Berlin artist transforms waste plastic into an inflatable isolation chamber | Hacker News Reader

Berlin artist transforms waste plastic into an inflatable isolation chamber

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42 pointsaction-io36 comments

"Man hides in trash bags" surely does change it's meaning when the man happens to be artist

YMMD

Well I'm sure there will a huge amount of negative takes on this, I haven't looked yet, so here's a positive one to balance them all out, this person is an artist who may care very deeply about the environment and is using their talent to draw attention and start a discussion about the topic. It's difficult to measure the impact that discussion or experiencing this art may have on people. I expect a lot of children and students will visit this installation and learn about waste, they may change their world view based on this. Yes this is a very sugar coated idealistic view I'm taking here. Also I would like to apologise in advance if this thread is wall-to-wall platitudes about the art installation.

today's art is not about creativity or skill, it's about connections and politics. You almost certainly never see art produced by right leaning individuals in art galleries.

I always get downvoted and flagged ... are we on reddit?

Art, when it's good, is about pushing boundaries, and conservatism is about creating and enforcing boundaries. That's my guess as to why you're not going to see a lot of "right-leaning art" in galleries or anywhere else.

Do you have an example or two of right-leaning art or artists that you think should be getting attention?

Fen de Villiers for example.

He does indeed seem like a right-leaning artist: "art used to be good but now it's not and I want it to be like it was, real art". Anyway, you feel he's being repressed by the art world establishment?

What does art from a right leaning individual look like?

Art has always been about connections and politics.

I expect no one will visit the installation and that it will have no impact whatsoever. :)

My daughter's age and younger have been taught in schools much more environmental impact, recycling, reducing concepts than I ever was. I can only assume that the little that I learned was more than my parents, and extrapolating that pattern to be true going further back in generations.

To that point, my dad would dump oil in the back yard, burn things in the barrel regardless of what they were, etc. (I grew up "in the country") Companies would openly dump waste into rivers (still happens, just not as openly perhaps because of the guilt/shame/criminality). The recycling of plastics was something just being taught as something to do when I was in school, but taught heavily for my daughter's age. Now, that's becoming a myth, so it'll be interesting to see how the teaching changes around plastics recycling.

The point is that some changes are not instant and are multi-generational concepts. The "talking about" is how that happens. To those that have already learned, it seems repetitive and ineffective. But that would be like telling an elementary teacher they are ineffective as they are always teaching the same things. The point is that it's new students each time. Those hearing the same thing they've already learned should just accept that they are not the target audience and move along rather than the negative commenting. Much like today's HN link on how transistors work. Um, like, duh, we learned that in school years ago. OR, maybe someone reading right now only learned software and is starting to get interested in hardware because of some project they want to try on an Arduino type of kit, but now really wants to know about the components.

I don't see how this is anything other using climate change for "marketing", it's not like we could mass produce the isolation chambers and reduce the waste plastic.

Surely I could achieve the same "environmental effect" by just taking a few trash bags and storing them in my drawer ?

Trash bags usually also have a strong smell which would probably give you a headache after prolonged use, not mentioning having to clean the trashbags thoroughly before they can be used if we are indeed using used trash bags.

>not mentioning having to clean the trashbags thoroughly before they can be used if we are indeed using used trash bags.

oh, come on now, you just turn the trashbag inside out so that the clean side is on the inside where you will be. think of it as a pair of underwear/socks when you were in college ;-)

Damn action all those people be hating.. you rock. cheers simo

What a great art project mixing technology and sustainability!

Isn’t this kind of sustainability a very liberal one? The idea that transforming some scraps as an individual can matter vs attacking systemic root causes

Especially given the additional energy necessary to build this thing from scraps and the opportunity cost where the artist could have contributed to something productive.

> the opportunity cost where the artist could have contributed to something productive.

Woah, not everything in life needs to be productive or measured in terms of production. Contributions don't necessarily mean something productive, don't you enjoy music? Or any kind of arts or humanities?

It's such a narrow and sad worldview to judge everything against how productive or functional it is, I believe being a human and being alive is a little more than just producing bullshit...

You're right I agree but I would say this is only marginally better than someone trudging along the sidewalk with their shopping cart and odd assembly of random things living life on the periphery. In other words I don't see this having more merit than the random person's display of worldly possessions in a shopping cart.

aren't doesn't need to have a utility but the weird thing to me about sustainability art is - is it suggesting utility? is it a nod to a possible utility? it reeks of aesthetics of improbable utility

probably the new socket puppet forgot the "/s" in the end of sentence?

sustainability means not producing trash at the first place (or at least as few as possible).

They should measure O2 and CO2 levels inside.

I worry about the toxicity of the plastic this artist’s has used, more so if the plastic’s have been fused by heating them.

If he used "bags and food packaging films", it's probably polyethylene of varying densities. As far as plastics go, PE melts fairly cleanly.

What's your specific concern? That the artist could have breathed unhealthy fumes?

I would call it fart recycler ... because if you far in there it's sustained and you have a long time a personal odor around you and the next person after you also have something from it.

Berlin and Berlin innovations are so overrated.. the real cringe city.

That's cool, but some plastic bags and a raspberry pi are not a "kinetic sculpture", sorry.

The definition of a kinetic sculpture is a sculpture that moves. You can't just redefine others professional language because you feel something else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_art

Seems to meet the terms.

"Kinetic art is art from any medium that contains movement perceivable by the viewer or that depends on motion for its effect."

Your comment seems to come from a place of hate and probably driven by your own issues. Much respect for this and many other artists that suffer from people like you

I don't care either way, but can we tone it down with the "this is hate" thing? That belongs on Twitter and Reddit, but not on HN.

It stems from the grandparent comment starting a thread like you'd see on reddit or Twitter, a shallow dismissal of someone's work as a hot take and... That's it.

Someone doing something you find objectionable is not a good reason to start doing it yourself. If a monkey in a zoo starts throwing feces in your direction, do you respond in kind?

I will leave your own words talking back at you...

> That belongs on Twitter and Reddit, but not on HN.

It definitely can be. Unsure why you feel the need to gatekeep what is or not a kinetic sculpture, if something moves and some consider it art why can't it be called a kinetic sculpture? Is there a minimum threshold defined somewhere about what can or cannot be called as such?

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