So does anyone like the result, and even if you do does this have any artistic merit whatsoever? After all, a suitable number of monkeys pressing random keys would eventually come up with the same result! Discuss
[This message has been edited by Simon Figg (edited 11-12-2003).]
I kind of like the original picture, actually. But as to your question, yeah, it's art. The random monkey thing doesn't change anything, at least not in my opinion. You could make the same argument that these monkeys would eventually come up with Shakespeare (in fact, I once saw a web page that simulated this, but I can't remember where), but that doesn't mean it's not art...
I also like the originl photo, and with some proper cropping and perhaps a bit of added contrast, it would be just fine.
Is it art?
quote:art
n.
1. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.
2.
1. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
2. The study of these activities.
3. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.
Technically.
Is it good art? Well that's an altogether different question...
That's the interesting thing about art... if there is such a thing as good art, then there must be such a thing as bad art. Yet many people associate good art with "art" and bad art with "not art"--thus working the value judgment inherent in "good art" into the term of art itself. Even you and I, trying to be fair and impartial (I think), couldn't help but make value judgments in our responses (I mentioned Shakespeare, and you said that it was "technically" art). But quoting the dictionary definition was instructive, and you were right. There's no need to say that something is "technically" art. It's either art or it isn't, and although the lines do sometimes get blurred, I think the definition is fairly straightforward (I'm referring specifically to the first definition, as the second definition relies on the term "beauty," which is in itself a value judgment).
So yes, Simon, it's art. I will not speculate further on the goodness or badness of it, unless you want me to.
quote:(I'm referring specifically to the first definition, as the second definition relies on the term "beauty," which is in itself a value judgment)
Which, of course, is also in part why the "technically" was needed. If even the dictionary can't exclude value judgements in its definition...how can we? =)
And of course, as you are right - he didn't ask whether it was 'good' art - I left it at that
Actually, I did ask if anyone liked it, but I guess that doesn't really matter - as you both pointed out, that's purely subjective. I like it, so who cares what anybody else thinks! More interestingly, your comments have made me go back and look at the original picture again. Perhaps I can make something of it - I think I was too keen to start applying filters because I'd just bought Photoshop!
I wouldnt consider myself an "artist" at all really, i design brochures, web sites etc - nothing i really consider art. But i would call what you've done art, and irrelivant of how it was done...
personally i think there are 2 kinds of "art" there is the kind where the end result is the art, so what you did to acheive that result is irrelivant even if you didnt really know what you were doing.
The other kind i think is the art where the actual getting to the end result is the art bit.. wether its the fact that u painted it while hanging from a ceiling by a peircing on you're back or whatever.
but hey like i said im no artist, and really no nothing about art - they were just some thoughts m mind was babbling
From: Where I'm from isn't where I'm at! Insane since: Jun 2002
posted 10-28-2003 23:03
quote:I think I was too keen to start applying filters because I'd just bought Photoshop
We've all(?) been guilty of that at some time or another Simon.
When using PS to manipulate photographs (rather than to create images) I like to treat it as it were a virtual darkroom (as I'm sure it was intended) and look towards manipulating the frame, tonal values, colour, contrast saturation etc...
Treating the software in this manner can help to bring about a self induced reality-check.
[edit - Did someone tear a hole in the space-time-continuum? I posted after H][RO, but also an hour before! Curious indeed!]
[This message has been edited by Dufty (edited 10-28-2003).]
Actually, if you have to ask "is this art" then I?d say no, it defiantly isn?t.
*** rant ahead ***
I don't really care what the dictionary says, I can't consider something art if the person who make the artwork can't justify their reasons behind the "work". Additionally, making an "image? be it a painting, drawing or sculpture for the sole purpose of making an aesthetic image isn't something I'd call art either. Furthermore, I'd say art has to have meaning, purpose and most importantly, intent prior to starting the work. I'd also say you have to be able to justify how and why you make the artwork as well as the process of making it. Thus ruling out any Photoshop filter play or *pure* experimentation as art in my eyes.
