Described as a “live Mail Art” piece by the artists, Random Darknet Shopper was an automated bot that trawled deepweb markets making random purchases and sending them to the current exhibition space.
Every week the bot would received $100 in Bitcoin, then left to its own devices to purchase items from the Alpha Bay market (shut down in 2017) and the Agora market prior to that. The items that RDS bought can be seen on their website, and includes objects ranging from car lockpicking tools to cookery books.
In 2014 the exhibition was presented in Switzerland where Random Darknet Shopper purchased some ecstasy pills, forcing the authorities to close the exhibition and seize its contents. Unsure of whether to prosecute the artists, and unable to charge the bot, the investigation was dropped on the grounds that within the context of an art exhibition it was possible to allow it.
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Artistic influences could be found in Duchamp's idea of the readymade. This is expanded however as the artists no longer choose the found object which becomes part of the project, but leave it to the whims of a computer programme which they have developed.
The project also seeks to investigate the realms of consumerism within the deepweb itself, often seen as a place where criminal and nefarious elements conduct business that would be prosecuted if hosted on the surface web. From the objects purchased, we can see the variety of items that can be purchased from the deepweb, ranging from t-shirts and stickers, to voice changing mobile phones and drugs.