Asking "what is art" is no different than asking "what is a home" or "where do tall bushes end and short trees begin" To help us understand reality, our minds have created categories to aid us. Categories themselves do not exist. They are just cognitive shortcuts. Most of the time categories are not exactly defined and much of the time they do not need to be.
the problem is that this ends the process of naming or designation itself - it ends with the statement that everything is inherently uncategorized - noting is anything or everything is whatever we want it to be - there is no truth whatsoever. So what is the process of categorization heling us to understand? Art is either something or it is nothing - if it is nothing it is unjustifiable as an activity (action). The solution requires serious jujutsu. As Kant implies, it has to do with the very nature of awareness itself. Consciousness is identity. Designation is the process of making things whatt-they- are. Art is that which triigers the awareness of this ground condition - the sublime creation. Long discussion.
Art is everything we call art. That’s the one and only definition. We can rely on it because you as an individual can tell wether something is art or not (although you might disagree with other people) even if you can’t define art. That’s because our brain is able to recognize patterns much better than our conscious mind. We can tell there is something essential to art because otherwise our brain wouldn’t be able to use the concept.
Jole Schütz so in a sense a mostly silent piece of music or shit in a tin can could be considered art, as long as we are willing to define it or categorize it as art?
Don't even say "mostly silent." John Cage has written "4:33," after all. Art must be communally defined. If two people have a similar enough definition of art that they are able to use the word and both understand its meaning, that's enough. I assume that's what Mirza meant when he talked about the silliness of acting as though definitions of categories are objective and independent things, rather than useful heuristics human brains use. I've always considered art "anything intentionally made such that the process of making it and/or the end result attempts to evoke an emotional and/or intellectual response." Not sure if it's robust enough to fit everything I'd consider art, and it includes things which I consider bad art, for sure, but that's my working definition until I'm forced to adjust it for edge cases.
Adam Hansen But “art” as a concept only exists because of the human brain. It seems much more reasonable to consider the definition of art to be mutable and defined culturally and temporally, rather than existing as some abstract ideal.
It seems like there's a deeper linguistic issue here that complicates the problem. An issue with the very concept of definitions in general. A definition usually lists the descriptive commonalities between all the already existent and possible examples of the thing that is being defined. But because new examples are constantly being added and there's no real agreement on whether those examples really are examples of the thing that is being defined, you can never define that thing. It's like creating a border around something that keeps expanding. If something like art is to be defined then I would probably expect it to not be a static definition, but a a dynamic one. A definition that evolves over time based on current trends that decide whether or not certain artworks are actually considered art. I guess this could fall under pluralism since it allows for multiple definitions of art, but it may also be related to the historical and institutional perspectives where the definition is more or less arbitrarily made....
Indeed, unlike things in the "Natural World" which is - presumably - static and immutable in terms of categories (and this is arguable) Art is dynamic and ever rebellious and transgressive. When someone says Art is a particular thing, Artists will do something that defies that definition and declare it Art. And some of the finest pieces of art are such things. So then not only is this very hard to define but when you do it is likely to soon become a defunct definition.
Honestly I subscribe to the idea that anything has the capacity to be Art within context. The reason modern art has earned respect is not because (for example) an inanimate everyday object is intrinsically Art, but because we observe it from an angle that makes it so. What that angle might be varies, but that's just part of the context. When you think about it, paint is just a liquid, and could have absolutely zero value in another culture or species. Yet people arrange that liquid into a way that brings context. It is no longer a liquid but a relatively understandable formation, becoming more than it's base component. I think a definition like this allows 'art' to continue evolving, since no one person or institution can arbitrate value, while still actually being able to carry value to anyone or anything given that the context is right. You could argue it's broad and relativistic but if that means not constricting the definition of art I can be content with that. I don't think we can stop something being art, since art is not a binary to begin with. Who can predict what we will value as 'art' in the future but those within the context of that generation?
I quite like Scott McCloud's definition: "Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn’t grow out of either of our species’ two basic instincts: survival and reproduction." Now, that of course also has some problems with it though...
