[HN Gopher] Show HN: Wall-mounted diffusion mirror that turns re...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Show HN: Wall-mounted diffusion mirror that turns reflections into
       paintings
        
       Author : cataPhil
       Score  : 439 points
       Date   : 2024-10-23 22:24 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.matthieulc.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.matthieulc.com)
        
       | amelius wrote:
       | Prize for the most power-hungry mirror.
       | 
       | I also notice that the paintings are not stable over small
       | changes in the inputs.
        
         | shermantanktop wrote:
         | To me, that's the charm.
        
           | amelius wrote:
           | How about changing the style every time the viewer blinks?
        
       | jaredhallen wrote:
       | It would be cool to intercept the input from a webcam, transform
       | it like this, and then present it to the OS as another virtual
       | camera so you could select it in Teams or Zoom or whatever.
        
         | noman-land wrote:
         | You can do this with OBS.
        
       | broast wrote:
       | Super cool! I've had similar ideas when I first saw
       | StreamDiffusion. The possibilities are endless
        
       | shermantanktop wrote:
       | Have you considered a high frame rate morph effect between
       | images? That would increase the effective frame rate and probably
       | would look pretty cool.
        
         | JKCalhoun wrote:
         | Even a simple crossfade.
        
         | doctorhandshake wrote:
         | That's the technique I used on a piece that does inpainting
         | across an image at a rate of about 1 image every 8 seconds - I
         | 'melt' the results in for the duration until the next patch is
         | ready: https://hardwork.party/aws-epoch-optimizer/
        
         | lancesells wrote:
         | I actually think the high frame rate will look worse unless the
         | styling changes less in between frames. Otherwise, it's going
         | to look erratic and there will be a ton of "popping" if each
         | frame changes as much as the frames in the current video. Or
         | maybe op wants it to be a chaotic feeling.
        
           | flir wrote:
           | Many years ago I did a couple of hundred variations on the
           | mona lisa in photoshop, and stacked them as a gif. As the
           | eyes remained unchanged in each frame, they gave a fixed
           | point you could focus on while the rest of the face strobed
           | chaotically. It was a nice effect.
        
       | theendisney4 wrote:
       | Sounds cool! I would like pictures with people in the room doing
       | weird things energetically like stand on their chair. Dancing.
       | Confetti booze strange outfits. Bordering the offensive then
       | deleted after 30 minutes.
        
       | autoexec wrote:
       | It's pretty neat, but I'd never have a webcam steaming everything
       | in view to someone else's server on the internet. It'd be cool if
       | the server ran on my own hardware, and ideally in the frame
       | itself. The privacy policy at runpod.io wouldn't even display in
       | my browsers. (their ToS loaded without an issue).
        
         | beeflet wrote:
         | I wonder if you could do something like this with hardware
         | acceleration (like google coral)
        
           | refulgentis wrote:
           | Unfortunately no, they only have a TensorFlow target and none
           | of the hobbyist / released big model image stuff works with
           | it
        
       | imsaw wrote:
       | I think the low framerate adds a unique ambience, at least to me,
       | watching the recorded videos. It gives time to appreciate the art
       | style and generated features. It also feels like a time lapse of
       | gradual changes. I could imagine it being annoying to look at in
       | real time though.
        
       | tsunamifury wrote:
       | Micasso
        
       | shib71 wrote:
       | > 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 say that the individual pictures being
       | displayed are not "art" - they have no meaning. But I think the
       | device in whole is a piece of art. _That_ is a creation that
       | surfaces the creator 's inner world, because they designed the
       | device, wrote the code, crafted the prompts to achieve pieces
       | that reflected their notion of beauty.
        
         | disqard wrote:
         | I love this framing (pun unintended) of "art".
         | 
         | Besides what you articulated as the "intention", I often think
         | of the "story" behind the art -- whether an idea in the
         | creator's head was expressed via the piece (or not) makes me go
         | "yes, this is Art" (or not).
         | 
         | By that token, when I see automated projects like this, I think
         | of the "installation" as art, but the pixels or arrangements
         | generated by the piece itself is less art-like IMO.
        
         | d0gsg0w00f wrote:
         | 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.
        
