Aw, give it up, man. It’s over. It’s done. We’ve fallen down to the yes-it-is-no-it-isn’t level of argument and we’re starting to sound like a Monty Python sketch. You can have the last word, if that will make you feel like you’ve won something. I’m outta here.
So you don’t think art exists?
So If I make a paint by numbers painting, is that not art? I made no aesthetic choices, I simply followed a pattern laid out by someone else. What happens when an artist makes a conscious aesthetic choice but the artwork is such that it’s not necessarily apparent to the viewer?
sh1bu1, where do you think I said that? If it’s coming from your idea that if everything is art than there is no art, well that’s a ridiculous statement not worth thinking about. Using your logic, we must conclude that nothing exists and that’s just a waste of everyone’s time.
If everything belongs to a certain category, and people insist that no matter what else we can think of it will still be part of that category, then that category has zero descriptive meaning. It no longer becomes useful to say that one is an “artist” because that adds nothing beyond just saying that one is a person. Saying something is “art” has no meaning either as it provides no information about what attribute the object has or does not have At that point I no longer even understand why you are getting your panties in a twist defending art.
To go further: Imagine someone comes up to you and says they have a piece of art. Now clearly to you that is a pretty broad statement. It could be be in a wide variety of media, in any style, and maybe not even be tangible. In what way does their statement provide you any information?
Intangible art? Do you have any examples?
It tells me that they have something that provokes an emotional response in them at the least. At any rate, since you can’t or won’t come up with even one or two qualifications that something must have to be art, I must conclude that despite your previous remonstrations, you do agree that modern and conceptual art is still art.
The truth is that the whole self-conscious, art challenging the conception of art, etc., that’s all been done for fifty years now. We had that conversation. It turned out to be a really boring conversation, as this thread shows. It is no longer fresh or vital or important to test the limits or definitions of art. It’s been done. We get it. If you can’t actually create an experience or stimulate some feeling in the audience, if your whole enterprise relies has to justified in this meta-critical argument, then forget it. That’s a dead horse.
Nothing tangible.
So art is something that provokes an emotional response. Are things that do not provoke an emotional response not art?
I’ll happily come up with what I think describes art, but I am sure you will simply disagree with them. The difference is that I believe that there are things that are not art, so it is possible to have things that *are *art.
To me art is a man made, purposeful activity that creates things detectable by the senses that are not solely utilitarian.
So, for example if I cut the hide off an animal and wrap it around myself to keep warm it is not art as it is purely utilitarian. If I purposely arrange it so that the tail is at the back and it makes me look like an animal then I have made an artistic choice.
I am sure that is not a perfect definition by any means, but the key to me is:
[ul]
[li]Purposeful - It was done with intent rather than happening accidentally[/li][li]Man made[/li][li]Not strictly utilitraian - If I pick up a rock to bash another rock that is purly utilitarian, if I manipulate the rock so that it is pleasing to hold or nice to look at then it is also art.[/li][li]Detectable by the senses - An idea is not art. Conveying an idea audibly by purposely choosing sounds that are not strictly utilitarian is.[/li][/ul]
But that disqualifies a fair portion of modern art. Seriously, when we have cleaning ladies destroying valuable exhibits because they couldn’t distinguish the art from a stain…
…So… Do you think that there is such a thing as non-art? As in, is there anything that can be discounted as art?
A thought, for example, could very well be intangible art.
So… How about that view from the top of Mount Fuji, huh? Real work of art, eh?
Again, you’re kinda stuck in the corner. It doesn’t matter for us if we can demonstrate that there is such a thing as non-art. It matters for you. If there is no such thing as something that is not or cannot be art, then the word “art” becomes completely meaningless. This laptop? Art. That teapot? Art. The shit I just took, while imagining Andy Warhol’s face being the toilet bowl? DEFINITELY Art. The bedrock on my property? Art. Seeing the problem? “Art” becomes as descriptive as “Kind” or “Thing” or “Person I haven’t slept with” – you might as well not bother. The word loses all meaning.
All right, now this is where the discussion becomes awesome. Let’s say you put in some qualifier that, say, requires that art be something made by a human. Excluding the obvious problem that this still includes my feces, as well as my thoughts (for example, of that last batch thereof being on Andy Warhol’s face), neither of which really should be art, .this also excludes, say, pieces like this, which I honestly thought was a Pollock until I read further and realized that it was actually made by an elephant. Gorillas are also known to make works of art…
You get the point? Scale the word further and further up, and I will keep coming up with reasons why something outside of that range is art, until Art, as a word, becomes completely meaningless.