One can argue that it isn't. The gas chambers were design the kill what the Nazis considered "enemies." It was created for the purpose of survival by way of killing perceived threats. As vile as the logic of Fascists is, the reasoning for the gas chamber is survival. Therefore, by Scott McCloud's definition gas chambers aren't art.
what if someone points a gun to your head and tells you to paint a picture (that you wouldn't otherwise paint) or they'll shoot you on the spot is that art? or if you pick up a guitar and write cheesy songs with the idea that hay maybe this'll get me laid
I love how you went through the content at the end. The repetition helps remembering most of it so discussing about the subject will be easier. Thank you!
It's annoying when people confuse the terms "Modern" and "Contemporary" art. Modern is a very specific art movement (around the 1900s to around the 1950s). Just because something is new and a bit wacky or out there, people say it's "modern art". That's contemporary art, or belongs to another movement entirely. It's why we also have the term "Post-Modern".
Far out in the 3020's we will be able to witness the culmination of human creation: Post-post-post-post-post-post-post-postpost-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post movement. Actually, I don't think its a good idea to keep this naming convention up.
For me, producing art is a form of relaxation, therapy or meditation. When it is displayed or presented for others, it's a form of communication. Maybe, essentially, doing and 'consuming' art is information processing.
JE Hoyes i like this definition (what do you know it looks a lot like mine) i think that art is expression in terms of the artist, and the extraction of meaning or feelings on the part of the spectator.
Jonathan Eby I expect there's a huge mountain of art (of any kind - music, culinary, painting, writing) that doesn't even get seen or experienced by others because its purpose isn't to transmit meaning to others, only to construct meaning for oneself as one does it. We can do art even as we wander about simply by leaving a gate ajar by a certain amount in order to enjoy how its shadow looks in a puddle of oily water.
But what if one has no reason to believe that doing and consuming art is information processing. And what if one does not know whether or not it is good or bad that people know this.
Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank you so much for making a series on Aesthetics!!! I'm a classical musician and I've been bothered so much by trying to define 'good' music to other people and why they should listen to it! This made me try to read Kant and Heidegger (auf deutsch) but it led me nowhere. Thank you!
Art and aesthetic are not synonymous though, natural scenes or people are often judged on aesthetic terms, but are, by almost any definition, not art. I think the title is somewhat misleading, then.
So if someone made a poem but never intended it to be read, just wanting to put some thoughts on a page, would that not be art? I also find any claim to the artist's intention to be dangerous. We don't know a whole lot about what Shakespeare intended with his plays, but we still assume they're art. If it was revealed that his original works were made by a monkey on a typewriter, would they suddenly become not-art? To be honest, the definition you gave is pretty close to what I imagine as art, but just playing devil's advocate.
@@kittyandtiny9159 *shrug* yeah, I don't think any definition will be completely perfect. And while I feel like the creator's intent is an important intent, it's certainly not the only valid one. But I do still feel like there needs to be some intent involved in creating art, even if that intent is lost down the line. Honestly, if it WERE discovered that Shakespeare's plays were written randomly by a monkey on a typewriter, I actually probably would reconsider whether or not it's art. Not that they suddenly become un-entertaining as plays, but I would definitely have to rethink the works. Otherwise, literally everything could be considered art =P and maybe to some people everything IS art, but personally, that definition would make me wonder if there's even any point to the concept of art. And even if someone made a poem but never intended it to be read, there is still some meaning in that poem for the author. Maybe it's valid enough that it invokes some response in the author, him/herself.
@@nordgothica Fair point, but there can be a disconnect between the emotions of an artist and their intended audience. For example, a writer might use skill to create an incredibly tense sequence, but wouldn't feel that tension in the writing process.
Yes! I love philosophical discussions of aesthetics, it's a neglected realm of enquiry in my time of studying philosophy. Great video olly. Hope to hear your philosophytube essentialism. I'll check your Twitter in hopes.
I look at art as a perspective that can be applied to anything, much like how sex not necessarily is tied to particular actions, but it can be a mindset that you apply to bodies, objects, subjects, relations, actions and situations. in that way, art is almost like a metaphysical field that permeates everything, that creates space for thoughts and maneuvers that just the material aspect of whatever is triggering the art-observing perspective alone can't address with the same acuity.
I've heard a lot about how the concept of art (as understood by artists and those with art-related specialties) has expanded over the millennia. Duchamp's _Fountain_ and various readymades, for example, are taken to have greatly expanded the range of what's considered art. But has anything ever _stopped_ being art? I get the impression art is a thing that just grows monotonically and eternally--that is, there are no retractions or permanent barriers to stop it from covering every conceivable thing.
