Caleb Larsen lived in Seattle before he left to study art at RISD. I didn't notice him. But looking at his web site now, there's at least one Seattle show of his I wish I'd seen (in 2006, at 911 Media Arts Center), called Monument (If It Bleeds, It Leads). In it, he hung a machine full of yellow BBs from the ceiling, and connected the machine to web newsfeeds from hundreds of English-language newspapers. Every time someone anywhere in the world was reported killed, a yellow BB fell to the floor. While it sounds heavy-handed on paper, I imagine that the installation would put the actual viewer in a strange position—hoping for some action in the gallery, knowing that action in the gallery means somebody somewhere died.

Seattle dealer Scott Lawrimore mentioned Larsen in a conversation last night between Lawrimore and a class of University of Puget Sound art students. Larsen, among other artists, will be in Lawrimore Project's next show. The piece that got my attention is one that Lawrimore said Larsen is still working on (it won't be here). Named after Robert Morris's Box with the Sound of Its Own Making, Larsen's work is called Work of Art with the Sound of Its Own Selling, and I only got a sketchy idea of what it is, but here goes: It's an object that is constantly selling itself on eBay. Whoever buys the piece is required to attach it by cable to the web, and the object itself will do the rest. Every time the eBay auction exceeds the price that the current owner paid for the work, that owner will be required to sell it to that bidder, if I understand correctly. The piece will sell itself.