Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/10/18/banksys-art-shred-every-ti.html
…
5 Likes
Stage Fright. Can it happen to an inanimate object?
11 Likes
In the last thread I got accused of being naive. So I’m just going to come straight out and say I’ll bet it’s Banksy who at 0:17 is shown pretending to solder something with a soldering iron, holding the hot part of the iron. 
14 Likes
4 Likes
I am hoping his next piece will shred the contents of the entire room.
3 Likes
No, The Joker isn’t real.
4 Likes
So it was another case of that phenomenon where your computer malfunctions until you show it to the tech.
6 Likes
I totally agree, his mischievous little fingers would be sizzling as anyone who has used a soldering iron can tell you…
…also, no way those exacto blades cut anything at the angle
3 Likes
It malfunctioned perfectly.
10 Likes
And really, I don’t actually think those are or would have to be Banksy’s hands. I just think Banksy doesn’t know you can’t hold it like that, and so I was trying to make a wry joke about the piece having “malfunctioned.”
It’s clear to me that they made this thing and then it shredded the canvas, as everyone witnessed. Banksy likely worked with a fabricator on this one, but whatever, I’m fine with that. If the malfunction truly was unintended, that would be fortuitous IMO, but I’m skeptical on that point. I do credit Banksy for the concept and putting it all in motion.
5 Likes
Banksy is a self-fellating sophomoric hack, and his work is the ABC family-friendly sitcom of street art. He’s Criss Angel: ArtFreak.
3 Likes
Testing only increases the probability that a device will work, it does not guarantee it.
From my years in aerospace testing, the standard answer when someone asked if a device would work was “It passed the tests we gave it, using what we used, when we used it.” That’s it.
Banksy is a data point in that wisdom.
12 Likes
Maybe Banksy just has superhuman callouses on his hands.
3 Likes
The equivalent in the world of software development is, “works on my machine.”
11 Likes
Goddamit, that’s almost exactly what I was going to write!!!
3 Likes
Never selling artwork at Sotheby’s doesn’t exclude me from criticizing an art/artist, just as never holding elected office doesn’t exclude me from criticizing the president, just as not being an idiot doesn’t exclude me from making fun of your lame burn and botched point. El Greco, Vermeer, and Van Gogh died penniless. Were their works only valuable/good when they made money much later, or did they have intrinsic worth before that point?
7 Likes
This is… wow, it’s a great theory. There are enough little things in the video that are blatantly ‘off’ that would tip the hand juuuuuust enough to let people in on the joke. Nice!
3 Likes
I thought so too until i saw the second video.
In the half shredded result, you can see the tip of the girl’s head and the bottom of her hand. Im guessing that is 5 inches and probably about right when looking at the rollers.
The roller mechanism looks solid, check out the 12 second mark in the video. The motor is driving the feed roller with a belt, the cutter is driven by the canvas, and the cutter drives the bottom roller by a belt on the other side. Then the extra length canvas is pre loaded through the cutter and into the bottom roller and ready to shred! There are even custom mounting brackets for the battery/electronics and the rollers. That’s quite a bit of manufacturing just for deception.
The test with the black canvas had some shreds wind up on the cutter and are missing from the bottom of the frame which proves its a single canvas. My guess is that this winding fail led to the bottom roller being installed and solved the problem. I think this is what the series of pictures is demonstrating.
Surely this thing was scanned before it was sold? Im guessing the blades were added to appear on xray, though I dont have a great guess why. Perhaps a clue to what else may be found inside?
4 Likes
He should have just made the work out of some extremely flammable material and had a remote for it to self ignite. That would have been funnier. 1 million bucks up in smoke. I mean how easy is it to wire a remote control that generates a spark?
1 Like