       | viraptor wrote:
       | > 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 artist would request. Now there's a way people can
       | try generating the thing and may end up enjoying it - and that's
       | great. (At least for personal use, it gets a bit complicated for
       | commercial purposes)
        
         | happymellon wrote:
         | But unfortunately they did not.
         | 
         | Not everyone could build what is presented here, and
         | inadvertently they have validated that it requires skill to
         | produce a machine that distorts your reality. The pictures
         | being produced isn't the art.
        
         | d0gsg0w00f wrote:
         | 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.
        
       | rnxrx wrote:
       | This really does change the interaction with art. As a future
       | expansion it might be neat to recognize images on camera that
       | would make for interesting art (i.e. detection of people/animals
       | or recognition of certain styles of composition) as well as being
       | able to choose amongst different styles.
       | 
       | It seems sort of akin to some modern art that incorporated TV
       | screens and video to make dynamic installations, like Nam June
       | Paik.
        
       | r00fus wrote:
       | Is there any way to freeze some of the images?
       | 
       | I thought some of them would be awesome to keep (e.g. pfp or
       | lockscreen photo).
        
       | melony wrote:
       | Some optimization suggestions:
       | 
       | - cache the prompting somehow, unless you are doing dynamic stuff
       | with the prompts, the language embeddings generated should be
       | static (this depends on the architecture of the model that you
       | are using, it's only possible with certain setups where the
       | language processing is a separate part in the pipeline)
       | 
       | - consider fine-tuning an img to img model with your current
       | outputs instead of using a language-coupled model. My intuition
       | is that this is currently significantly over-engineered on the ML
       | side.
       | 
       | - Play around with local hardware acceleration instead of sending
       | everything to the cloud, you also probably don't need
       | particularly high resolution for the images either.
        
         | cataPhil wrote:
         | Love it thanks, will look into it!
        
       | caelinsutch wrote:
       | how much does this end up costing to run?
        
       | GradientSurfer wrote:
       | 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 server side you can
       | simply call Image.frombuffer(...).
       | 
       | StreamDiffusion can achieve high frame rates because of extensive
       | batching in the pipeline. You're not benefiting from that here as
       | the client is only sending one frame at a time and then waiting
       | for a response. See this example for an idea of how to queue
       | input frames and consume them in batches
       | https://github.com/cumulo-autumn/StreamDiffusion/blob/main/e... .
       | 
       | Alternatively you could take a look at the SDXL Turbo and
       | Lightning models. They are very fast at img2img but have limited
       | resolution of 5122 or 10242 pixels respectively. Which appears a
       | bit lower than what you're aiming for here, but they can be run
       | locally in real time on a high end consumer grade GPU. For
       | reference I have some code demonstrating this here
       | https://github.com/GradientSurfer/Draw2Img/tree/main
        
         | MrLeap wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | enjeyw wrote:
           | 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!
        
             | cataPhil wrote:
             | These are great ideas thank you!
        
             | MrLeap wrote:
             | It was a sincere triple yeah, born of excitement.
        
               | yboris wrote:
               | Makes sense, consider adding a `!` for clarity at the end
               | next time ;)
        
         | bambax wrote:
         | Ok, but I wonder if it really needs to be real time like this?
         | Wouldn't it make more sense to have some kind of button:
         | somebody makes a pose, takes a picture, the picture is run
         | through some kind of transformation and comes back as a
         | painting that stays there until someone takes another picture?
         | Wouldn't the illusion of art be better that way? (It would not
         | be a "mirror" anymore though.)
        
           | roland35 wrote:
           | I think it has to be either real time or a very low
           | framerate, like once every 30 seconds. That way you have time
           | to see each "painting"
        
       | randmeerkat wrote:
       | > It's unfortunate that art selects so strongly for skill.
       | 
       | Jackson Pollock begs to differ.
        
         | aspenmayer wrote:
         | Artistic skill lies not merely in the hand, but also in the
         | eye.
        
           | randmeerkat wrote:
           | > 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.
        
             | aspenmayer wrote:
             | I agree. I think the distinction between arts and crafts is
             | largely one of utility, rather than skill or technique.
        