In German, there is an interesting linguistical hint: the German word 'Kunst' is related to the German word 'können', which basically means 'to can' but is not as flippant; its use can also imply that you have a certain skill, nominalized as 'Können' it expresses your competence, as in 'Mein Können reicht nicht aus' which means 'I am not able/sufficiently skilled'. Similarly, the phrase 'Das ist keine Kunst' (literally 'This is no art', or rather 'This is not art' ?) means 'this is is easy, anyone could have done it'. The word 'Kunst' stems pretty much directly from the Old High German word 'kunst' which means something along the lines of 'knowledge, cognition' (and it still does today). 'Kunst' is contrasted against experience or perception, sentiment, as being a matter of skill. This relation can also be seen in English, for instance in the class at Hogwarts 'Defence against the Dark Arts': here 'art' seems to refer to a certain class of ability. Perhaps this sounds rather noble?
Out of all the branches of philosophy, aesthetics, for me has been the toughest one, in fact I gave up looking for a definition of art not for the reasons say later Wittgenstein would give, but because I found something so beautiful that I never found anything comparable to that "object". So common features or resemblances just went out of the window.
I have a simple definition: If you say something is art TO YOU, then that's true. So nothing is intrinsically art, but if someone feels like it is, then to them it is legitimately art.
I'm a biologist, so I'm kind of fond of the comparison with the biological species concept. The vast majority of the time, it's enough that we have a pretty good idea of what you mean when you say "species". It's only in some sideline cases where the definition becomes important (when 2 subspecies are different enough to be separate species, for example). And then the answer to "Is this a species?" depends on why you're asking. A geneticist might look at the genetic divergence between the two subspecies, and somewhat arbitrarily say that X amount of divergence equals different species. An ecologist might say that they are functionally different species if they use the ecosystem differently (again, somewhat arbitrarily deciding how much is enough). I could go on, but instead I'll bring it back over to art. At what point does something become art? That answer would be very different depending on the artist. One person may draw a beautiful picture of a house, and call that art, but to an architect, the artwork still needs to be built before it will be art. To a photographer, a piece may become art the second they snap the photo, or maybe not until after they cull out the 'bad' photos, or maybe not at all, maybe they're only taking photos to later base a painting off of them, and it's not art until then. Generally, when you say "art", people know what you mean. But in these niche cases, it kind of depends on who you ask. And all of those answers could be equally correct.
Games do have a thing in common : a set of rules. HIde and seek, Call of duty, monopoly, football. They all have rules. Anyway, great video! I just subscribed.
Rules are not exclusive to games. But they do are something all games have in common. If you are looking for attributes that separate games from other concepts, Huizinga's idea of the "magic circle" might fit the bill.
Oldboy This video shows a clear lack of understanding of the psychological mind and similarities, I don't even where to begin. You are so ignorant, I'm just going to leave those quote here by Sigmund Freud and allow you to put some thought to it: "When I was a young, I used to play a lot. But now... I'm an old boy and now I lay a lot."
Boiled down, I'd say one of art's most important qualities is that it is a social exchange between individuals, where meaning is created, questioned, and/or considered. Not all things that exhibit these qualities have to be art of course, but for something to truly be art it must contain these things. If it doesn't then it's probably something else. An equally important quality is that both the creator and the viewer recognize the work through which this process takes place, and/or the process itself, as being art. I like testing this definition with propaganda. If the viewer perceives a work as art, but the author's intent was to create propaganda disguised as art, rather than a multi-directional exchange, it isn't art at all. The same can possibly go for the definition of games. If both parties don't consider the game a game, it's probably something else, even if one member considers it so. Think tag or hide and seek, both simulations of actually threatening circumstances. Fledgling and scattered thoughts on an old video, I know.
Great video Abigail! Art can only exist in the eye of the beholder (IMHO), of any image, sound, or sensation. As far as the entities who create this wonderful mess.... well, that's a whole other ball game.
This is why Steve Jobs said " People don't know what they want until you show it to them". That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.” - Steve Jobs Now I fully understand..... wow. Steve was far ahead of society.
