I've noticed that 2D artists/non-sculptors who engage in strange mediums or techniques generally only make realistic closeup portraits of people. I saw the headline, thought "neat, but I bet he just makes normal expressionless faces." Opened the page and it seems like that's the vast majority of his work. As an artist myself, I'm always like ehhhhh when I see this. Feels a bit like the kind of stuff you see for sale in tourist areas.
It’s like there are 2 axes: - cool technique and - cool picture. The second is way more important than the first, which is way painters are still on top of the 2D art world.
Some people can do both though. And i’d say even in these cases the art world tend to dismiss the weird technique as gimmicky.
While interesting, it doesnt feel like it belongs here. Maybe it is the volume these days but more and more the articles are turning into reddit posts.
This is Hacker News. I can't think of a better way of someone "hacking" something (i.e. using cracked glass in a novel way) to create something new, unexpected, and incredible.
I think this is probably the best idiomatic example of the type of story that I think belongs on HN that I've seen in quite some time.
As an artist, this isn't incredible. Arranging lights/darks to copy a photo is high-school tier. Money for food + shelter + materials and I could do this in a month, as with anyone who can copy a black and white photo.
I disagree quite a bit. For me the medium, the technique, the process is all part of the art. Yet I still think the end result is also critical. But coming up with create ways to produce art matters.
And I am confused about the “doing it any other way”? I don’t really see other ways to achieve the same result. Say painting and photography will both produce end results that are quite different. The skills are very different. The end material is also quite different. The same way stained glass is quite different from painting
I might agree with you as a knee jerk, but I believe "the medium is the message"[1] and I don't think there's anything particularly meaningful or evocative about shattered glass as opposed to any other planar medium.
There is no meaning in converting a conventionally destructive, random, chaotic act into a directed, aesthetic, meaningful one?
The fact he has a portrait of Kamala Harris called “glass ceiling breaker” and one of the victims of the Beirut explosion called #weareunbreakable suggests that you don’t need to dig particularly deep to find meaningful subtext in the choice of material and technique.
This is what I was driving at. I should have been more specific to say not particularly meaningful or evocative to me. From the previews I've seen it's all based around shattering and breaking. Where I will give credit, there's one: "Transformation" where natural light is reflected at the shattered glass to portray a face which I find to be fascinating. The rest feel kitschy, it's not quite to my tastes.
I love that HN has a diverse set of topics, I didn't mean that. I mean: here usually the artistic and literature stuff appearing are more interesting. This looks like the average Facebook art content with many upvotes.
Without judging the artistic merit of these pieces, I submitted the OP only because the idea and process of "painting" on glass with a hammer struck me as cool and interesting (pun intended). In any case, artistic merit is always in the eye of the beholder.
Same here. As much as I enjoy a lot of the technical stuff, I never click on 80% if it because it is often “thing that already exist but in lisp/rust/etc, new tool similar to X to free/one extra feature/lightweight”. So unless it is a strong interest of mine, my area of expertise, or something that makes me curious it is a skip.
Reminds me of the artist that shipped glass cubes via FedEx, letting the box throwers make the art for him.
https://museemagazine.com/features/2018/10/15/walead-beshty-...
sorry, this isn't "art" because it actually conveys information. art has to be useless.
I've noticed that 2D artists/non-sculptors who engage in strange mediums or techniques generally only make realistic closeup portraits of people. I saw the headline, thought "neat, but I bet he just makes normal expressionless faces." Opened the page and it seems like that's the vast majority of his work. As an artist myself, I'm always like ehhhhh when I see this. Feels a bit like the kind of stuff you see for sale in tourist areas.
The technique is cool though.
Perhaps they find more acceptance due to the effects of pareidolia, where the viewer is more inclined to say, “Oh yeah, I see it - that’s a face!”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia
yeah it’s definitely a genre in itself.
It’s like there are 2 axes: - cool technique and - cool picture. The second is way more important than the first, which is way painters are still on top of the 2D art world.
Some people can do both though. And i’d say even in these cases the art world tend to dismiss the weird technique as gimmicky.
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing
While interesting, it doesnt feel like it belongs here. Maybe it is the volume these days but more and more the articles are turning into reddit posts.
This is Hacker News. I can't think of a better way of someone "hacking" something (i.e. using cracked glass in a novel way) to create something new, unexpected, and incredible.
I think this is probably the best idiomatic example of the type of story that I think belongs on HN that I've seen in quite some time.
As an artist, this isn't incredible. Arranging lights/darks to copy a photo is high-school tier. Money for food + shelter + materials and I could do this in a month, as with anyone who can copy a black and white photo.
I agree. This artist, while technically interesting, has nothing to do with AI, and so has no place on the front page.
“Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. It's a semi-noob illusion, as old as the hills.”
--https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> While interesting […]
“On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting” --also hnguidelines
HN waiting for the artist to announce on X that he's remaking all his works in rust.
I think it's a welcome breath of fresh air considering how much AI slop is on HN lately
Happy for him but this has no real artistic meaning compared to doing it in any other way. Odd to see things like that on HN.
Hi, I submitted the OP because I found it cool and interesting, esp after seeing the clip of the artist creating a piece using only a hammer.
My only motivation for submitting the OP was thinking that others here would find it cool and interesting too.
That falls within the HN guidelines, don't you think?
I disagree quite a bit. For me the medium, the technique, the process is all part of the art. Yet I still think the end result is also critical. But coming up with create ways to produce art matters.
And I am confused about the “doing it any other way”? I don’t really see other ways to achieve the same result. Say painting and photography will both produce end results that are quite different. The skills are very different. The end material is also quite different. The same way stained glass is quite different from painting
I might agree with you as a knee jerk, but I believe "the medium is the message"[1] and I don't think there's anything particularly meaningful or evocative about shattered glass as opposed to any other planar medium.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message
There is no meaning in converting a conventionally destructive, random, chaotic act into a directed, aesthetic, meaningful one?
The fact he has a portrait of Kamala Harris called “glass ceiling breaker” and one of the victims of the Beirut explosion called #weareunbreakable suggests that you don’t need to dig particularly deep to find meaningful subtext in the choice of material and technique.
If anything it’s maybe a bit on-the-nose.
> If anything it’s maybe a bit on-the-nose.
This is what I was driving at. I should have been more specific to say not particularly meaningful or evocative to me. From the previews I've seen it's all based around shattering and breaking. Where I will give credit, there's one: "Transformation" where natural light is reflected at the shattered glass to portray a face which I find to be fascinating. The rest feel kitschy, it's not quite to my tastes.
while i’m definitely a newcomer in HN terms, i love seeing things like this on the front page. it’s certainly interesting
I love that HN has a diverse set of topics, I didn't mean that. I mean: here usually the artistic and literature stuff appearing are more interesting. This looks like the average Facebook art content with many upvotes.
Ah, I understand what you meant now.
Without judging the artistic merit of these pieces, I submitted the OP only because the idea and process of "painting" on glass with a hammer struck me as cool and interesting (pun intended). In any case, artistic merit is always in the eye of the beholder.
Same here. As much as I enjoy a lot of the technical stuff, I never click on 80% if it because it is often “thing that already exist but in lisp/rust/etc, new tool similar to X to free/one extra feature/lightweight”. So unless it is a strong interest of mine, my area of expertise, or something that makes me curious it is a skip.
Stuff like that though always makes me curious