               | randmeerkat wrote:
               | > I agree. I think the distinction between arts and
               | crafts is largely one of utility, rather than skill or
               | technique.
               | 
               | 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.
        
               | aspenmayer wrote:
               | > 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 process of self-discovery is
               | the reason and means through which they make the art in
               | the first place.
               | 
               | The map is not the territory. The purpose of the journey
               | is the journey itself; the destination is simply a
               | guiding star. A whole lot of aspirational mapmakers think
               | if they only had "this one weird trick," they'd be gods.
        
               | Filligree wrote:
               | 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.
        
               | aspenmayer wrote:
               | 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!
        
               | Filligree wrote:
               | 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...
        
               | aspenmayer wrote:
               | I read the prologue and it seems neat! I'm not familiar
               | with the fanfiction scene really, or the works yours is
               | based on. How did the voting work?
               | 
               | I like the pictures, and I can see how using AI would
               | help a lot with that, especially in the context of
               | existing characters, as matching styles and designs is
               | something that AI is likely well-suited to do.
               | 
               | I read a bit about Shugo Chara to see what it's about,
               | and it seems like an interesting series. The way you
               | presented your story reminded me of Steins;Gate a bit
               | with the reality manipulation.
               | 
               | Should I be familiar with the source material in order to
               | appreciate your work better?
               | 
               | Thanks for sharing your work. Are you working on any
               | other pieces?
               | 
               | Any anime recommendations, while you're here?
        
               | Filligree wrote:
               | The voting is pretty much as shown. People vote on what
               | the protagonist (usually Amu) _tries_ to do, I decide
               | what actually happens. It 's a kind of communal
               | roleplaying game; a quest, in SV parlance.
               | 
               | I've worked on other stories, but this is the only one
               | right now. As to source material, knowing it would be
               | beneficial, but it's all new to the protagonists and the
               | only one I'd say is a must-have is Shugo Chara. Though
               | not even that; several players did not know anything
               | about Amu in advance. You'll be a little lost, but the
               | wiki entry will suffice for giving you the basic idea.
               | The story's set post-canon, with some divergences, so it
               | starts off by trying to describe the current situation.
               | 
               | And anime... Magilumiere is great. Give it a try.
        
               | randmeerkat wrote:
               | > 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.
        
               | Filligree wrote:
               | 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.
        
             | bambax wrote:
             | 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 type of life he led prohibited him from having a
             | personal vision._
             | 
             | Elmyr had great skill, greater than anyone alive perhaps,
             | but he had nothing to say.
        
               | randmeerkat wrote:
               | > 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.
        
       | bravura wrote:
       | 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 with similar quality and specs?
       | 
       | Any idea why this uses infrared light and an infrared camera?
        
         | piva00 wrote:
         | > Any idea why this uses infrared light and an infrared camera?
         | 
         | I'd guess it's to make it work in the dark as well.
        
           | cataPhil wrote:
           | That's correct. Plus it also adds a layer of interaction
           | that's pretty fun, kind of like a wand.
        
         | esperent wrote:
         | 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.
        
         | bambax wrote:
         | The screen is available on Amazon? But it's a touch screen,
         | which seems overkill; any screen would probably work? One can
         | always build a custom frame around it.
        
           | bravura wrote:
           | Touch screen I think is cool because then you could interact
           | with the art.
           | 
           | I did a little research and these Waveshare displays look
           | really beautiful. For a particular size display, they have
           | models in different resolutions (from lower to higher res).
           | But they're only for rpis and windows, not like mac or ipad.
           | The QLED ones are the best.
           | 
           | https://www.waveshare.com/product/ai/displays/10.1hp-
           | capqled...
        
       | malux85 wrote:
       | Let's hook it up to a sentiment and toxicity model, and then if
       | you're being too negative online, it will start to deform you
       | into a monster, we could have a real Picture of Dorian Gray!
        
         | A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
         | I chuckled, but that is actually an interesting ( and very
         | doable ) fun project idea.
        
         | CaptainFever wrote:
         | This is actually such a cool idea.
        
