He did say this to me, don't know if he did to you. I thought it was odd that he now was explaining a position that was more radical than ours, after we defended a more modest co-creation model. I do understand that he is adding in this idea of phenomenologically (and one could actually argue NEUROGOLICALLY it is the case) and so he didn't think he was conceding anything, since he thought we were arguing, somehow, that the viewer actually made the physical sculture, say. But it seems like having this idea, he could have responded to us in a much less dismissive way. I did respond to his 100 percent idea and disagreed with it, while thinking and saying that argument has merit. Given that what we create in our minds will defnitely carry over relationships between parts in the physical artwork, color patterns and more from the original, even if some of these are qualia - since the artist also experiences quaiia he or she is presenting us they tried and true dyanmics with and between qualia -, we are not just being stimulated and then freely doing whatever with the original. What we, yes, create in our minds, is controlled and led in many ways by the physical artwork. I can certainly concede. and did. that fifty percent is a stab in the dark, but it represents to me the idea that we co-create the experience of the artwork. It is not the same as sitting in a dark room and making up a painting just in our minds. That virtual image in the mind is something based very much on the artwork, though feelings, portions of the painting that we focus on, our own unconscious associations and more come from our, the viewers side. That to me is a kind of cocreation. And one that many artists want to have happening. In fact, I have been working on a play. When writing plays you want to avoid writing on the nose, you want subtext, and the better plays are filled with subtext, with just the occasional, often climactice moments where on the nose statements arise. Why? Because on the nose does not allow for the audience to co-create as much. It tries to eliminate this cocreation. It can't of course, given that our minds must recreate the play inside us. But it limits this cocreation as much as it can. It is similar, in a way, to the artist statement.Remember, I said that you are solely responsible for the creation of your own phenomenological experience of the art, the artist plays no role in this. — Metaphysician Undercover
When did you say this? I seem to remember Coben calling you out on a phenomenological issue, rather than you concocting one. Bullshit. — Noble Dust
It should be, but it's not, because there's a deficit of communication between us, clearly. And that was the polite version. :heart: — Noble Dust
Nope, I never described a "shared experience between the artist and the viewer". Maybe I communicated poorly, or maybe you interpreted poorly. — Noble Dust
This is important because the audience is half the work anyway. The audience members unique experiences, perspectives, and mindset will determine their interpretation. That's not to say that the artist can't have an explanation at hand; but forcing it on the audience will just inevitably cheapen the experience, and therefore, the work itself. — Noble Dust
It's not nonsensical; what borders on the nonsensical is that you barely even addressed what you quoted, which was a description of the difference between the viewer following their own interpretive path based on their inevitable 50% contribution to the work itself, vs. an artist statement trying to block this process. Try again. — Noble Dust
When did you say this? — Noble Dust
Let's start with a realistic premise. Let's assume that the viewer creates the "work of art experience", completely, one hundred percentage, and uses the work of art as a tool toward creating that experience. Consider therefore, that the viewer must choose the tools (works of art), which one will be using to bring about the desired experience. Can you make your argument from this perspective? — Metaphysician Undercover
What you don't seem to be grasping is that the viewer has the power of choice. Because of this, the artist really provides nothing at all to the phenomenological experience. You need not view any art whatsoever to have a phenomenological experience. That you choose to include some artwork into your experience is of you own making... — Metaphysician Undercover
Again, you're singing to the choir here, talking about not apprehending meaning. — Noble Dust
If "the audience is half the work", and "their inevitable 50% contribution to the work itself", doesn't imply that "the work" is a shared experience, then what could "the work" possibly refer to? — Metaphysician Undercover
Then are you ready to release the idea of collaboration between artist and audience — Metaphysician Undercover
You do recognize that some so-called "artwork", poetry for instance, consists of statements? If some people might see meaning in those statements, are we to dismiss this type of artwork as not "true art", just because it is not "pure art" (perfectly without meaning)? — Metaphysician Undercover
I think that "pure art", absolutely without meaning, might be a little boring. — Metaphysician Undercover
All I'm ever talking about is the existential reality that art requires both artist and audience, and that art itself as a philosophical concept only exists with both; mover and moved. — Noble Dust
The reality of the artist and audience relationship is closer to a sexual relationship, by analogy. — Noble Dust
