
Showing a sunrise/sunset realtime 24/7 with the use of unsecured CCTV cameras - driesdep
https://driesdepoorter.be/24h-sunrise-sunset/
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willcipriano
Checked out the artists blog and found this:
[https://driesdepoorter.be/quickfix/](https://driesdepoorter.be/quickfix/)

It's a art installation that allows you to buy likes on Instagram, Facebook,
etc. Really interesting idea, shows how disposable those things are. It's
amazing what people will do in order to get a couple of rows in the likes
table of a social media website.

~~~
driesdep
Thanks for sharing! I'm btw the guy behind this project. When Quick Fix is
showed in an exhibition a lot of young people try it. Some try it for 1 dollar
and come back later with 10 dollar. Since a few months Quick Fix is a lot
asked for those 'Instagram museums'. I hope it shows how easy it is to blow up
the numbers on social.

~~~
bschne
Wait, so you mean places like the Museum of Ice Cream and the likes, with
installations somewhat obviously targeted at people who want to photograph and
post them, want to have this available on-site? I wonder if the people don't
realize the irony or if they are beyond the point of seeing anything "wrong"
or strange about paying to inflate their like counts.

~~~
sp332
It's just a cheap version of an endorsement deal. Michael Jordan, $80
million/year. Museum of Ice Cream, $5/like.

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avh02
When I think of art that combines tech and art - this is the kind of thing
that comes to mind, I really like it.

Some of the things you see attempting to combine technology and art is a
serious con [0].

Don't get me wrong, the space mentioned in that link is famous (and
notoriously difficult to get in to on a regular day). Some of the recordings
were quite well tuned, but they basically set up a multispeaker system and
played some noises on loop. People were meditating to the relaxing highway
noises being played in a former power plant. It gets to some people's heads i
guess. The event description would make you think it was a drug experience.

[0] - [http://singuhr.de/en/projects-2014/2020-2/eleven-
songs/](http://singuhr.de/en/projects-2014/2020-2/eleven-songs/)

~~~
mxxx
And Rothko just put paint on canvas.

I’m not sure that technical complexity is the best benchmark with which to
measure an art project, regardless of whether it’s an “art x tech” project.

~~~
avh02
yeah, i guess so.

Look, I can appreciate art, when the intention and meaning is legitimate -
that is up to the audience to judge for themselves. When it's random crap
being monetized as art (very pretentiously), I can't get behind it.

~~~
adwi
Lots of angles to attack "art" but monetization isn't one that applies here.

This is extremely hard work to sell, time-consuming to create, and doesn't
scale in any way that's compatible with an industry unpinned almost entirely
by scarcity.

Think about how much this would cost to prototype and build, and how much time
the artist put into conceptualizing and creating it. Then think about the tiny
subset of people who would want to (and had space to) live with pieces like
this—no matter how cool they are.

Even if a piece like this sold for $50k (which would put this artist in > 95th
percentile of earners), take $25k off the top for the gallery, subtract out
cost of materials and take into account maximum annual output and, factoring
in value of his time, we're talking modest middle class money. Nevermind the
endless schmoozing and strategic friendships and events and studio visits it
takes to drum up any gallery/institutional/collector relationships...

Kudos to the artist, keep fighting the good fight!

~~~
avh02
This thread wasn't about the article's piece of art, more about the example
provided by me as being a gimmick disguised as art. As stated in the root
comment, I like the piece the link is about as it's far more authentic.
(Obviously this is all opinion)

The example I happened to provide though definitely scales. The line was a 3
hour wait and the entrance was not free (granted - covid capacity and all
that).

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echelon
Neat project, but I was really hoping there might actually be a video feed of
the current sunrise and sunset. It seems like a missed opportunity for the
subject matter and medium.

~~~
est31
Hosting live video in a scalable way is a much harder challenge than just
showing it once somewhere. But it would have been cool to have a summary video
of one day/night cycle, travelling around the world, maybe at 10x-100x
acceleration. A one-time video also probably creates less legal issues as you
can review and cull the footage (IANAL).

~~~
blocked_again
Can't you just put it on Twitch/YouTube?

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est31
Hmm yeah good point. Thought that you'd need to have at least $n many
subscribers to be able to live stream on youtube but seems they've lifted the
restriction since.

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poulsbohemian
Anybody have a suggestion for good outdoor cameras, ideally that can be
powered by solar, for similar application? I've been looking for cameras for
something similar, but every one I review is either not weather proof or
requires some kind of mobile app IE: intended for security camera type use.
I've got a use case where I want to be able to stream particular outdoor
videos to an audience without requiring a lot of account setup or client-side
requirements.

~~~
bleepblorp
Look at outdoor cameras targeted at the commercial market, e.g. from Hikvision
and similar brands. Solar is probably out of the question due to power
requirements, but if you can run one Ethernet cable, there's a lot of cameras
available that run from PoE and stream over RTSP, which can be proxied to
YouTube (or AWS, etc) without much trouble.