The only problem with that definition is that it could also be used to define "design", but there's always been a very blurred line between art and design.
Although, I should also point out that many people confuse the term "art" with "artistic" and "craft", which refer to a person?s skill and have more to do with someone?s evident body of work than any particular "image" so to speak. I also see the word "artistic" as an opinion, thus If I thought your image looked nice I could say your image is "artistic" or "crafty" but I can't call it art.
Which brings me to my final chest thump for the morning -- just because you think something is "art" doesn't mean it is. IMHO, art can *only* be defined by the viewer (even though many people think they have the ability to label what is and isn't art, these are these are usually the same people that think any aesthetically pleasing image is art), as I believe "art" in the true sense of the word can only be defined by the artist who created it ?- which ties back into the stuff I said earlier about intent, purpose and justification.
*sigh*
Ok, been meaning to get that out for a while but I could never seem to find the words for it before now. Anyways, as usualy, that's just my opinion on the matter, feel free to tear it to peices.
Nice rant Drac! I actually agree with most of what you said, although I'm sure there are a couple of contradictions in there My personal opinion is that it isn't art, although I obviously do think it's aesthetically pleasing or I wouldn't have stopped where I did. Having said that, is wasn't just "*pure* experimentation", it was a process of choosing the effects that gave the aesthetically pleasing result I wanted (including removing elements of the original picture that I didn't want in the final image), so perhaps I can justify the reasons behind the work - would it help if I came up with some arty waffle to describe my thought processes while I was clicking the mouse button?
quote:...you have to be able to justify how and why you make the artwork...
I'm interested in the word "how" in this sentence. What if I regarded my Photoshop image as a draft, and actually painted this picture. Would it be art then? Or will it never be art if I can't say "why" I made it, other than "it looks nice"?
One final point - what about the artist who throws tins of paint at a blank canvas to see what happens? More often than not (I would suggest) the final result disappoints him and he throws it away, but occasionally he gets something he "likes" and keeps. Add some arty waffle, and he can sell it as art, but was the process leading up to that point not "*pure* experimentation"? If so, is it really art?
Simon
"I don't necessarily agree with everything I say."
From: Where I'm from isn't where I'm at! Insane since: Jun 2002
posted 10-29-2003 19:52
quote:what about the artist who throws tins of paint at a blank canvas to see what happens?
More often than not, the 'art' of throwing paint is not intended to produce a specific end result.
The resulting image is not necessarily 'art'. It is the thought processes involved in reaching the decision that this (whatever this is) is the best medium for realising a desired state(ment) are what separates art from craft.
Furthermore (to build upon Drac's point that
quote:"art" in the true sense of the word can only be defined by the artist
... in order for a work to be considered 'art', the pruducer of the work must first declare "I am an artist".
Without this important conceptual statement realised FIRST, work can merely be considered 'artistic'.
More things are art to a non-artist than things which would be called art by an artist.
Personally thats how i see it. If your in my boat (i.e not an artist) - you would probably put me in the category of design or some such thing - then you would go around and consider more things art. However if you are an artist you know whats involved, how you feel when you create art etc so you would have a more honed perception of what is art. Having said that it doesnt mean you're right either, art really is a perceptive thing - art is in the eye of the beholder? Now if i went out and started being an artist creating art by Drac's definitions, then im sure i would come back and say half the things that i previously considered to be 'art' now not.
Those are my thoughts anyhow, it makes me think of the Matrix Reloaded movie. I have done a bit of 3D work, modelling etc, so when i see CGI i know it, and it stands out like a sore thumb. I really think it was used too much in the matrix, especially in the fight scene with all of those suits, it was very obvious. Having said that, talking to people that have never done 3D animation/modelling before - they didnt even realise it was CGI ! I was a little suprised at first because it stands out so much to me, but i came to the conclusion that you pay more attention to things you have done.
A little off track, but maybe the same theory can somehow be applied to this topic..