       | tiborsaas wrote:
       | Really neat idea, I'd also love to have on my bookshelf.
       | 
       | > The main issue with the current setup is the low frame rate.
       | 
       | I'd call it a feature rather a limitation, it's not bad that I
       | have second to process the image for a bit.
       | 
       | I would even increase the update frequency to 5 - 15 minutes and
       | let it capture and generate a new image whenever it detects
       | something changing / moving.
        
       | 8n4vidtmkvmk wrote:
       | 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 who you're looking
       | at. It'll be the Omegle of picture frames.
        
         | stefs wrote:
         | 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...
        
           | bambax wrote:
           | > _an art installation in public places so people could see -
           | and interact - with others from around the world_
           | 
           | Sure, and it wasn't long before this happened:
           | 
           | > _It took less than a week for people eager to share their
           | 'assets' with the world to shut down the visual portals set
           | up between the cities of Dublin and New York on 8 May.
           | Although the project was aimed at bringing people together
           | and connecting cultures, a few visitors to the locations have
           | decided to take the invitation of getting to know others to a
           | whole other level._
           | 
           | https://traveltomorrow.com/new-york-dublin-portals-shut-
           | down...
           | 
           | (One wonders why flashing is such a big problem that the
           | whole installation needs to be shut down; but it seemed quite
           | obvious from the start that people would try to do this...)
        
       | swayvil wrote:
       | >But art is mostly about surfacing the inner world
       | 
       | Oh good lord.
        
         | more_corn wrote:
         | What's wrong with that? If art is expression shouldn't everyone
         | have the right to artistic expression? Even people who express
         | themselves with nerdy projects and code and hardware instead of
         | paint and canvas? What do you think art is?
        
       | king_magic wrote:
       | This is very cool and I applaud you OP.
        
       | stonethrowaway wrote:
       | > 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. Can we decorrelate the two?
       | 
       | I don't think the poor lad knows what Art is.
       | 
       | Put another way, we have hundreds of years of recorded
       | philosophical texts and diatribes on what constitutes Art, and
       | what art-making is. Often written by serious practitioners who
       | dedicate their life to it rather than internet-dwelling dabblers
       | and dilettantes. We have people who are deemed artists, not
       | necessarily painters but people who are wired a certain way and
       | are industrious with their abilities. Math geniuses attend
       | certain schools and the other pupils may pick up a thing or two
       | from them, but that doesn't mean the other pupils are geniuses
       | also. So too, do artists walk among us and may do what we do and
       | we may imitate what they do. But that doesn't put us on equal
       | footing whatsoever.
       | 
       | Art doesn't select for skill. This is a red herring and a
       | misunderstanding. Art doesn't select for anything, because if it
       | did it wouldn't be Art. This is an old somewhat trite topic that,
       | historically, boiled down to no more than a pithy phrase: "Art
       | cannot be taught." as expounded by many teachers of incredible
       | talent in their own right who have attempted to distill it into
       | teachable material and realized their talent is not transferable
       | as easily as they had hoped.
       | 
       | Most of what you read on this subject is nonsense sold to you by
       | grifters who want your money. Now and today more than ever. I'm
       | all for, say, "Art and Fear" and "The Art Spirit" and even a bit
       | of "War of Art" to name some household items on the subject.
       | These are all great recent texts. But let's take these for what
       | they are: self-help literature, and nothing more. The further
       | back in literature you go the less of this patting-on-the-back
       | attitude you get, and more serious the subject matter is treated
       | (example: read the lectures on Art by the presidents of the Royal
       | Academy, they are numerous, Archive has them all. One president
       | basically tells students to choose a different profession,
       | discussed as an aside topic in a book on portraiture from that
       | time.)
       | 
       | Elsewhere in the comments people saying how art is simply good
       | taste seem to be oblivious to the creations of artists that led
       | them to make such a blundering conclusion. Your taste wouldn't
       | exist had an artist not created a thing to begin with.
       | 
       | We've used image generators for decades now. It gets the job
       | done. The person using it may be an artist or just someone who
       | wants a dynamic, changing generated image on the wall.
        