I think I know why we disagree so much; my approach is existential, and yours is not. — Noble Dust
The artist would through the entire process be an observer, and one contruction with some but not total freedom the experienced artwork and affected by it. And strong artists are surprised and frustrated by their art, which always will go beyond the conscious mind's ability to control and will always have meanings and implications the artist did not intend, EVEN for him or herself as a viewer. And artists should be wary of saying what their art means, because they are not aware of what in them has affected the art. I've gone back to old work and realized, much later, that it clearly dealt with, for example, family issues I was not thinking of at all when I made it. And I have also denied certain interpretations of my art, only much later to realize the other person was very likely quite correct. The intentions in the conscious mind are only a small part of what is going on. Another reason the artist statement - if it goes into any of these areas - is confused about art and their own minds.This is the falsity which you refuse to acknowledge. No audience is required. The artist can create without an observer. The art exists with or without the observer. Your "philosophical concept" is faulty. — Metaphysician Undercover
The artist would through the entire process be an observer, and one contruction with some but not total freedom the experienced artwork and affected by it. — Coben
This is the falsity which you refuse to acknowledge. No audience is required. The artist can create without an observer. The art exists with or without the observer. Your "philosophical concept" is faulty. — Metaphysician Undercover
The artist, as one's own observer has inside information on one's own piece, — Metaphysician Undercover
And strong artists are surprised and frustrated by their art, which always will go beyond the conscious mind's ability to control and will always have meanings and implications the artist did not intend, EVEN for him or herself as a viewer. And artists should be wary of saying what their art means, because they are not aware of what in them has affected the art. I've gone back to old work and realized, much later, that it clearly dealt with, for example, family issues I was not thinking of at all when I made it. And I have also denied certain interpretations of my art, only much later to realize the other person was very likely quite correct. The intentions in the conscious mind are only a small part of what is going on. Another reason the artist statement - if it goes into any of these areas - is confused about art and their own minds.
Those who make shallow art or art of ideas only can have more control over 'the meaning', but even then not all and may be quite off when it comes to what the work of art conveys. — Coben
Yes, I don't know how you've lasted so long. And the problem is things like this...What's amusing here is we have 3 actual artists trying to demonstrate these aspects of our work, and then we have 1 (apparently) non-artist attempting to explain to us that we're wrong about our experience of our work. This is getting boring, to be honest. — Noble Dust
...do not contradict what we are saying. Yes, an artist has insights into his or her work. On the other hand so do other viewers of that art. A smart artist will not want to narrow down the range of insights or put other viewers in the position of having to overcome the artist's necessarily limited set of insights about that work. Further as we have pointed out repeatedly it's pressing the mental verbal mind to the immediate prioritized fore by having the artist's statment. You want people to have a felt and sensual experience and telling them what to think and feel diminishes this and its range and actually sets the wrong portions of the brain going when first encountering a piece of art. The idea of the art is not just to generate thinking. At least it used to be. Now you can go to museums and see whole shows which are primarily about generating ideas - with sensual and aesthetic facets radically diminished over other kinds of shows. That would be fine if one had to choose between aesthetic and meaning/conceptual factors, but you don't. So we have diminished one facet of great art for no reason. The occasional piece that does this could be and has been an interesting contrast, and those first artists who did this often created a powerful effect. But that this has become more of a rule is a loss. And the artist's statement is a side effect.The artist, as one's own observer has inside information on one's own piece, — Metaphysician Undercover
Yes, I don't know how you've lasted so long. And the problem is things like this...
The artist, as one's own observer has inside information on one's own piece,
— Metaphysician Undercover
...do not contradict what we are saying. Yes, an artist has insights into his or her work. On the other hand so do other viewers of that art. A smart artist will not want to narrow down the range of insights or put other viewers in the position of having to overcome the artist's necessarily limited set of insights about that work. — Coben
An artists does have insights into his or her own art, but if that artists has paid any attention over time, they will have noticed that they realize things later they did not then, even missing the core part of the artwork. — Coben
The intentions in the conscious mind are only a small part of what is going on. — Coben
The intentions in the conscious mind are only a small part of what is going on.