I think art is the one thing that is proof of human intelligence. It is literally anything humans make or do. in my opinion, whether it is a sport or a history book, art is a documentation in past or present that shows the human capacity to think creatively. It doesn't matter if it is a good or bad piece of art. In "the fine arts", it's a celebration of this quality, and more abstract and left to individual interpretation for experiencing themselves, BUT is also the artist attempting to make oneself understood, we can talk all day but we can never entirely give another person a true look into our own minds. The best way of relaying images and emotion is art. Art is the celebration of the human mind, but also an attempt to give others a chance of understanding the creator OF the art. But sports, history, science, architecture, and the rest are more the products of the artistic mind. I don't know how to entirely sun up my statement, ironically. One last thing though, if you take a photograph, when you see the place or person firsthand you may comment "oh that looks cool" or "hey take a picture of that, it's beautiful", but it isn't until that photograph has been taken that we ACTUALLY call it art. Or maybe you have an invention, say the toilet. I wouldn't necessarily call that art per se, it's the product of our capacity to make art though, it's more the tangible proof that reminds us what we are. I know I've ranted a lot, but to sum it up and make sense, I guess I mean art is the celebration of the human mind and/or trying to connect with someone else on an individual level.
I want to take a shot at defining art and this might seem a little uninspiring and technical but, art is anything that A) is experienced through the senses and B) provokes thought, emotion, mood or message to so much as a single human being and C) The creator can be anyone, or anything (nature for instance). In the wise words of philosopher and renowned art critique Deidara, art is also D) an explosion. I know that using these parameters you can pretty much call anything art, but that's only because you just watched a video about art, or read about art, or randomly thought about art. It's currently on your mind and so you're consciously involved in looking for art in the things around you. But when you turn that off and become mentally occupied elsewhere later on, not everything around you will seem like art. Only popular art like paintings, music, movies, sculptures/models will seem like art, or rather give the essence of art (because you're not thinking about defining art, so you're not consciously involved). And so E) Art has a volatile essence. You might look at a fork and experience B and C right now, but you wouldn't when you're not consciously involved in detecting art.
My mentor in philosophy was good friends with Danto who, as you may know, is an essentialist. Weirdly enough, his paper on the Artworld is often read as institutional. He was often invited to defend his theory that people just seemed to read as institutionalism. That said, I actually heavily subscribe to his essentialist theory that art is embodied meaning. It's probably one of the most vague ways to maintain essentialist rhetoric so it maintains art's place as socially defined and hard to grasp. My roommate, also a philosopher, is a fan of saying that when you try to define art, you've already lost. In response to him, I think the best way to discuss art is as almost an Eastern Taoism of meaning and harmony. Art is political, it's meaningful and it's systemic and no matter what, we force ourselves to have a relationship with it and I find that rather beautiful. I don't find essentialism robbing art of any of that.
I've been studying Graphic Design and the way I've had the difference between art and design explained to me was that art is "something you do for yourself" while design is something you do for other people. So I guess when it comes to defining art you could say it's just an expression of self? Which probably means that anything can be art
I've always thought of art as an expression of skill and/or creativity that evokes a strong emotional and/or intellectual response in others. So your map, the hot dog ad, the figurine, and the Mary Shelley book are both expressions of skill (and the ad and the fiction book are also an expression of creativity), and the model saxophone, your painting of flowers, and your friend's poetry book are creative expressions. They clearly evoke an emotional and/or thoughtful response in you, which is why you keep them, so they fulfill my definition. This is why a beautiful wedding cake could be referred to as "a work of art," or a child's hand prints placed in a frame can be a "work of art." I guess my definition would be a form of essentialism? Great video!
I just finished reading Art and Anti-Art regarding Dada. It made me think that art is a snake eating its own tail. But, I can't define the snake. Lately I've been making works where the art is in the aesthetics of the social interactions mediated by the artefact, but people struggle to get it: the artefact doesn't directly have arty aesthetics so it isn't seen as art.
The definition I’d use is “anything purposefully designed to cause an emotional response, usually pleasure or intrigue, through its perception, principally by sight (including reading), sound, or taste.” So a textbook doesn’t work because you’re supposed to learn but a piece of literature would. Paintings would work but a splatter of paint because you tripped wouldn’t. Includes culinary arts too.
