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Ask HN: Some questions about Banksy's self destructing painting

3 points by jakemor ↗ HN
In regards to this video posted by Banksy (https://youtu.be/iiO_1XRnMt4), and this thread on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/instant_regret/comments/9lxtch/what_really_happened_with_the_banksy_art_piece/)

1) In Banksy's video they claim they put the shredder in a few years ago – how could a battery last that long?

Theories:

a) (reddit) the painting is plugged in to an electrical outlet to power on board lights. This cannot be true because the painting is easily removed at 51s, and the light is a spotlight, not built in.

b) there are two power supplies, one long lasting battery powering the receiver and a more powerful one powering the motors. When the receiver detects a signal it could turn on the other system to shred the painting. I have a hard time believing a sim module / wifi card could be powered for that long, so I'm assuming its some other sort of low power receiver. We also know a person in on the whole thing was there as the timing had to be perfect. I guess this is technically feasible.

2) The blades seem to be pointed in the wrong direction (https://youtu.be/iiO_1XRnMt4?t=5)

Theories:

None that I can think of or know of!

Any thoughts??

2 comments

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Digory
No reason to think the making of video isn't art, too. And there's almost no way soetheby wasn't in on the deal.

Until we have confirmation from a real third party, it's hard to say what really happened at all. The "shredder" might just roll up the original in the bottom of the frame and eject a separate bit of "shredded" paper. That would require far less power.