This Banksy Halloween Couple Costume Is An Engineering Work of Art

If you thought your couple Halloween costume will steal the show, you were probably right. That is until this couple engineered themselves a Banksy costume, complete with self-destroying art.

Earlier this month, Banksy’s Balloon Girl was sold at an auction in Sotheby’s for £1.04m but attendants gasped in horror. As soon as the gavel hit, the artwork started sliding out of its frame, getting shredded in the process.

Banksy himself engineered the destroying of his most famous artwork, making headlines around the world with his stunt.

Now, a couple of Redditors decided to go full “meta” and engineered a Banksy couple Halloween costume that’s both technical and a work of art. Literally.

The Redditor who created the costume, u/skippytron, managed to make a shredder that’s even more impressive than the contraption built by Banksy. His girlfriend of course played the role of the shocked gallery attendant.

“The frame contains a single linear gantry that moves up and down. There are two timing belts on either side with pulleys run my a stepper motor. There are two print outs of the artwork, one in the front which is attached to a roller at the bottom.

As the gantry moves down it rolls up the picture. On the back of the gantry is the shredded version that is pushed through a slot in the bottom. It goes to the bottom waits 5 seconds and then reverses. There is an end stop switch at the top, so that it always returns to the very to incase it loses steps (which it does a lot when the batteries start to run low).

All of the white pieces are 3D printed PLA. The sides are foam core covered with wood contact paper. I know that people will be mad about the frame not being mitered but it was just a print out that was glued on. It didn’t really line up in a miter so I ended up making the executive decision to just keep it straight,” he explained in a comment.

For comparison, here is the video Banksy posted on Instagram immediately after shredding Balloon Girl.

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