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Show HN: Wall-mounted diffusion mirror that turns reflections into paintings

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Re: Show HN: Wall-mounted diffusion mirror that turns reflections into paintings

#61

Post by esperent »

bravura wrote: post #26

FYI, the link to the frame used to mount the display just blocks you: https://www.leroymerlin.fr/produits/decoration-eclairage/dec... For those curious, it's a MILO 21 x 29.7 cm black frame. These links work for me: https://www.leroymerlin.pt/produtos/decoracao-e-tapetes/mold... Also, the screen he uses (HMTECH Raspberry Pi Screen 10.1) is pretty hard to find. Do people have other good recommendations for screens wit…

Every time I've looked into building something like this, when I price it out, just using an old Android tablet in kiosk mode and making it a web app ends up being much cheaper.

Re: Show HN: Wall-mounted diffusion mirror that turns reflections into paintings

#63

Post by happymellon »

Lerc wrote: post #55
happymellon wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you present it as art, sure. But the best part about art is that other people don't have to consider what you do as art. I would find it hard to believe you are presenting it as art though, as you'll want your BMW back after you've bought whatever crap at the store. I don't have to believe your AI generated slop is art because it doesn't actually convey any emotion. This generation of the picture itself is art, si…

> If you present it as art, sure. > But the best part about art is that other people don't have to consider what you do as art. I often think of art in a way that is remarkably consistent with these statements. My view was "Art is an invitation to consider" Sticking a banana to a wall becomes art when you do it to make people to engage or think about it. Engagement is not compulsory, but I think the invitation might…

> You don't have to engage, but choosing to denigrate is actively hostile engagement.

Apologies, that was not my intent, more to make people think because some people seemed to be confused about what is the art here.

Sticking a webcam through a filter to produce a pretty output isn't necessarily original, but that doesn't stop it being interactive art. Some folks here seem to think the image is art, whereas I see the whole as the art. A single static image that had been captured and run through the filter then presented doesn't really have very much to say. The installation can be interpreted in many ways and grows to be more than the sum of its parts.

Is it generating images?

Could it be co-adopted by people with vision or interpretation issues such as prosopagnosia?

Low effort/low brow art is still art.

Clicking on "create me an image" and having Bing generate a picture doesn't give the world anything as it enters zero effort, which ultimately reduces the creators investment, and therefore the viewers investment, into the piece.

Re: Show HN: Wall-mounted diffusion mirror that turns reflections into paintings

#64

Post by stefs »

8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #30

I think this would be cooler if the camera was somewhere different than the frame. Looking at an artistic mirror seems a little boring. Maybe make a 2nd one, and put it in someone else's house, and then feed the camera from one into the other. So you can look at the 'reflection' of someone else and have these little moments where you're both looking at the picture at the same time. Heck, make many so you never know w…

that's a good idea but something completely different than OP wanted to accomplish.

i remember that this has been done already as an art installation in public places so people could see - and interact - with others from around the world.

edit: like this here - https://www.inavateonthenet.net/news/article/vc-art-installa...

Re: Show HN: Wall-mounted diffusion mirror that turns reflections into paintings

#65

Post by dbspin »

This is great and all, but just to address the 'art' issue. It's the creation of the 'mirror' that's artistic (to whatever extent running a copy of stable diffusion is a creative act), not looking in the mirror. The enormous number of affordances of 'AI art' will be like this - passively consumptive, creative only in the sense that chatting about a movie or playing a video game can be creative.

All of us can already 'surface the inner world' (which I think is actually a pretty great definition of art, or part of one at least) - it's not skill based, it's practice based. Just start drawing, or writing or progaming with Processing or futzing with Ableton or what have you. Skill builds over time, expression needs no automation.

Re: Show HN: Wall-mounted diffusion mirror that turns reflections into paintings

#66

Post by Super_Jambo »

igornadj wrote: post #44

> Making art is hard. But art is mostly about surfacing the inner world, and only in part about skill. It’s unfortunate that art selects so strongly for skill. Not to sound like a luddite, but I do question the idea that the skill gap is merely an inconvenience. I suspect learning how to paint or make music changes something in yourself which teaches you some deeper life lessons. I've heard the phrase (paraphrased):…

This is why the greatest art is only made by people who grow the plants to create their own paint from scratch...

Re: Show HN: Wall-mounted diffusion mirror that turns reflections into paintings

#67

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

Log_out_ wrote: post #51
igornadj wrote: post #44

> Making art is hard. But art is mostly about surfacing the inner world, and only in part about skill. It’s unfortunate that art selects so strongly for skill. Not to sound like a luddite, but I do question the idea that the skill gap is merely an inconvenience. I suspect learning how to paint or make music changes something in yourself which teaches you some deeper life lessons. I've heard the phrase (paraphrased):…

? Have you ever read musician interviews: Its like a competition on how much clichee, naivete and reality denying drivel one can compress into 5 minutes. Idealism is not a victimless crime, millions suffer every day because some artist threw a buggy,idealized world model over the fence and the idiocy stuck hypnotizing millions into permanently damaging themselves.

There something compelling inside musicians that comes out in their music. Everyone feels it but few can define it. There's a reason they did not choose conversation as their medium.

Re: Show HN: Wall-mounted diffusion mirror that turns reflections into paintings

#68

Post by enjeyw »

MrLeap wrote: post #58
GradientSurfer wrote: post #23

Nice! I peeked at the code and thought I’d share a few tips for improving the low frame rate: Base64 encoding the JPEG bytes will increase payload size up to ~30% and burns CPU cycles on both client and server. This is unnecessary, as Websocket protocol can send binary payloads (doesn’t need to be text). Consider removing lossy jpg compression as well, ie just send the raw RGB bytes over the network. Then on the serv…

yeah yeah yeah, do all these things, and afterwards, look at 2d interpolation methods that don't require AI for your inbetweens. There's some real fast kernel math that can lerp from one blob to another at 8 billion fps.

I think you’re getting downvoted because “yeah yeah yeah” is normally a sign that someone is sarcastically dismissing an idea, but the rest of your comment suggests you’re not at all - linerp is a great idea!

Re: Show HN: Wall-mounted diffusion mirror that turns reflections into paintings

#69

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

viraptor wrote: post #13

> It’s unfortunate that art selects so strongly for skill. Can we decorrelate the two? I really like this direction. I understand why some object to the genai approaches, but in practice sometimes I get an idea of something cool and don't have the skills to create it myself. I'm not going to invest months/years to create each of those ideas and they're not important enough to spend hundreds of dollars that a skilled…

This is assuming an unimplemented idea has value. I think the value we attribute to an idea is actually the dissemination of the idea to others. Often a sufficiently radical idea is difficult for others to grasp and therefore an example must be created by the originator of the idea.

So when someone says "That's a great idea" what they mean is "That's great work".

Time will tell if others see an idea backed by AI work as valuable. Can they even tell? Who knows.

Re: Show HN: Wall-mounted diffusion mirror that turns reflections into paintings

#70

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

shib71 wrote: post #12

> Art is ... mostly about surfacing the inner world, and only in part about skill. I like the phrasing of the first part. But what art is "about" is very subjective. For me, part of what I look for in art is intentionality - the notion that the artist has crafted each element toward a purpose, consciously or not. The less an artist contributes to the final piece, the less meaning I assign to it. In this case: I would…

Yes. I think we attribute the cost of the human sacrifice into the value of the art. It's a like owning 1/80th of a human soul and hanging it on the wall.
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