Art or Not

[Piscivore]

DrMatt posted something a long time ago on this topic, and it sort of changed my thinking.

Link?

 

[Mercutio]

Why am I reminded of the Campaign for Real Time?

 

[Piscivore]

Why am I reminded of the Campaign for Real Time?

 

[Kopji]

http://www.fatalmind.com/books/adams/LTUAE/chapter15.html

Ok this thread is going to bug me like someone grating fingernails on a blackboard.

Really funny cartoon though.

The comment about the bunny on the sweatshirt is incorrect because the bunny serves no useful purpose to the function of the sweatshirt. This does not violate the proposed 'utility' reasoning.

Which is wrong anyway, a clock can be a work of art yet be useful.

The final fish and bike panel demonstrate art though. Art has something to do with a connection between a creative impulse and it's resolution. The cartoon's non-sequitur is a humorous and creative leap that carries the mundane dialog off to the level of 'art'. It does not matter if the earlier panel's assertion is correct or not because the cartoon has become the thing itself.

Elephant painting raises an interesting point. If we think about an elephant as an artistic tool like a brush the result could very well be art. Someone is selecting media, colors, and to some extent discarding results that do not seem 'artistic'. Just because the elephant gets top billing does not mean there was not an artist involved or it is not art.

If we are supposed to think about elephant painting as the elephant having creative impulses and then resolving them, how can we know what an elephant thinks? So for me anyway, elephant painting can be art if we know something of the provenance or 'story' behind the painting. Otherwise it might be determined on how we view the intelligence of elephants.

The question on photography being art or not is a good one. The question actually seems a bit like a form of the 'elephant art' to me. The camera is a kind of brush or tool used to draw a connection between an artist's creative impulse and the resolution of it. So I can easily accept photography as a kind of art.

 

[TragicMonkey]

The question on photography being art or not is a good one. The question actually seems a bit like a form of the 'elephant art' to me. The camera is a kind of brush or tool used to draw a connection between an artist's creative impulse and the resolution of it. So I can easily accept photography as a kind of art.

I would say some photography is art, and some isn't. Someone trying to capture a dewdrop on a petal, and who spends time thinking about the angle, the lighting, the shot, etc. is undoubtedly doing art. But someone who says "Look, a flower! Pretty!" and clicks the camera? Art, or not? What if, by sheer accident, that produces the exact same shot the careful photographer worked for? Can one produce art unintentionally? Accidentally? In spite of oneself? I don't think anyone would argue that a photograph taken by an automated camera, or a robot, would be art. Does the consciousness of the artist have to figure into it somehow?

 

[asthmatic camel]

I think that is a sense of the word that was not intended to be discussed in this thread.

OK, I'll do my best to make the definition more suitable to your taste. "If someone's made it, with the intention of it being decorative, it's art." You still might not like it, but it's still art.

 

[Corpse Cruncher]

The subject of what is art. Is like the 'gentleman prefer blonde's' analogy. Where the truth of the matter is some gentlemen preference is not for blonde's.

Art is art if it is enjoyed by the observer and more importantly enjoyed by the creator. Art that is not enjoyed by the creator, I have noticed is obvious to the eye. Perhaps in truth art is singular?

 

[Bluegill]

Link?

Gosh, sorry, no. I don't remember exactly what he said, or what thread it was in, or when it was--but I think it was a couple of years ago. So please don't think I'm attributing anything I've said to him, because I don't remember it that well. I just wanted to mention DrMatt to give him credit for slightly altering how I was thinking about art.

 

[Bluegill]

OK, I'll do my best to make the definition more suitable to your taste. "If someone's made it, with the intention of it being decorative, it's art." You still might not like it, but it's still art.

I think that's a little closer to how I would define it. In your first post, I thought (correctly or incorrectly) that you were saying that art is anything that a person has made or arranged. The "with the intention of it being decorative" narrows it down a lot by refering to some kind of aesthetic sense.

 

[Kopji]

I would say some photography is art, and some isn't. Someone trying to capture a dewdrop on a petal, and who spends time thinking about the angle, the lighting, the shot, etc. is undoubtedly doing art. But someone who says "Look, a flower! Pretty!" and clicks the camera?

I agree.
Craftsmanship matters because our discernment that a creative 'impulse & resolution' has taken place is not an entirely internal thing. If someone sees a pretty flower and responds to it by scribbling a splot with a crayon, most of us would probably agree it did not qualify as art. (We are such harsh critics).

Art, or not? What if, by sheer accident, that produces the exact same shot the careful photographer worked for? Can one produce art unintentionally? Accidentally? In spite of oneself?