Cost will be considerably higher than for IoT residential junk, however.

~~~
aivisol
Hikvision cameras are good, however they encode video in their own proprietary
format (at least when I last checked) so you will have difficulties streaming
them to anything that is not their make.

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zelly
I've used ffmpeg to convert from that format. If your CPU is fast enough it
could probably handle re-encoding just in time for streaming (there are cli
flags to do that).

~~~
aivisol
Yeah, I have done that as well, but so far could find a way to live stream it

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creinhardt
This is a great idea! Is there an online version of this installation
anywhere? Or a list of cameras you use? Also, love those VFD displays!

I did something similar with the public webcam feed from the top of Mt Hood in
Oregon. Made a lil script that posts/tweets a time lapse of the sunrise and
sunset each day:
[https://whatcoloristilikumcrossingrightnow.com/timberlineSun...](https://whatcoloristilikumcrossingrightnow.com/timberlineSunrise/)

Also on Twitter:
[https://twitter.com/mthoodsunrise](https://twitter.com/mthoodsunrise)

~~~
driesdep
Awesome project! Thanks for the complement!

~~~
huhtenberg
It would help with the discussion if you'd answer the questions too.

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ohadron
Should be displayed next to this piece that shows the exact place of the sun
at any given moment: [https://nitzan-ron.com/Pointer](https://nitzan-
ron.com/Pointer)

~~~
driesdep
Waw really amazing work! Love it!

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dehrmann
I wonder if an empty 787-9 has 24 hours of endurance. Or some other plane. You
could fly a plane along a latitude to film a continuous sunrise or sunset.

Obviously, it'd be complicated when you're targeting a particular ground
speed, need some support from air traffic control, are ignoring ETOPS,
switching to metric flight levels, etc. And it'd be stupid expensive, but
still.

~~~
shavingspiders
There is a Belgian TV show called "Into the Night" which explores a kind of
similar concept, where they have to stay in the night time or else bad things
happen so they fly a plane around. I won't spoil it for you, but it's
subtitled & available on Netflix.

~~~
wtracy
Snowpiercer is the inverse: People have to stay in sunlight to survive, so
they build a nuclear-powered train that runs around the world's equator.

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driesdep
btw, I also made Die With Me, the chat app you can only use when you have less
than 5% battery.
[https://driesdepoorter.be/diewithme/](https://driesdepoorter.be/diewithme/)

This is a little ad ;)

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therealdrag0
Your portfolio is fantastic. Really smart/clever stuff. Usually I feel like
the "technology" based art I see in galleries is just trash. But this is a
real solid counter point :)

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pizza
Would be amazing if somebody made a search app that worked like this: "find me
a sunset/seagull/mug/plant/<object> from anywhere in the world"

It would use image recognition models that kept flipping through unsecured
cctv/ipcams until the picture matched the search.

~~~
wwn_se
Sunset is easier since it only requires knowledge of the camera location. No
fancy stuff needed. Finding objects would require the full video feed being
analysed.

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rane
Location of the camera doesn't guarantee that a sunset is visible.

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driesdep
True, everything is based on time & location of the camera. I manually curated
the cameras and made sure there is around 50% sky in the image. Also if the
camera is not pointed perfectly to the sunset/sunrise you will most of the
time see it based on the colors. A next step I want to integrate is that it
will select the camera based on the amount of orange/red.

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tiborsaas
What a beautifully designed hardware controller, so much attention to details.

~~~
driesdep
Super thanks! Makes me happy that people see that :)

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odomojuli
This is gorgeous.

It's obvious but I'm kind of humbled by the idea that you could just watch
someone start their day and someone end their day at any given point of time
or space on this Earth.

Feels distinctly Buddhist in some way.

~~~
rswail
I remember years ago seeing an ad for a mobile phone with one guy watching the
sun go down saying "Is it there yet?" and then the other person seeing it come
up and saying "It's here".

Just tried to find it, but my google-fu skills aren't working, or I just
imagined it. Either or both are distinctly possible.

~~~
redfern314
Slightly different than what you're describing, but same concept:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbtvTuivJu8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbtvTuivJu8)

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andytgl
This reminds me of “The Little Prince” who could watch 43 sunsets per day due
to the tiny size of his asteroid. Now we can do it too

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shostack
I want streamable, high quality, normal speed VR sunsets so bad.

~~~
andruby
I know how you can get a high quality, normal speed sunset every day of the
year, for free!

You don’t even need a VR headset.

~~~
naedish
Step 1 - don't live in the arctic circle :)

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DanielBMarkham
Hey driesdep, I love the look of this!

Meta question: are there any tips, pointers, tutorials, or classes you can
recommend to make that beautiful metal enclosure you've built? It's a thing of
beauty.

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driesdep
I think I'm just good at Google and trying stuff out :)

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ehnto
That's a really slick hardware piece, awesome work on that front.

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driesdep
Super thanks! <3

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simonebrunozzi
Brilliant. I can easily see a product like this, customizable, for sale. I bet
there would be thousands of customers in the world interested in buying
something like this. Big margins too.

~~~
driesdep
Very good idea :) Let's go!