Drac: Just to clarify something... (boldface added by me)
quote:Additionally, making an "image? be it a painting, drawing or sculpture for the sole purpose of making an aesthetic image isn't something I'd call art either. Furthermore, I'd say art has to have meaning, purpose and most importantly, intent prior to starting the work.
As you stated, making an image to produce some aesthetic is a purpose. It also has meaning, I think. I'm a bit confused as to what you mean by "intent," though. Do you mean that the artist has to know exactly what he or she wants to end up with before beginning to create the piece? If yes, then are you discounting as art any works that do not end up exactly as they were planned? If no, then how can you discount experimentation? There is most certainly intent in experimentation, it just isn't completely focused from the start.
I'm afraid I must also take issue with this:
quote:I'd also say you have to be able to justify how and why you make the artwork as well as the process of making it.
Now, you know I love you, so don't take this the wrong way, but that is absurd. The artist must justify his or her creation of art? To whom? And who is to judge whether or not this justification is sufficient? Don't tell me that it's the artist him or herself, because any act of a human being is justified in the mind of the person who performs the act, however trivial that justification may seem to others. In other words, I can only logically take your statement to mean that the artist must justify his or her work to others.
What it seems to me that you are saying here is (although you didn't use these words) that you don't believe in "art for art's sake." That's cool, because I'm not sure if I believe in such a thing either. But your statements above are Puritanical--art must be beneficial to the spirit for it to have any value as art. No, you didn't say that, but the thinking is the same.
I understand where you're coming from, I do. I just think you're treading on some dangerous (in my eyes--it's all subjective) philosophical ground...
Dracusis' feelings are pretty much the opposite of my own.
My mom started really painting about 5 years before she passed away. Most of her work could be described as experimentation without intent. She'd find an animal in a photo, find some photos of various trees or grasses or a river - whatever. She'd then paint a similar animal to the one in the photo, in a different pose, in a setting made up of various combinations of landscape elements loosly based on the landscape/flora photos.
She never had a purpose, other than to 'try some things out'.
Everyone who's ever seen any of her paintings has said something to the effect of "Wow, that's so beautiful!"
I consider the paintings art because they let other people enjoy the vision my mother had of a setting that did not exist anywhere other than her mind. Her intent is irrelevant. She created beauty, others enjoy it and take away something they didn't have before; it's art.
Well one thing we can all agree on is that decided wether its art is up to the individual who is looking at it. I guess we would go on forever otherwise.
Das: See, I would argue that your mother had both intent and purpose. "Just trying things out" seems like sufficient purpose to me, and her intent was to create something from what she saw in the world around her.
I suppose it's all just a matter of perspective. I tend to take a very broad view of art...
But see, the funny thing is: she didn't know when she was done until well after she was done. She'd experiment, put it away, pull it out, experiment some more, etc.
Then, eventually, she'd pull something out to work on it again, and say "oh, I think this one's done". Then she'd finish it (some sort of clear stuff - I don't know painting).
I have a pretty broad view of art myself. Some things called "modern art" I don't think as very artistic, but otherwise ...
[This message has been edited by Das (edited 10-31-2003).]
Well, speaking from a writer's perspective, a piece of writing is only finished when you stop working on it... the whole process of writing is a process of experimentation. A writer may have a good idea where he or she wants to go with a certain piece, but rarely do writers map everything out from beginning to end. Usually they work forward from the beginning, get to the end, and then work back again. Then they may leave it on the shelf for six months, then come back to it and tear out whole sections (or add new sections). And I would still consider that art.
I guess the real question is, where is Drac? I'm interested in hearing what he has to say...
The idea of a piece of art needing (or even having) a clear cut start and finish, both adhering to some sort of planned itinerary of time, purpose, and justification is just plain silly.
I would think that Dracusis wasn't mening things quite that strictly....but who knows.
It is a rather utilitarian view of "art" that really defeats the purpose of art in the first place.
From: Where I'm from isn't where I'm at! Insane since: Jun 2002
posted 10-31-2003 21:00
quote:'Art'
From Wikipedia.