No, as I and Coben have said, the artist themselves is an audience member to their own work, so it's faulty to say that no audience is required. Actually it's not even the right way to express it; there's no "requirement" or not; there's just the reality of the artist as audience, which forms the basis of the symbiotic relationship between artist and audience. In other words, at minimum there's an audience of 1: the artist. From there, the audience naturally grows into whatever size it happens to become. Look to Coben's explanation of this reality in their most recent reply to you above to get a sense of why this is true (i.e. the part of their post that you didn't respond to). — Noble Dust
From there, the audience naturally grows into whatever size it happens to become. Look to Coben's explanation of this reality in their most recent reply to you above to get a sense of why this is true (i.e. the part of their post that you didn't respond to). — Noble Dust
What's amusing here is we have 3 actual artists trying to demonstrate these aspects of our work, and then we have 1 (apparently) non-artist attempting to explain to us that we're wrong about our experience of our work. This is getting boring, to be honest. — Noble Dust
Further as we have pointed out repeatedly it's pressing the mental verbal mind to the immediate prioritized fore by having the artist's statment. You want people to have a felt and sensual experience and telling them what to think and feel diminishes this and its range and actually sets the wrong portions of the brain going when first encountering a piece of art. — Coben
That would be fine if one had to choose between aesthetic and meaning/conceptual factors, but you don't. So we have diminished one facet of great art for no reason. — Coben
I don't mean to get circle-jerky here, but as I re-read through this page of the thread, this stands out:
The intentions in the conscious mind are only a small part of what is going on. — Coben
...As being perhaps the hallmark of Metaphysician Undercover's mistake. — Noble Dust
Yes, this nails it, along with the fact that an artist is informed by previously being a viewer of art. — Punshhh
We can't divide the artist into two, as if part of the artist is observer and part is creator. — Metaphysician Undercover
I didn't respond to this because under this new principle, that the artist is both creator and audience, the piece of art is entirely complete right here, at this moment in time. Any other audience, later in time, is completely irrelevant to the artwork, and whether or not the audience grows, how it grows, or how the artist views the creation at a different time, is completely irrelevant, unless the artist changes the piece, Therefore this further audience need not be discussed. — Metaphysician Undercover
The person railing against the artist's statement, as if the artist ought not be telling the observer how to experience the art, is now insisting that the artist's experience of one's own work is the true, or correct experience of the work. — Metaphysician Undercover
Didn't I suggest, as a starting point, to dismiss intentions completely, and then proceed toward understanding how intention seeps in to the artwork? This is how I got rid of meaning and interpretation, What is "meant". How is it possible that focusing on intention is my mistake, when that's exactly what I said I wanted to get away from? — Metaphysician Undercover
I can't see where there is a disagreement between us.Right, this was the point I was making. Fundamentally art is something to get inspiration from, not something to get meaning from. However, this does not mean that art is something we cannot get meaning from.
And none of us are arguing that one cannot or shouldn't get meaning out of it.↪Metaphysician Undercover
Right, this was the point I was making. Fundamentally art is something to get inspiration from, not something to get meaning from. However, this does not mean that art is something we cannot get meaning from.
I can't see where there is a disagreement between us. — Punshhh
This is so absurd. Artist and audience member are roles; clearly an artist can play multiple roles. An artist might also be their own PR person, as is increasingly the case. They may run their own record label to release their music; a musician might be a songwriter and a multi-instrumentalist and a recording engineer, fulfilling all of those roles in order to create a work. Being an audience member is another role. — Noble Dust
An artist making an artist statement and attempting to dictate how the audience experiences the work is not the same thing as 3 artists describing our process and broader existential experience. — Noble Dust
We aren't forcing specific interpretations of specific work down your throat like an artist statement can be in danger of doing... — Noble Dust
And none of us are arguing that one cannot or shouldn't get meaning out of it. — Coben
Yes, but we were talking about the existential status of the art. Existentially, the artist is one existent person, in relation to the existence of the art. The fact that the artist can play different roles in one's life is irrelevant to the existence of the art. But if, in relation to the existence of the art, the artist is both creator and viewer, then all other viewers are unnecessary in relation to the existential status of the art. Therefore we can dismiss all other viewers, their attitudes, etc., as irrelevant to the existence of the art. — Metaphysician Undercover
Don't you see, that the artist's statement is no more of an attempt to dictate how the audience experiences the art than any other aspect of the art? — Metaphysician Undercover
You really need to lighten up and stop perceiving words as the rules of a dictator. Do you think that words in a piece of music are the composer's attempt to dictate how you experience the music? If having words attached, makes the art unenjoyable to you, because you're extremely paranoid that the artist is attempting to be a dictator, then go look at something else that doesn't make you feel paranoid. — Metaphysician Undercover
Lol, you can't just tack the word "existential" unto the same argument you made awhile back and call it a response to what I laid out about roles. — Noble Dust
Not only am I not ready to release the idea, I never suggested the idea in the first place. All I'm ever talking about is the existential reality that art requires both artist and audience, and that art itself as a philosophical concept only exists with both; mover and moved. There's no collaboration; collaboration is when two artists work together on an artwork. The reality of the artist and audience relationship is closer to a sexual relationship, by analogy.
I think I know why we disagree so much; my approach is existential, and yours is not. — Noble Dust
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