Everything is art. My personal definition is anything that can create a conversation. This would encompass the usual like painting, film, videogames, as well as what we wouldn't necessarily consider art; like politics. Because what are debates and speeches but performance. The performances will be talked about and speculated over. And they will be a driving factor of who wins (or at least wins in the electoral college in some instances)
I think the closest we've come to defining "art" is "That which is made for the purpose of evoking emotion." Whether it's "good" or not depends on whether it achieves its goal, which is an entirely subjective stance. Then again, by that definition, an insult can be considered art, so feel free to rip into this definition and call it art, because the definition itself defends this. I'm not saying it's right, just that I think it's as close as we've gotten to a definition that works without excluding any intentionally made art.
I've favoured the defintion that art is made when one is trying to express something that is done for no "indistrious" or monetary value. I recognize the problem of having the definition of art being totally unobservable, but I find it interesting that that definition doesn't seem to fit any of the groupings here. Maybe essentalism? Or maybe "processism"? I would love to hear what anybody thinks about this.
How about this: a functionalist definition in which art is anything created by a person or group that evokes emotion in others. This leaves room for almost anything being able to be considered art, even if there wasn't specific intent by the creator or if everyone has their own unique, subjective emotional response to the art. And then what we categorize as "good" or "bad" art has to do with what kind of emotions the art tends to elicit. E.g., some people would consider a work of art to be "bad art" if it make them feel disgusted or bored or contemptuous, etc. One person might consider a work of furry porn to be bad art because it makes them feel uncomfortable, but someone else might think it's great art because it makes them feel understood and excited. I like this definition because I think it leaves enough room for just about anything to be considered art depending on the subjective intentions and responses of the creator and the audience.
With the risk that I may sound abrasive, here's my position on the subject: My approach is to look at what the term „art“ actually does. If this term is assigned to an object or an action, this object or action enjoys a greater level of protection and the appreciation of the object or culture is considered a sign of being cultured. Art is conveniently vague, so it can arbitrarily be extended. Which brings me to the discourses which determine what is art. We shouldn't forget that there are careers and institutions which only exist because we assume that being art is an actual proberty which justifies spending our resources or making exceptions to the common rules of society. This function of the discourse is best for kinds of art that aren't well established as art. After all, that means that these priviledges can easily be taken away. This is a very strong incentive for anticipatory obedience. To me, the most interesting discourse of art is the discourse about movies. To me, it is very interesting how art fims, which are supposed to be unconventional, have very strong conventions in cinemetography that define the genre.
"Do you know the Tristan Rêveur quote about bad art? It's 'bad art is more tragically beautiful than good art because it documents human failure.” - Ryan Gosling as Henry Letham in Stay (2005)
Art is something that makes you contemplate something beyond the tactile/sensory experience of the thing itself. " the i see/hear/think (in the clairvoyant sense) something in it" That would include man-made object or constructed ideas, accidental art (as re the lost glove in the museum which by way of it's placement context attained a " meaning") and nature as certain landscapes (mountains, deserts, lifeforms, natural occurrences like storms, stars, rainbows make you wonder about....other meanings say Mount Olympus, the rainbow as a bridge, the crossing of the sun, the Milky way and so on). I would include these as often they've been directly copied and used in man-made art and have been interpreted as having extra layers of meaning. That would also include the sort of meta-art because that was something that would make you think about art and not the art object itself. That would also include the (I'm bad at cars but say a Jaguar or so to be a car work of Art, because the construct meaning becomes something more - sat a symbol of a certain lifestyle) beyond it's mechanical construct. So yup, includes well made and decorated cakes, cocktails and recipes and a lot more. If the art is called Sex -on the Beach and it manages to convey that meaning to you, there you go. And art can be used to advertise of course - hence art directors on commercials. Graphic artists for company logo's. That Apple means something.