Art originally was the processes of man, and as such was synonymous with science. Nowadays it is in essence the foremost expression of human creativity. As difficult to define as it is to evaluate, given that each individual artist chooses the rules and parameters that guide (t)he(i)r work, it can still be said that art is the process and the product of choosing a medium, a set of rules for the use of that medium, and a set of values that determine what deserves to be expressed through that medium, in order to convey either a belief, an idea, a sensation, or a feeling in the most effective way possible for that medium.
Opinions differ as to what can and cannot be defined as art; for example, can somebody make art if the creation was not intended to be art? Is art always a form of individual expression? Will a work of art only be art once it is finished?
Oh crap... I wasn't expecting this kind of response. I only just checked back here today.
Dufty: I really like that definition.
Anyways, DL was right, I'm not saying that art has to have a clear cut start or end, nor am I ruling out experimentation in any of its forms, but I don?t believe experimentation on its own is enough. Throwing cans of paint on a canvas is quite often done with intent beyond a simple desire to throw cans of pain on canvas (although I must admit that thought alone is quite desirable). The process, be it experimental or otherwise, it part of the art and these is usually a reason for an artist to create an artwork in a particular way.
Simon says: (sorry, couldn?t help myself)
quote:What if I regarded my Photoshop image as a draft, and actually painted this picture. Would it be art then? Or will it never be art if I can't say "why" I made it, other than "it looks nice"?
Nup, never. Sorry dude, but the medium makes very little difference (and that debate is another chapter in and of itself). If you painted an image of a pot plant and it was extremely photorealistic, I?d not call it art either. I?d say you were an amazing painter and they you have a very refined skill, but not an artist. You?d have done nothing but copy, which is for no other reason than beauty. Cause quite frankly, a photography could have done the exact same thing with much less time and effort. Time, effort and skill don?t mark art. Art is all about the reason. At least, that?s how I see it.
NB: I don?t want to start a debate about ?photography as art?, I do see photography as an art from, but I thin the same issues apply, intent beyond beauty and all that jazz.
Additionally, if an artist is deliberating over weather a piece of their work is *finished* then it is usually a good sign that they are unsure that the resultant artwork sufficiently expressed their intent. They obviously have an *idea* as to what they what the work to do.
Suho, you're right, aesthetics can be seen as a purpose but personally, I don't think that's enough. Maybe I should use the word "cool" instead of beautiful. In any event, beauty is seldom the only reason for creating an image, and if it is the *only* reason, then at least for me, that wouldn't cut it. I?d argue that beauty is a horribly subjective term as it is and it's more of an intrinsic aspiration than an intent. After all, we all want to be beautiful, we want life to be beautiful. To some that's a living on a white sandy beach with crystal clear waters, to others it's a Smokey blues bar and a bottle of whiskey, to me it?s a a good book, a pack of smokes and a vanilla latte.
However, at the risk of contradicting myself, if an artist can encapsulate our intrinsic aspiration of beauty simply by creating a beautiful image then that can be art. But even this has intent beyond that simple desire, it's about the human nature of the desire for bueaty.
Anyways, to try and clarify some things, I'll rant on about a friend of mine I used to live with. He's an artist who's now quite self sufficient from selling his paintings, anyways, for a long time there he would collect bus and train tickets (in Australia the bus/train tickets are heat reactive card/paper, so the vending machines don?t need ink, just a hot pin to print with) and he would wonder around the city finding sources of heat and press the cards up against it to create a random image. He did this a lot and at one point have several thousand tickets with bizarre images on them, he'd then scan them into a computer at really high resolution, crop out interesting parts he found (faces, trees, symbols etc...), and then paint the printed cropped scan of the ticket on massive canvases (like 3m high kinda massive).
