The real smiling rock

Go to www.ebay.com Navigate to a category called “Everything Else.” Within it are categories like “Weird Stuff,” “Totally Bizarre,” and simply “Other.” This is the outer limits of eBay, a place for items that defy categorization. Set your minimum bid relatively high at $1,000, for example. Now you are scrolling through the crème of the dregs of online auctions.

This is where the smiling rock resides.

Lindsay Lawson’s fascination with a certain unusual rock listed on eBay has been central to her practice for several years resulting in numerous exhibitions, texts, and a feature-length film. The Real Smiling Rock is a performative lecture in which Lawson explains how this all came to be and how deep an online infatuation can delve. Lindsay Lawson’s body of work references various forms of cultural production – drama, film, music, dance, as well as visual arts – in a series of enquiries that encompass both the popular and highbrow, from Shakespearean drama to the Hollywood blockbuster.