Art is the perfection of a skill through experience. There are different forms of art, visual which is the most common, performing, culinary, martial, economics, etcetera. Aesthetics is not necessarily physical beauty but the invocation of feelings by the creator and the observers. Not all art is physically appealing but the significance and meaning it puts in lives is what makes art great pieces of work
I'm not sure if I heard this somewhere, but I suppose I would define art as something that is an expression of an internal world/reality. That's why most art plays mostly with nonverbal expression. Because it's more about emotion than something empirical. Even lyrics and writing become more artistic the more they play with language. A shoe is a shoe, but colour, flair, and style are artistic features. Perhaps this is just me, but I don't look at an architects sketch as particularly artistic (typically). Despite the required artistic technical skill and them often looking very beautiful. I think because something like that isn't about the picture itself you've drawn. it, after all, was only drawn to lay a blueprint for something that has already been decided to be built. Imagine, however, an architect draws you (a construction worker) an *odd* blueprint. Deviates from what a blueprint typically looks like. Now it's suddenly got a strange quality to it and you don't know what to make of it. You, the worker is probably very pissed and confused but show it to someone who hasn't a clue this was supposed to be a building plan, serve a functional purpose, and it's like something they've never seen before. Creating similarly odd feelings without the anger. You tell them you're supposed to make a building out of this, and boom, they're confused and a little angry. Why did the architect do this? Perhaps they felt sick of drawing buildings. I think language is too limiting for us humans to communicate our feelings a lot of the time. So we express it in other ways. Ultimately, that dissonance between what one person is expressing artistically and what you're feeling internally when you come across it is why art has value. Because it's people trying to communicate with their feelings. I'm not sure what kind of definition that is. I think it's an essentialist one. I don't see any contradiction here but I'm stoned, so who knows. 😂😂😂
I guess everything can be considered art, but maybe then that would be the same as saying that nothing can be considered art. For me, art lies in the eyes of the beholder. You make your own art and you define what art is for yourself. Obviously tho social constructions play a huge role into general and particular definitions of art.
There are two definitions of art that I tend to jump between. The first comes from Scott McCloud. In his book, "Understanding Comics," he defines art as anything that doesn't under basic human instincts which are survival and reproduction. The benefit of this definition is that it's a broad and inclusive definition. When a new art comes it doesn't have to contradict. The downside is that it can reject art that was made for reasons beyond for just art's sake. For example, what is someone makes a painting to attract a lady, what if someone writes a story so that he could get money to pay his rent, what if someone makes propaganda to progress his ideologies? Are these still art? The second is that all art is communication, a dialogue between artist and audience. It could be as complex as Star Trek talking about the needs of the many vs the needs of the few or as simple a a James Bond movie saying 'Look at this guy. This guy is cool." Doesn't matter how abstract it is or isn't if it communicates something it's art. The problems are that: 1.) Does this mean my conversation with my friends about pizza a form of art? 2.) If I draw something with the intent of it being shown to no one but myself, which I do a lot, is it still art?
I'm probably not the first person to come up with this and it sound like a softer version of intitutionalist theories but I think a useful way of defining art. Art is what ever a large enough number of people agree is art.
How about these? Essence of Games: •Goal is to have fun, and •There is a win or lose outcome, and •The outcome is not impactful. For example, nobody would die if you failed. Essence of Art: •Man-made, and •One of the goals is to be aesthetically pleasing, ie, beauty for beauty's sake. Whether it fails at it or not is irrelevant.
*Art is a creation that demonstrates a talent on the part of the creator and which seeks to acquire recognition of said talent from some, if not most or all, of those who experience it by means of their senses, depending on the type of art in question* (Most art forms are seen, like Paintings, Plays, Films, Books, Sculptures, etc., but many are also heard, like Music, Films, Plays, etc., some can also be smelled and/or tasted, especially Cuisine or even Perfume Making, and a few art forms can be also be touched)
but... all games *do* very obviously share one unifying essential trait. They are all at their core simulated conflicts/problems that you, the player, seek to resolve/fix. Chess, football, KOTOR, poker, a footrace, WoW, solitaire... Everything and anything that can accurately be described as a game fits this criterion.
I think art is so broad that literally anything can be could art. I belive art is something that 1 was made and 2 makes you feel something or think. Very broad I know but I think it's the only definition I have that fits everything I consider as art
I would say everything can count as art. Whatever it is, someone can probably find meaning and beauty in everything. So there is nothing that noone can enjoy as art, making everything art.
All art has to exist in some physical form and can be observed in some way(?), music as sound waves, stories as books etc. But can you have a piece of art that was completely unobserved? Or is the only way to have art exist is for it to be observed? OR is it just 'bad' art because it doesn't fulfill its function?
