Wise to Art

Auctions on the Internet are much lacking in appeal in comparison with the excitement that reigns in the live sales room. Whoever has assisted a real event in one of the major houses will agree to that the virtual world is a bleak world. There is a parallel emotional affair in the ongoing controversy about reading print on paper or reading pixels on screens. The real thing is so much more agreeable but the online world so vastly more efficient.

Long distance involvement in art auctions has a long history thanks to the telephone. The side-booths of major houses are still filled with professionals bidding live for third parties. Watching their action in the auction room is quite revealing, showing the low efficiency of live human intermission. Of late, live on-line bidding has started to compliment the usual triangular affair between room bidders, telephone bidders and the auctioneer keeping absentee bids. To act immediately on an environment that you can control is of course the wish of any collector and the principal reason why the Internet is gaining ground.

Live auction on the Internet has been attempted by many and the most known actor is without doubt eBay. The announcement of the cessation of their live-auction activity this autumn has stirred the community and we can thus expect alternatives to pop up from other players on this market. The problem with eBay-live was and is their attempt to transcribe the real auction framework onto the screen, resulting in a sterile and boring interface missing everything that calls up the real live auction thrill. The Internet in general did the same mistake in the early days when importing a design model coming from the print world and as such unsuitable for the screen. This is common history and time and technology will inevitably bring betterment. However, the difficulty of designing an appropriate live-auction environment is why Internet auctions have developed along another and quite different path. It is in the closure that the difference is marked; and closure is everything in auctions.

Auctions on the Internet are lacking in comparable excitement because one of the most attractive mechanism of auctions is drastically altered. Whereas a traditional auction is instantaneous and often played out at the spur of the moment, an Internet auction is vexing because of the defined and all decisive ending hour. The ‘second thought’ is impossible. That is when the candidate to purchase sees his maximum met with and being exceeded. That he could, and perhaps should, revise his ideas in the flurry of an auction is normal as the market is made at that very instant. Until the sophistication of the real live sales venue is recreated on the Interent, i.e. when a virtual auctioneer can feel the ‘temperature of the room’ before allotting, real-life auctions in brick-and-mortar venues will continue to prosper.

Christie’s Live, launched last year is a notable technical exception, probably much facilitated by a sole in-house application. Their Interface is purported to be a live prolongation of the Christie’s Sales Room. However, seen that we are here dealing with the top end of the market with consequent prices, it’s not abnormal that the service has gotten a very low-key start.

That the most prestigious of art portals, artnet.com, has mounted their new Internet auction venue on the old model shows that the industry is not yet capable of materializing a general use virtual live-auction platform, comparable to reality in excitement and appeal.