I would say yes to this too, but more rarely. This idea of creativity being more than an individual artist's opinion makes the word "art" more like a shepherd. It is a word that only loosely takes care of a community of individual understandings.

I don't think anyone would argue that a photograph taken by an automated camera, or a robot, would be art. Does the consciousness of the artist have to figure into it somehow?

I don't think there is a black or white answer to this, it is more gray. I can show what I mean better by an example.
Later, gotta go.

 

[Piscivore]

I don't think anyone would argue that a photograph taken by an automated camera, or a robot, would be art. Does the consciousness of the artist have to figure into it somehow?

Here's an interesting experiment:

Set up an automated camera on a city street, hidden in a mailbox or something, that people won't notice. Have it snap a picture every seven minutes or so. After a few days, the chances are pretty good that the camera is going to catch at least one good shot. Would the person sorting the frames and finding that one good image be creating art by the sorting?

 

[Bluegill]

Here's an interesting experiment:

Set up an automated camera on a city street, hidden in a mailbox or something, that people won't notice. Have it snap a picture every seven minutes or so. After a few days, the chances are pretty good that the camera is going to catch at least one good shot. Would the person sorting the frames and finding that one good image be creating art by the sorting?

I think so. A person was involved in setting up the artistic medium (camera and film, and selecting the location.) And a person then works further with the medium (the large number of snapshots) cutting out the excess the way a sculptor cuts out excess stone from a block. The good shots are choosen. Technically, it's a very different process than drawing, but the end result is similar.

I think the "setting up" and the sorting are both steps in the art creation process.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Here's an interesting experiment:

Set up an automated camera on a city street, hidden in a mailbox or something, that people won't notice. Have it snap a picture every seven minutes or so. After a few days, the chances are pretty good that the camera is going to catch at least one good shot. Would the person sorting the frames and finding that one good image be creating art by the sorting?

Hmmm. If absolutely no editing of any kind was done by a human? Tricky.

Maybe something's only art once it's been viewed by a human being!

 

[brodski]

Maybe something's only art once it's been viewed by a human being!

Art cannot exist without an audience.
It is the presentation to an audience which creates the "art experience", human manipulation of the "art object" prior to the presentation is not necessarily required.
However, just to confuse matters, the artists, and the audience, may be the same person.

This definition does not give a very satisfying answer to the question of what is art (it boils down to "art is what artists do") but it is the only definition i can see which would not exclude some "works" (currently being displayed in art galleries) as being "art".

 

[Alliebubs]

DrMatt posted something a long time ago on this topic, and it sort of changed my thinking. I kind of like the idea of defining art not by reference to an object or a creation, but by our internal reaction to it. Or rather--in order to make this jibe with the concept that is has to be created by a monkey or a smart elephant or whatever--that it exists in our relationship to this creation (and therefore, I guess, the creator). This is pretty complex, I think, but it does simplify some elements: it makes the audience an essential part, and it makes aesthetic disagreements irrelevant in finding a definition. I think. I'll have to think more on it.

This is a very good theory as to what art really is. As someone who has studied art history and curatorial theory, I feel that Bluegill's post seems to me as one step closer to understanding art's purpose. Of course the audience is an essential part in defining art; without the reaction of the viewer -- whether in an modernist "white-cube" art gallery, a historical museum, or even in an open public square/park -- it's hard to start an intellectual discourse on said art. Even personal pieces of work, that remain in the artist's home and never see the public light of day, have their own audience in the artists themselves. It's a strange, and albeit, circular-type of logic, but I think this salient point in Bluegill's post -- and regarding theories of "what-is-art?" in general -- is essential in discussing art.

Having said all that, I do somewhat disagree that aesthetic disagreements are irrelevant. From a historical perspective, I think you can't really have a cogent and intellectual discussion on art if you don't refer to the technique of the artist, and the evolution to whatever time period being discussed from movements past. And, yes, a personal opinion on whether your aesthetic sensibilities are being "offended" or "pleased" is valid but, I think the main discussion of what is art really should centre around not only the reaction of the audience, but how that reaction relates within a historical framework.

Allison

 

[Bluegill]

Well, I guess I've had a month's worth of validation right there. All those threads on quantum theory and EM pulses and Supreme Court decisions, and none of them have anything to do with that Philosophy of Art class I had to repeat fifteen years ago (I had to repeat it because I was devoting too much attention to trying not to fail chemistry and biology). Thank goodness for threads like this one.

 

[epepke]

I think Frank Zappa said it best.

The most important part of art is the frame. Because, otherwise, what is that stuff on the wall? If John Cage puts on a throat mic and drinks carrot juice, then that's his composition. Otherwise, it's just a guy drinking carrot juice.