         | A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
         | << Archive has them all.
         | 
         | Thank you. I added those to my reading list. I don't think I
         | ever delved into the topic.
         | 
         | << Often written by serious practitioners who dedicate their
         | life to it rather than internet-dwelling dabblers and
         | dilettantes.
         | 
         | And yet, here we have someone not burdened by the serious
         | business of art and gives his personal perspective on it. I am
         | not saying a lot of everything is not mostly crap, because it
         | mostly is, but I found this child-like honesty oddly endearing.
         | 
         | << Art doesn't select for skill.
         | 
         | Artist without a skill is just a dreamer, who can't put his
         | vision into place. Barrier of entry has been lowered now, but I
         | am relatively certain that was not always the case.
        
       | arathis wrote:
       | This is great.
        
       | igornadj wrote:
       | > 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): No great work of art was
       | made by a genius, genius comes to you unexpectedly like a gust of
       | wind. It seems that cultivating these opportunities is the most
       | an artist can do, and removing the skill gap seems to be removing
       | the cultivation, the thing that changes you, the essence.
       | 
       | There seems to be a few of these inherent deep workings that we
       | as a people keep coming back to, without knowing what they are or
       | how to discuss them (personally at least!). Not to rain on your
       | parade OP, the project looks fun and super useful to a lot
       | people! Just something I ponder on at times.
        
         | terhechte wrote:
         | 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.
        
           | NavinF wrote:
           | > "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.
           | ..
           | 
           | Literally 95% of the replies in that thread are irrelevant
           | bullshit from "experts" that have no idea how redundant
           | server PSUs work. I replied to some under the same username.
           | Meanwhile another guy successfully wired two 100W USB-C ports
           | in parallel to power an entire PC. He had no idea that the
           | resistance of his crappy wires kept the two smps control
           | loops stable and divided the current evenly between the two
           | ports ensuring that neither one trips OCP: https://www.reddit
           | .com/r/UsbCHardware/comments/1g8pser/let_m...
        
             | baq wrote:
             | I guess there's the armchair expert and the actual, real
             | expert and these two are completely different beasts.
             | 
             | I wouldn't feel comfortable with this guy's usb-c setup but
             | probably not for 'it's all going to burn down' reasons,
             | more like 'the connection will get loose somewhere and I'll
             | lose my work'.
        
               | NavinF wrote:
               | He posted the photos as soon as he got it working; It's
               | obviously not his permanent setup. My point is that he
               | posted it on the same day that ~60 people claimed this
               | was somehow a difficult task.
        
             | vasco wrote:
             | "Random person on reddit" doesn't qualify as experts.
        
               | NavinF wrote:
               | Everyone in that thread pretended to be an expert despite
               | being clueless. This is normal, but you'd only notice it
               | if you're familiar. Also see Gell-Mann amnesia effect
        
             | bambax wrote:
             | > _Who came up with this saying?_
             | 
             | I was not aware of that specific formulation but there's a
             | maxim by Mark Twain that says "They did not know it was
             | impossible so they did it".
        
             | jijan wrote:
             | Amsyar hensem
        
             | Workaccount2 wrote:
             | 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!".
        
         | Log_out_ wrote:
         | ? 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.
        
           | d0gsg0w00f wrote:
           | 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.
        
             | grugagag wrote:
             | Are you talking about stage presence?
        
               | piva00 wrote:
               | 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.
        
         | Super_Jambo wrote:
         | This is why the greatest art is only made by people who grow
         | the plants to create their own paint from scratch...
        
         | flir wrote:
         | I think he's on the right lines with "surfacing the inner
         | world", but that's why I see this as more wallpaper than art.
         | He's not doing a deep dive into his own psychology and hauling
         | up pearls; none of these images have that property.
         | 
         | Does the totality of the project have that property? That would
         | be less clear, but IMO, no. I see it as technically driven, not
         | psychologically driven, although I can see how you could write
         | an artist's statement that claims it was (it's about mirrors,
         | after all, which are hugely symbolic).
         | 
         | To be clear I still like it, and if I'd done it I'd be proud of
         | it. But it's more artifice than art.
         | 
         | (If I was him, I'd slow the frame rate down, not speed it up -
         | work with the technical limitation, not against it. Have the
         | system only display "good" images, and not update the display
         | until another "good" image is generated. The code that decides
         | if an image is "good" or not would be the most interesting part
         | of the system, and could fairly be said to embody the artist's
         | intent, and so cross (my own personal) threshold into capital-A
         | Art.
         | 
         | I'd also experiment with buffering the image stream a la _Light
         | of Other Days_ by Bob Shaw.
         | 
         | Oh, and as Halloween is nearly with us, the temptation to
         | occasionally inpaint a figure standing behind the viewer would
         | be massive.
         | 
         | Idle thought: to get some stability in the image, would it be
         | possible to have an LLM generate random video filter code,
         | instead of random images? "Write me a video filter that makes
         | the input video look cubist". "...like an oil painting"
         | "...with a Flash aesthetic". etc etc. Every time a filter gets
         | generated that doesn't actively crash, swap to it. No idea if
         | that's feasible or not.)
        
