set up stunt. The effect on those present is the same.

Banksy has turned destroying art in front of the art loving (or perhaps money loving) community into performance art.

I think it's brilliant.

Yadda · 6 Oct 2018 at 20:52

Knowing Banksy it'll have been activated by the sound of the hammer going down.

Art.

Yadda · 6 Oct 2018 at 21:01

Rroff said:
Ah I see what you are saying.

The full mechanism seems quite elaborate and appears mains powered - unless they made it internally lit a bit tricky to get it plugged in if the auction place wasn't in on it and even then no guarantee the auction house would plug it in for the auction.

It didn't appear to be mains powered. Video footage shows no sign of external cables when it was removed and carried away.

Yadda · 6 Oct 2018 at 21:12

Rroff said:
Yeah that is what I thought - but the construction appears to show some mains duty cabling, etc. maybe just used for charging though.

Very true.

For all we know, he's still fooling us: maybe the pics of the internals are a part of the act and nothing was actually shredded at all. Maybe the intact work just rolled up inside the frame as a pre-shredded copy emerged out of the bottom.

I wouldn't put it past him.

Edit: Sorry, I missed this:

Rroff said:
That would be brilliant but far too easy to be falsely triggered without some kind of machine learning system processing the sound.

It would be possible if it was "armed" just before it went up. Very little chance of anything resembling a hammer sound triggering it during the auction.

Yadda · 6 Oct 2018 at 23:22

easyrider said:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BomXijJhArX/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

Haha, it gets me every time.