I find this a really interesting subject and I've thought about it a lot. Once, while visiting a contemporary art museum with a visual artist friend, we got in a discussion with one of the museum guides about what art means. I took the position that art doesn't mean anything. — T Clark
Incidentally, it interests me how often the question 'what is good art?' is often mistaken for the question, 'what is art?'. It’s as if a work can only be classified as art if it is 'good' - whatever that means. Which is why you might hear some person fulminate about Jackson Pollock - ‘That’s rubbish, my 8 year-old does better work!’ and all the usual inchoate cliches about the decadent and bereft qualities of modern, non-representational art. — Tom Storm
Orson Welles, who I consider to be one of the great artists of the 20th century, stated in an interview (was it with Dick Cavett?) that he was one of those people of whom - 'I don't know anything about art but I know what I like.' - applies. If it's good enough for him... — Tom Storm
Art is not the possession of the few who are recognized writers, painters, musicians; it is the authentic expression of any and all individuality. Those who have the gift of creative expression in unusually large measure disclose the meaning of the individuality of others to those others. In participating in the work of art, they become artists in their activity. They learn to know and honor individuality in whatever form it appears. The fountains of creative activity are discovered and released. The free individuality which is the source of art is also the final source of creative development in time. — Tom Storm
Art is not the possession of the few who are recognized writers, painters, musicians; it is the authentic expression of any and all individuality — Tom Storm
The free individuality which is the source of art is also the final source of creative development in time." — Tom Storm
Orson Welles, who I consider to be one of the great artists of the 20th century, — Tom Storm
Art is an expression of human consciousness — Pop
But then, what of the part of art that is not concrete? What of conceptual art? Sure, something concrete there, but the artwork is not just this; it is a concept. Isn't thought all by itself inherently art? Why do we need the concrete?Art is humanities expression of itself.
Art gives us insight into the artist,
Art is a concrete manifestation of human thought – a manifestation into concrete form, of something that is ( ungrounded / virtual / computed / experienced emotionally / believed / valued / perceived / subconscious ) - consciousness — Pop
The only difference between the porcelain urinal (before) [not art] and the porcelain urinal (after) [art] is Marcel Duchamp's consciousness. — TheMadFool
"Art" is expressed in human consciousness — RussellA
But - every observed object is an "artwork" — RussellA
Though - artworks don't even need to be physical objects — RussellA
However - all artworks have a quality as all objects have a temperature — RussellA
However - an artwork's quality is subjective — RussellA
In summary - the definition of art should include a reference to "quality" — RussellA
But then, what of the part of art that is not concrete? What of conceptual art? Sure, something concrete there, but the artwork is not just this; it is a concept. Isn't thought all by itself inherently art? Why do we need the concrete? — Constance
The only difference between the porcelain urinal (before) [not art] and the porcelain urinal (after) [art] is Marcel Duchamp's consciousness.
Can you imagine what power artist's wield? What's next? Shit art? I'm serious of course. — TheMadFool
This is best answered through information theory. It seems information is something concrete such that it changes our neurology, such that we become conscious of it. So, an artwork can not be immaterial, it needs to be in the form of something material, including sound, such that we can perceive it. The form of the artwork interacts with the form of our consciousness - this interaction creates an experience, where the quality of the experience is normally attributed to the artwork, however we ourselves play the major role in creating it.
A thought itself is not immaterial either, it has it's neural correlates. This definition is an artwork. It comes close to what you are describing. — Pop
1. Art is an ungrounded variable mental construct: Objects are arbitrarily deemed to be art. Art’s only necessary distinction from ordinary objects is the extra deemed art information. Art can be anything the artist thinks of, but this is limited by their consciousness. — Pop
Consciousness is not just awareness but all mind activity, interwoven with the subconscious. What art can be cannot exceed consciousness. — Pop
Everything is reducible to information, as it is only from information that we can create mental constructs. This is widely accepted in science, and a grounding for the definition.
4. If everything is reducible to information, then so is art. It is true to say: art work is information. — Pop
5. Art work information is imbued with the artist's consciousness: it arises out of their consciousness, and reflects their consciousness, and is limited in scope by their consciousness, in the past, present, and the future. — Pop
. Like describing a fresh spring morning in terms of molecular bonding — Constance
:up: :lol: From my perspective I see the poodle.You and I see the same cloud, but you see a camel, I see poodle. — Constance
The material presence is simply the medium, which is incidental.
Not sure why 'information' is helpful. Information is an affect-neutral term, and its connotative values are entirely counter to aesthetic possibilities. — Constance
So no, not arbitrary at all. — Constance
Thus, it is unfinished, indeterminate. — Constance
I can't imagine a worse word for talk about art. Plain, connotatively UNaesthetic. Like describing a fresh spring morning in terms of molecular bonding. — Constance
Why not all this, but leave the artist's consciousness out of it? After all, art is as it is perceived, and the artist is just ONE perciever. — Constance
I understand where you are coming from, but strictly speaking, anybody can deem anything to be art. — Pop
Art about art, creates a certain reality for art. — Pop
Yeah, the material art form is a private ( but can be public ) language invented by an artist ( in modern art ) very similar to the words we now exchange, and also interpret.
Information theory describes this same process of me imbuing a message with meaning, and you interpreting the message, but with slightly altered meaning. The information has to exist in some physical form in order for this to happen. — Pop
I understand where you are coming from, but strictly speaking, anybody can deem anything to be art.
It doesn't happen often, but this is a definition of art, so this needs to be taken into account. — Pop
That is the intention. Consciousness is endlessly variable and open ended - just like art. How about that? As consciousness changes, so does art historically. A different consciousness creates different art, etc. And on the audience side, it is the same ( as described above ) So art is a meeting of consciousness, where the success of a piece depends on this relationship, rather then on any particular form present in the art work. — Pop
I, on the other hand, get so tired of the subjective nonsense I hear about art. But you see, I need to be severely logical to define something. If done successfully, then a definition can be used to predict, and I think his one can do that. It is what makes it different, what makes it interesting, imo. The world is full of romantic drivel about art, what it lacks is a definition. — Pop
Art about art, creates a certain reality for art. Whereas a definition of art refocuses art to the question of "what is consciousness". And there starts a journey of self discovery, and perhaps discovery of what it is all about, such that it brings back some meaning to the question of what is art. As you have intimated, it is all consciousness, so there are no limits to this question absolutely. I have defined consciousness as a process of self organization, but I do not know what self organization is - the whole universe is self organizing. And this is also what all art is expressing. There are no limits to the form of self organization that we can take, but in understanding this we come to understand ourselves better, and perhaps also what it is all about?? — Pop
Oh how fresh and anew this springy information structure tickling my sensory forms, making my emotion entropy rocketing skinfo high. My emotional neuronal patterns run bezerk when I breath in these moisty misty forms. Whirlings of bloodflows inside me respond intensely to the morning magic sunlight waves entering me through my glassy eyeball spheres. Projected widely and vast over the retina in full formation. I wished I could make all other structures in formation experience the same conscious patterns I experience in-and outside me, my body structure being their willing and voluntary in-between prisinor. O jah! All formations in the world, rejoyce! And be in! — Thunderballs
Oh freddled gruntbuggly, Thy micturations are to me, As plurdled gabbleblotchits, On a lurgid bee, That mordiously hath blurted out, Its earted jurtles, grumbling Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer. [drowned out by moaning and screaming] Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles, Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts, And living glupules frart and stipulate, Like jowling meated liverslime, Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes, And hooptiously drangle me, With crinkly bindlewurdles,mashurbitries. Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, See if I don't!
RIP Douglas Adams — Constance
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