17 October 1998 - Instant Sell key

On 23 July, the price of French 10-year bond futures collapsed like a shack in Papua New Guinea when a wave of 145 sell orders hit the system. The cause? An inattentive trader had leaned on the Instant Sell key.

Artists are useless; they can only give you paintings. But computers act on the real world. Computers are the preeminent tool of performance art.