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

matthieulc.com

91–100 of 126 posts

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

#91
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If I had to drag myself across a desert in order to press that Bing button, would it be art then? (I think, in that example, the act of pressing the button might be the art - a performance).

Which aligns with this piece in the story.

Sticking a webcam shot through an AI filter is a pretty low bar. What makes it art that anyone other than the creator would care about is the real-time rendering. Thats the art that people are interested in discussing.

People do all sorts of walks as art. Whether thats Drag or a parade where the art is to make the walk interesting, or walking through the desert, laying on a bed of nails where the "walk" (or laying down) isn't necessarily interesting but the passion is.

Pressing the Bing button is unlikely to evoke any passion except from Bing product management.

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

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? 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.

Are you talking about stage presence?

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

#93

> 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):…

Talk like "surfacing the inner whatever" can impress the masses, for a very short while, but good art requires more. All art has a language, standards that are learned though an artist's development as they learn the needed skills. The mona lisa isn't just a good picture of a person. It is full of details and meaning only understandable to people who have studied paintings. AI can generate a good or interesting picture but it cannot speak the language of painting. That requires actual graft to learn and appreciate. Injecting the paintbrush skills into someone's brain, or into an AI tool, isn't going to make them an artist.

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

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which is why I take offense to someone claiming that it selects for and requires skill. Especially because the ones making that argument are usually the ones arguing that they’re incapable of making art. I would tell them they just need to spend more time finding themselves. And spend more time (and intentional effort) in making art! It's like people want a shortcut to end result, when "real" artists know that the…

Um, no, I want illustrations for my stories. That’s the end, and the means can be whatever. I don’t care to search for self-discovery in that.

> Um, no, I want illustrations for my stories. That’s the end, and the means can be whatever. I don’t care to search for self-discovery in that.

Maybe writing a story is your art… Part of self-discovery is in finding out how you desire to express yourself. There’s a reason many books have a an author and an illustrator.

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

#95
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Artistic skill lies not merely in the hand, but also in the eye. Precisely. There is no skill in artistry, it’s rather just a developed sense of style, that doesn’t come from a medium or method, it comes from growing to know oneself.

Just watched "F for Fake" (Orson Welles, 1973), a documentary of sorts about the great art forger Elmyr de Hory who was able to imitate the style of many of his contemporaries to perfection (Modigliani, Matisse, etc.), fooling the painters themselves! At one point in the movie his biographer says > I think Elmyr's problem for years and the reason why he could not succeed as a painter in his own right was that the typ…

> Elmyr had great skill, greater than anyone alive perhaps, but he had nothing to say.

I would argue that he spoke volumes and had a vision so vast that he was able to take perspective from any other’s view. What a rich life Elmyr must have led.

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

#96
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This goes opposite to the saying "Experts say it cannot be done; amateurs accomplish it every day.". Sometimes it's good to have someone with fresh eyes looking and something and not be shaped by decades of prior history.

> "Experts say it cannot be done; amateurs accomplish it every day." I love this because I seem to encounter situations like that every day. Who came up with this saying? Recent example: This guy asked a very simple question about something that's commonly done in industry (wiring two power supplies in parallel and balancing the current between them): https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/comments/1g84zd7/usi... Li…

Amsyar hensem

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

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you talking about stage presence?

Musicians are not necessarily stage performers, there's lots of touching instrumental music where the musician doesn't even do much on stage.

Music itself is a language, something undefinable comes from that language that we can't modulate the same way through speech.

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

#98
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This goes opposite to the saying "Experts say it cannot be done; amateurs accomplish it every day.". Sometimes it's good to have someone with fresh eyes looking and something and not be shaped by decades of prior history.

> "Experts say it cannot be done; amateurs accomplish it every day." I love this because I seem to encounter situations like that every day. Who came up with this saying? Recent example: This guy asked a very simple question about something that's commonly done in industry (wiring two power supplies in parallel and balancing the current between them): https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/comments/1g84zd7/usi... Li…

Since I actually work in this field:

Redundant switching power supplies are purpose built to be redundant. They usually have a current share circuit (to balance the load) and output diodes (to stop one supply from feeding the other one). Without that one supply will "over power" the other, fill it's output caps, and then the feedback of that supply will go "Hey the output caps are charged so why do I need to do anything!?". You end up with an erosion of power balance.

You are riding a pretty high horse, but the commenters in that thread are not wrong and if you think cheap 5V USB chargers are anything like redundant server PSU's. I don't think putting random USB chargers in parallel will cause a fire or anything, but it's just needlessly bad engineering that will be anything but robust.

A programming analogy to help people here: You can write a program that is tens of thousands of lines of if statements. It might probably work maybe for some inputs? But damn if it not bad engineering. No one would ride around on the high horse of "See the program worked! The "experts" were wrong!".

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

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, no, I want illustrations for my stories. That’s the end, and the means can be whatever. I don’t care to search for self-discovery in that.

That’s a reasonable expectation and desirable outcome in and of itself. Not everything needs to be intended to be art for it to be perceived as such. Art is in the eye of the beholder. Do you share your stories publicly? I’m curious what kind of stories you would write. It would be cool to have an HN writing group!

I do, but it’s obscure fanfiction. Admittedly with heavy computer science and AI inspirations, so maybe you’d find it interesting regardless?

It’s over here: https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/shards-of-a-br...

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

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um, no, I want illustrations for my stories. That’s the end, and the means can be whatever. I don’t care to search for self-discovery in that.

> Um, no, I want illustrations for my stories. That’s the end, and the means can be whatever. I don’t care to search for self-discovery in that. Maybe writing a story is your art… Part of self-discovery is in finding out how you desire to express yourself. There’s a reason many books have a an author and an illustrator.

No question about that, but I always get slightly annoyed about people who insist artwork has to be internally fulfilling or whatever.

Great if that’s how it works for you, but for me it’s a means to an end.

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