           | Kim_Bruning wrote:
           | It's extremely sophisticated dynamic art.
        
         | sandworm101 wrote:
         | 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.
        
         | wellthisisgreat wrote:
         | > I suspect learning how to paint or make music changes
         | something in yourself which teaches you some deeper life
         | lessons.
         | 
         | I enthusiastically support this notion. A simpler, than
         | painting, example would be writing. Sure everyone has a story
         | to tell, and everyone can write, but to make it worth other
         | people's time would take you days if not years of perfecting
         | the craft, as you inevitably learn things about yourself and
         | crystallize your perspectives on this world.
        
       | xlii wrote:
       | > But art is mostly about surfacing the inner world, and only in
       | part about skill.
       | 
       | I always thought that art is all about emotions, both preserving
       | and creating them. That's why I find a banana on the wall art,
       | popular music is still art.
       | 
       | (Might be school influence but I also tend to ask myself ,,why")
       | 
       | This invention is definitely work of art, but its output - in my
       | eyes - not. It's like a cloud. It can make different shapes, and
       | some are funny, some might remind me of my close ones, but it's
       | still averaged randomness.
       | 
       | However the idea to reflect reality to this digital randomness I
       | find without doubt - art. And, well: while not visual or audible,
       | there is software, hardware, code and design which are also art
       | (and difficult to make so counterpoint to thesis in first
       | paragraph ;)).
        
         | khafra wrote:
         | > I always thought that art is all about emotions, both
         | preserving and creating them.
         | 
         | But this leaves the role of intention ambiguous. If I double-
         | park a BMW across two handicap spaces because I'm angry and
         | entitled, is that art? It certainly evokes emotion, and it's
         | also produced by emotion.
        
           | happymellon wrote:
           | 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, similar to
           | other "experience" art pieces. Its referred to as immersive
           | art.
        
             | Lerc wrote:
             | > _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 be. Sticking a banana to a wall to keep it away from
             | ants is simple utility, not intended to be artistic
             | expression.
             | 
             | > _I don 't have to believe your AI generated slop is art
             | because it doesn't actually convey any emotion._
             | 
             | You don't have to engage, but choosing to denigrate is
             | actively hostile engagement. There are plenty of people
             | using AI for expression of ideas. There are also people
             | doing a bunch of dumb things. Lowbrow art is still art in
             | it's own way. Much of it may have very little to say, but I
             | don't think there are very many people who have pretensions
             | that low effort images are much more than a kind of
             | doodling.
        
               | happymellon wrote:
               | > 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.
        
               | flir wrote:
               | 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).
        
               | happymellon wrote:
               | 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.
        
           | xlii wrote:
           | An interesting viewpoint for sure.
           | 
           | I would dissect it though since it's not pure anger -
           | frustration maybe, a complex one and caused by additional
           | input. E.g. anxiety (you took what could be mine) or internal
           | discord (after observing act of injustice).
           | 
           | I'd argue that it's an act of random (again, like a cloud)
           | and wouldn't treat it as art.
           | 
           | But, if you'd park it sideways in front of the mall entrance,
           | blocking it considerably, I'd consider it art (in my
           | imagination I can see the headlines about artist making a
           | statement against the overconsumption).
           | 
           | Yet art is art, so everyone has their own definition. I'd
           | prefer "positive" emotions, so awe, nostalgia, etc., but I
           | don't see reason why anger should be excluded.
           | 
           | <<proceeds to print "THIS IS AN ART INSTALLATION" message to
           | put behind the windshield>>
        
         | lofaszvanitt wrote:
         | Art is something that grabs you and is also unique in the way
         | it presents the subject. Also, there has to be skill involved,
         | otherwise the whole thing goes up in smoke if it feels cheap or
         | superficial.
         | 
         | A banana on the wall is not art, because it involves an
         | everyday object in an everyday setting.
         | 
         | You might feel it's art, but if that's the case, then you
         | haven't exposed yourself to true art enough to have a pool of
         | experience or only seen so far superficial examples.
        
