Bubble Wrap Artist Creates Masterpieces by Injecting Paint into Each Bubble | Hacker News Reader

Bubble Wrap Artist Creates Masterpieces by Injecting Paint into Each Bubble

goodnewsnetwork.org

54 pointsRickJWagner40 comments

Today I learned bubble wrap started as a wallpaper alternative and pivoted to the shipping industry. Another good example how your product may be excellent for a different audience than intended.

> When he started out, Hart was only able to inject a few cells at a time before having to step back to review his progress. He’s since invented a computer algorithm that gives him a working bird’s eye view. While it makes the process faster, it’s still time-consuming.

A cool hacker project would be to make a “bubble printer” with an automatic injector that given an image will try to reproduce it in bubble wrap.

I agree with you. At the same time, I suspect that the act of filling each bubble by hand is an important part of the process for this artist.

That's exactly it; with art, the process is part of the product.

Because if you look at any picture objectively, you think "Anyone could do that", which is why a lot of people pull up their noses at art, and by extension, anyone pursuing a career as an artist.

But art where the process is part of it is just one of the many branches of the art world. A lot of people consume the arts on a regular basis without even considering it. UX is part of it, TV shows, films, video games, basically all media is an expression of art and will have a small army of artists working on them.

Another cool hack would be to generate a color palette paint generator. A smaller version of those used for house painting colors.

Yeah, it would be a cool demo for a pick-and-place machine.

But then it wouldn't be the same kind of art anymore. Just like you can have a machine paint 50000 exact copy of Mona Lisa and you wouldn't even be able to sell them for the price of wood making up the frame

How do you tell hand injected vs machine injected bubbles apart?

You don't need to be able to tell them apart to value one at $15,000 and another at $15.

Hand-injected and machine-injected history of a given bubble may not be a distinguishable property within the natural universe, but it's important to art collectors, in a similar way that the copyrighted or not-copyrighted status of bits gives them an invisible color to lawyers: https://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

didn't andy warhol manage to make valued art from prints?

You mean something like https://www.robotmuralist.com/ but for bubblewrap instead of graffiti on walls? Lot of R&D could be shared, I guess.

It's indeed a lovely work this artist creates. Should be quite satisfying to work with bubble wrap like that, and earn a living.

Good News Network in general has content that elicits good feelings. Not such good news and good feeling are the 11 trackers on the page. But I guess they also have to earn a living.

At least as a consumer and with browser addon technology, you get the executive decision to block all of those. At least, as long as Google and Firefox and co don't remove this possibility.

Cool idea, but tbh I want to see what it looks like once some of the bubbles have been popped.

You can't pop them because the paint dries inside leaving no air pocket (This was mentioned in the video at the bottom of the page).

I was confused for a minute to but then realized how it works.

> “Each project produces two separate paintings—the pixelated picture in front, and an impressionist image rendered by the drippings from the back”

To sum it up: pixel art but with a tremendous plastic waste.

Like Andy Warhol's halftones, using a different canvas.

Neat! Real-world pixel art.

A new take on pixel art!

Kinda like halftone too.

Pointillism was the original pixel art.

What about cross-stitching?

Mosaics

Can it be purchased as NFT, tho?

That is the real question.

I love art like this, but does it require any special skill?

Color data for each bubble can be generated using a python script. Palette can also be generated computationally.

I am not diminishing the artists work or effort, but in the future, will art be prized for skill and novelty? Or will it be dismissed as "anyone can do that" ?

As many people as you ask you'll probably get that many answers of what defines art. As for people dismissing art as "anyone can do that" that's been happening for decades now. There's a lot of different types of art; some is about an idea, some is about technique in capturing a scene, or trying to invoke a certain reaction/emotion.

As for skill who cares many people could have done this but this is the person who did these and they're neat and interesting. There's room for all sorts of art/games/movies why try to gatekeep what is really art or something?

Most generations there's a good chunk that looks back and say "now that was real _____, not like what they're making today." And every generation what was the true version of the thing changes, it's more nostalgia than anything it seems.

> I am not diminishing the artists work or effort

Well... you are by saying 'anyone could do this' and implying it doesn't require special skill.

This reminds me of Sol LeWitt. Some of his art is just a simple set of instructions that can be followed by other people to "install" by strictly following them and drawing on walls [1].

There are a lot more examples in art that many people could replicate easily, but only the artist came up with the idea.

[1] https://improvisedlife.com/2015/08/10/learning-stealing-sol-...

Art is not about skill anymore in the (post-)modern world.

Was it ever? The stick figures and hand prints found in old caves are some of the most valuable pieces of art (culturally and anthropologically speaking) out there, but the people that made them were just doodling.

I’d argue though these cave artists are more skilled (artistically) when compared against their peers.

There's nothing wrong with doing anything, just hope (expect?) compensation to match. If this is something anyone can do, expect compensation to be low; If compensation isn't low, expect the task to not be something anyone can do (whether you know why, or not).

To add a few spicy observations:

- I'm often unsympathetic to complains of low pay by artists (or people complaining on their behalf). It's well know art comes with a high risk of low pay, it's a difficult endeavour - any adult should know this going in.

- not to say that investment in arts isn't low - it's a different thing. But it's also the same thing: the idea of investment is upfront capital today, payday later, to get over that "initial hump" of high overhead art. If there is no later payoff proportionate to upfront costs, it's logical that something is underfunded.

You need to come up with it in the first place. That is certainly a skill. Go through with it. Another skill. And if the result is pleasant to look at, yes then you were successful.

I always find i kinda sad when someone develops a cool new technique but then just uses it to produce versions of famous paintings like the Mona Lisa or the Notorious BIG image.I really like the outcomes, and exploring different media/techniques is always worthwhile. But if you're just rendering other people's images...Not Art.

I get why someone would do this. It's much easier for people to notice and appreciate what's going by incorporating a reference image that's widely familiar, and without his work would be much more likely to be overlooked. But still.

Writing python code to do that is a special skill. It just seems like it isn't because that's the bread and butter for a large part of the HN readership.

Is sculpting art? All it takes is pushing clay around.

Writing algorithms for pixellating images to required granularity is a specialized skill. However, using a library that does that, is a much more common skill.

I wouldn't be surprised if, in the future, sculptures will also be CNC machine assisted.

It is possible, now , to use a CNC machine to rough cut sculptures and then fine cut them with hand.

Resampling raster images to different resultions is pretty straightforward for anyone with coding skills. Nearest neighbour or linear resampling only takes a few lines of code.

Anyone can do art!

Try it!

Yeah I think “recreates masterpieces” would be a more appropriate headline than “creates”

Patience and persistence is a special skill. What this guy does is pretty unique (although after this article I'm sure there will be some copycats), so clearly it's special.

Also you're answering your own question there, by dismissing the thing as "anyone can do that" yourself. In theory, anyone can do that, in practice, few / nobody does that.

It's easy but a low blow to stand on the sideline going "I could do that, I just don't wanna".

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