…
In related news, some idiots are praising “Lulu” as an artistically deep piece. Yes; in the same sence that the crap I imagined taking on Warhol’s face was artistically deep; in any case, it sounded like my speakers had suddenly decided to take a crap in my aural canals.
I have not read every post in this thread. I don’t intend to, either. Someone else may have already posted links to this, or this. But when, in the OP, Knorf posts a link to a post by sh1bu1, who asks a perfectly reasonable question,
the answer, quite obviously, is a most emphatic YES!!
I agree totally, which is why I didn’t say it wasn’t art.
No offense, but in your leap to defend Picasso you appear to have completely missed (or chosen to ignore) the substance of my argument with Polecat.
Nice copout, jackass.
I resubmit the question: Give me a definition of what art is, and if you can come up with one that DOESN’T exclude a recognized master of art, I’ll happily concede it.
Your last offered definition excluded Picasso, if I applied it to my own aesthetic standards.
We get it: you don’t like serialism.
I don’t like metal. The difference is, I don’t crap all over it and you because of my aesthetic preferences.
Uh, THAT’S THE ENTIRE POINT! The point of an objective definition is to exclude some pieces. If people didn’t have a problem with what some people called art, they wouldn’t try to come up with an objective definition.
As for me, the question is whether or not someone else could reproduce the work without any artistic intent, and then trick a wary connoisseur into thinking its the real thing, then the original is not art in and of itself. I’m not saying you can’t appreciate it. I’m not saying the person who created it did not create art–just that the actual physical object is not art. Four minutes thirty-three seconds of silence is not art, but the performance, when done correctly, can be. But the art is then intangible, not the lack of sound coming from the performers.
And I agree with the pitting of the people in that thread. But only because they were essentially threadshitting. There’s nothing wrong with holding that the object was not art, but it shows a genuine lack of intelligence to think that your dislike makes the work worthless, thus making it okay that it was damaged.
Though I do understand the inclination–it was the first time I’ve ever seen such a brouhaha start without the other side being horrible douchebags. So many art connoisseurs are so pretentious about their art that it’s become a reflex for many. I’ve had to fight the impulse in at least one thread where only one person was being a jackass, but I assumed everyone else was. When I looked back later, they were being quite civil. and I’d even misunderstood the one person I thought was being a jackass.
I beg to differ. This was the original post:
It’s not as though it was “Oh, what a tragedy that art was damaged”. Maybe you can read the OP’s mind and know that they were really upset about this, but to me it looks more like a comment on irony.
With paint-by-numbers, somebody had to draw the image and determine which colours went where. They are the artist, not you. Otherwise, my inkjet printer is potentially an artist as well. Seriously?
But speaking of computers, I believe that once a computer can create art that is comparable to that produced by humans but distinct from mechanical, simple-minded pieces, we’ll have discovered something quite important. In a sense, a machine that creates art not through the random application of rules but through some sort of creative process generated by the machine itself… that machine is “thinking” to a degree.
If a rule-based system, however, can produce a piece comparable to what a human has produced, it says less about the computer and more about the human: that if the artist has put any genuine thought into the piece, it remained in their own head and was not actually transferred to the piece–the art, such as it is, remains an “unexpressed thought”.
I agree. I’d argue that building a computer that can create new art (not just iterating within a well-understood existing form) is an AI-hard problem. Since the experience of art emerges from the synergy between a piece and the human brain, anticipating the response of an intended viewer is a significant part of the creative process. Any AI capable of doing that is well on the way to being self-aware … .
Excellent point, re: anticipating the response. Computational creativity is actually an area I’d like to be involved with at a later date–I think it’s got a lot of potential to move AI forward in dramatic and unexpected ways.
Regarding “iterating within a well-understood existing form”, we already have software that can create “new” musical pieces by imitating the style of another composer. Certainly, it’s an achievement, but still a long way from where things need to go for true creativity, so I agree there as well.
Serialism? Lulu isn’t serialism. It’s… I can’t even describe it. It’s so ludicrously all-over-the-place, it’s not even funny. It’s like the musicians involved completely forgot how to write engaging, compelling music. Like, check out this snippet from the Pitchfork review:
I don’t frequent pitchfork, but I have to agree 100% with them – the CD is a disjointed, horrible-sounding piece of garbage.
And some sites are giving it a pass because “It’s Artistic”. It’s like an excuse – “it’s art, man, if you don’t get it, you’re just not smart enough”.
Oh god, I almost feel like raising the “High Art - Low Art” issue… Better not.
Heh. Clearly we’re talking about different Lulus. After the discussion of Messaien, I assumed you were talking about the Berg opera. My apologies.