There's a lot of experimentation in those processes, but there was extremely clear purpose and intent. Sometimes he just made a collage of the tickets, other times he exhibited large prints of the scans, other times he used digital photographs or random city scapes and processed them in PS to look similar to the ticket images. Once he even made a rubber mould of an Aztec calendar then made a giant toffee out of it -- not really sure what hat one was about though -- but it was all part of an ongoing process in his search for the sublime and in his own way, a search for god in some sense or another. ? I don?t explain it nearly as well as he does.
Suffice to say, the images and paintings he's created over the past years (actually, his most recent habits have him photographing steam and taking micro photos of televisions and weird stuff like that) have been incredibly abstract yet strikingly powerful and kinda eerie at the same time. Now, if you ask him why he painted a 3m x 2m canvas with something akin at a clouds filter with a few brightly burnt out spots and some subtle colour play, he could talk your ear off about it for weeks.
That is what I see as art. The final image is only but a tiny glimpse of the work behind it, and if the artist is good enough, you should be able to see and read parts of what he was trying to do in the image (i.e., see god or something).
But that's just one kind of art and not all forms of art show such clear separation from "craft" alone, but these is a separation in there somewhere, and that's probably the hardest part to define. Where is the art and where is the craft? It's likely 90% of the time there is some true artistic intent within making any image, but if such elements were quantifiable, and we could measure them, I'd probably say that the art element should out weigh the craft for it to be considered art. Yet we can't measure that so it's difficult if not impossible to make a judgment here, at list from an outside perspective, which is why I like to place the onus of that measure on the artist.
Obviously the definition can?t be clean cut and there are a lot of very blurred lines between art, design and craft, but I think there are some measures by which you can asses such things.
In any event, the comment shii threw in fits quite nicely indeed, "Art happens in the head".
OK, I've got to admit that you have befuddled me with that last post there, Drac. I think I understand what you're saying when you talk about your friend, but I really don't get this part:
quote:If you painted an image of a pot plant and it was extremely photorealistic, I?d not call it art either. I?d say you were an amazing painter and they you have a very refined skill, but not an artist. You?d have done nothing but copy, which is for no other reason than beauty. Cause quite frankly, a photography could have done the exact same thing with much less time and effort. Time, effort and skill don?t mark art. Art is all about the reason. At least, that?s how I see it.
Now, I want to clarify here to make sure I understand what you're talking about, because I'm not sure I do. You're saying that imitating (copying) a subject in another medium is not art? If I may rephrase one of your sentences: if a work is an imitation for aesthetic purposes only, it is not art. Am I correct on that? Also, your statement that the same thing could have been accomplished with photography confuses me as well--why should that make a difference? And would the photograph be art, while the painting is not, or would both not qualify as art? Would the painting of the pot plant be art if it was abstract or impressionist?
"Art is all about the reason." OK, but you do not see the creation of something beautiful as a sufficient reason? Or (going back to the pot plant), what if the pot plant was painted in a photorealistic manner in order to make a social or political point? Would it be art then?
Just going on what you've posted here, you believe art is defined by its purpose, and creation of an aesthetic image is not a valid purpose. That's how I would boil your argument down into one sentence.
I don't know--that's really all I can say at the moment. I've got a lot of thoughts flying around my head at the moment, and I'm not doing a very good job of pulling them together. All I know is that something about your definition bothers me. As I said above, I'm not really sure that I believe in art for art's sake, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to fully discount it, either.
This is a really difficult thing to talk about, because we are throwing around words like "beauty," "aesthetics," "intent" (not to mention "art"), all of which have a million different shades of meaning. Depending on how we define our terms, we could be saying the same thing and meaning something entirely different.
In response to part of the definition Dufty posted, I will say that I do not believe art is only art after it is finished. As I said above, in the case of writing, a piece is only finished when the author stops working on it--and the point at which the author stops working on it is often defined arbitrarily. It may be because the author just got tired of working on it, or it may be because a deadline was reached.
Perhaps our differences stem from the fact that I tend to view art in terms of the medium I am most familiar with: writing. It shouldn't make a difference, since the idea of art should transcend medium and genre, but I think it does make a difference when you try to discuss things in the concrete rather than the abstract.
