Open AccessBefore Us Is The Salesman’s House: Exploring the Contingent Aesthetic of eBay
Author(s) -
David Rudrum
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
synthesis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1791-5856
pISSN - 1791-5155
DOI - 10.12681/syn.20895
Subject(s) - travelling salesman problem , statistician , contingency , portrait , corporation , art history , computer science , art , epistemology , philosophy , economics , finance , mathematics , algorithm , statistics
In 2012, data artist Jer Thorp and statistician Mark Hansen collaborated on an installation called Before Us Is The Salesman’s House. Commissioned by theeBay/PayPal corporation, and inspired by Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, thisdata art project has been described variously as “an investigation of eBay as a cultural artefact,” “a kind of fly-over of [eBay’s] rich data landscape,” and “a portrait ofhumanity in the purchases we make.” Based on big data from eBay and ProjectGutenberg, it uses sheer random contingency to show the interweavings of literary texts with everyday commodities. This essay seeks to read the challenging project that is Before Us Is The Salesman’s House variously as literary text, a piece of corporate art,an opening for social critique, and an example of Nicolas Bourriaud’s relationalaesthetics.