         | skeaker wrote:
         | > I always thought that art is all about emotions, both
         | preserving and creating them.
         | 
         | Is that not what was meant by "surfacing the inner world?"
        
       | unwind wrote:
       | I don't have anything to say about the artistic value, but as a
       | part-time tool collector with dreams of being a handy person,
       | this passage was the most interesting:
       | 
       |  _I used a puncher to cut a hole in the frame's cardboard for the
       | camera (drills didn't work)._
       | 
       | I would love some more detail, or just people's interpretations
       | ... in what manner can a drill fail to "work" on cardboard? There
       | can be issues with tearing, perhaps, that I think punching works
       | around nicely.
        
         | esperent wrote:
         | It's too soft and layered, the drill tends to chew it up. I've
         | had some luck putting duct tape over both sides and drilling
         | through that, but for very clean holes you'd still probably
         | have to clean the edges with a craft knife.
        
         | bambax wrote:
         | My guess is he tried with a wood drill bit, which will tear
         | cardboard and make a big mess. For cardboard, or plastic, you
         | need a metal drill bit.
        
           | cataPhil wrote:
           | That's right, sorry for not explaining further in the post!
           | The cardboard was so thin than neither wood nor metal drill
           | bits made a clean enough cut.
        
             | kadoban wrote:
             | I've had success by putting the material between two pieces
             | of wood and drilling through it all. Ideally you clamp it,
             | but you can also just kind of push down on it.
        
       | quercus wrote:
       | reminds me of the classic 80's "Take on Me" music video
        
       | dbspin wrote:
       | 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.
        
       | Tepix wrote:
       | > _The main issue with the current setup is the low frame rate._
       | 
       | I think lowering the framerate to something between 0.3 to 1 fps
       | might even be better!
        
       | Mumps wrote:
       | On the low framerate: why get a pi5 when a Jetson Nano could be
       | had for about the same price?
        
         | jansan wrote:
         | What do you want a high frame rate for when looking at art?
         | What is the frame rate of the Mona Lisa?
        
       | ogou wrote:
       | The interesting thing to me about this, and most other demos, is
       | what people are simulating as examples of art. In this case, it's
       | a very specific Picasso time period. Others tend to center on
       | fantasy or well-known science fiction painters. This makes sense
       | if your only exposure to art is the internet. Maybe a few
       | Wikipedia sessions and a Google search for "modern art". The
       | actual art world is in a huge transition right now and the idea
       | of this Western dominance of art history is being completely re-
       | evaluated. I haven't seen many demos of these tools, or AI art in
       | general, that makes use of any actual modern art from the past
       | 20-30 years. I definitely don't see examples from non-European
       | art history (except Ukiyo-e or anime). That says a lot about what
       | most of you expect from tools like this. It's not just technical,
       | it's culturally normative. Think of it, (without looking it up)
       | can any of you name any living artists that have been exhibited
       | in the Museum of Modern Art in the past 30 years? I see so many
       | strong opinions here about what art is or isn't, but wonder if
       | anybody actually goes to museums or galleries to see what is
       | considered modern art.
        
       | xrd wrote:
       | I would love to see you add a networking layer so that I could
       | connect my frame to a random one somewhere in the universe. Then
       | I could see another person through this style transfer. They
       | could see me. It would be like an art chat roulette.
        
       | tivert wrote:
       | You should get a couple of old-work low voltage brackets and
       | brush wall plates (https://www.homedepot.com/p/Carlon-1-Gang-Non-
       | Metallic-Low-V..., https://www.homedepot.com/p/Commercial-
       | Electric-1-Gang-Brush...), and route the power cable through the
       | wall. It would look much nicer.
        
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