Anyway, my head hurts, so I'm going to end this post. Fire away if you've got anything to say in reply, and we'll take it from there.
No, I don't really have anything else to add. But like I said earlier, what I've said is just my opinion and I realise other people view things differently. I was simply hoping to illustrate, by stating my views and the resons behind them, that you probably shouldn't call something art just because it's a man made image.
And by doing so I went a little over the top, which I seem to have a nasty habbit of doing. None the less, it was an interesting discussion and I think by getting a change to put my thoughts in words helped me to clarify things for myself.
quote:None the less, it was an interesting discussion and I think by getting a change to put my thoughts in words helped me to clarify things for myself.
Same here. And although I think I disagree with you in some particulars, I think your fundamental point has merit. I still haven't fully straightened everything out in my head, though, to be honest.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to a most interesting discussion, particalarly Dracusis and Suho1004. I think it can all be boiled down to two points:
I think it is important to also look at the flip-side of what Dracusis has said.
What about art where all there is is the intent, or the statement. Thingls like a red circle and a yellow square on a light-grey canvas at 12x20' that is supposed to somehow commment on the state of mankind.
Or squiggles of paint splattered all over a canvas which look like somebody spilled the condiment tray, but are supposed to speak about loneliness and despair.
I think if ever a bigger farce has occured then calling such things art, I've missed it.
plenty of 'intent' and 'purpose', nothing that photography could have easily accomplished, but it's still utter useless crap.
I would personally much prefer a 'pretty picture' done for the sake of making a pretty picture quite frankly.
Art for art's sake is, IMO, rather pure and wholly valid. If not, we discount a great deal of art throughout history - art that has formed a vast part our view of that history.
I have nothing against art for art's sake. In theory, I also think it is perfectly valid. I just wonder if it is really possible in reality--if it is possible for an artist to completely divorce a work of art from any other intent (both conscious and subconscious). I really don't have an answer for that... I'm just wondering.
And you also have to remember that when I think of "art" I think first of writing, and it is very difficult to write something with no other intent but to create something beautiful. I'm trying to think of a work of literature that did not have "meaning," per se, and "The Jabberwocky" comes to mind, but it could easily be argued that the lack of meaning in that work was intended to illustrate something other than the aesthetic principle.
Anyway, what do you think about that? Do you think it is possible in reality to have art purely for art's sake?
Well, I guess it depends on how much of a stickler you want to be about the definition of "for its own sake"...
You can of course claim that any given piece of artwork is intended to illustrate something on some level....be it simply a still life that illustrates.......well....that particular scene.
I find that people impose their own meaning onto artwork far more than the artist includes a meaning himself.
Hmm... I think of it in terms of communicative theory: ie, the work of art is the medium, the artist encodes the message to be sent through the medium (whether consciously or subconsciously), and the receiver (viewer/listener/reader) decodes the message (interprets the message according to his or her empirical code). The message we interpret depends on the code we use, which in turn depends on our experiences, which I think explains why people seem to read so much into art.
As for "for it's own sake," I'm talking about something more than what you mention. If a work of art was created merely to imitate a subject in an aestheticly pleasing way, that would qualify in my book as "art for art's sake." However, I am not sure it is possible for an artist to avoid encoding other message(s) in the work. Often this encoding is done intentionally, but even if the artist does not intend to encode a message, I believe it will happen subconsciously anyway, at least on some level.
Of course, this is not something that can be proven--it's just an idea. Basically, I don't think human beings are capable of doing/producing something if they do not feel it has meaning. In terms of art, the question is: does an aesthetically pleasing work have enough inherent meaning to override other meanings that may be encoded, or will those other meanings creep in anyway? I'm leaning toward the latter.
To sum up, I don't think there's anything wrong with art for art's sake, I just don't think we're capable of it. It comes down to splitting hairs, though, I think, and most likely we could go back and forth on this until the cows come home.
posted 10-27-2003 10:56