Marvel Mockingjay Isn't art just a label supposed to give recognition to a certain object? And to be given recognition widely, any object will have to be physically existent.
Do people exist because we observe them, or do people exist because they serve a good or bad function? And if there are people who can create a good or bad function, how do those people go about talking to their university professors about this?
There was in fact a piece of art made with this exact purpose - helium canisters released in the desert, with no observers, and not recorded. There is some debate about whether this is, in fact, 'art'.
Something illustrative here is that the question of whether we would recognize alien art as art kind of already happened here on Earth, where colonizers often put indigenous peoples' art in natural history museums, not art museums. which is not to say they don't recognize it as art or that it's completely alien but it's not a consumable product of their own culture and takes on completely different meaning. Whereas, really, the aesthetic elements of indigenous cultures aren't really different from the aesthetic elements of colonizing cultures, and its instructive to think about that.
A good starting point for art could be reflection. Is the art or artist reflecting on something, either public or private? Reflection inherently highlights something, what we or the artist find important/not important, an event that is captured, in some part by the piece of art or commentary through reflection, highlighting something through selective reflection, either public or private. Since our senses are not perfect and our mind inherently contains biases and faults and assumptions, reflection, selective or replicating, could be considered a reflection of perspective, both in thought and experience. Every time you see it, then reflect and create, it changes due to perspective like a photocopier or an organism. Maybe.
I've regurgitated this a lot: Given that it's anonymously publishes, conveys a message/feeling, has no instrumental purpose, and its creator has no pressure to create it, restroom graffiti can be argued to be the purest form of art. An interesting take on some of the more traditional definitions, is all.
I would argue that a work of art is an attempt to create something with the intention of producing an experience which transcends what currently has been experienced. It's an attempt to expand what's possible to experience by a human being. Critique on this view is appreciated.
Wouldn't that mean that "Institutional Theories" basically mean only a select few rich people get to pick between "Essentialism" and "Functionalism".. ? Which I guess could be interesting to think about in terms of, how institutions managed to gatekeep what the 'correct' theories are from the people who make the art?
Art is a creation with the purpose of storytelling. Art seems so ethereal and arbitrary because you can find a story in anything; whether that story is intricate or good does not matter. It may still be regarded as art.
I was actually offered a place at the royal college of art and also an apprenticeship with the BBC when I was 16 based on the art work I had done - I didn't ask for them... I went to a shitty midlands school, so it wasn't even something I thought I could do, but my art teacher apparently knew people. But I turned those positions down - I was much more interested in science. I knew the mind was limited - I was more inspired by what the mind was made of and other things beyond my imagination... an imagination which I had quite frankly already used up (I was getting bored of the limits of my own mind). LOL - I surrendered myself to nature!
Liking the props Olly! I'd also reccomend people checking out the art assignments video "case for abstraction", I thought it was an interesting counter to the common "yeah but anyone could paint that etc," that's often said of abstract art.
The thing with art is that we have two concepts of art that we mix together. First: Art as the act of creating something that is an expression of a feeling/feeling for they joy of doing so. Second: Some form experience that stirs up feelings for some reason. If a modern piece of "art" does not stir up strong feelings inside you it may still be art for the creator, but then a different definition of art. When a designer designs a car that designer may do it just as a part of menial labor. So for that person it is not art. But for the buyer of that car it may be are in a different way.
In Behaviourism there are a couple main functions for behaviour (sensory reinforcement, social /attention , access to a tangible item, and escape. Two behaviours with different functions can both still be counted as behaviour Similarly, I think art has a couple common functions and could, in theory, be categorized by these functions.
Something I've been wondering about for a while now, and now I will share my conclusion (aren't you lucky). Art is any human contrivance which evokes or has the potential to evoke a visceral emotional response.
Felix Troendle It is broad, but look at how many different things people attribute as art. Painting, sculpture, writing, dance, film, photographs, weaving, landscaping, music, automotive design, combat... it seems to be due more to the reaction than the actual item or subject.
Very nice eye openener. I think that glove story is great, because It shows how, if the definition of art is subjective, the art itself can be unintended, which is contrary to the etymology of the word, because then natural phenomena could be considered art. It shows how context is important aswell. :)
I'd argue that art is about the creative intention. For any given piece of art, a person has gone through the effort of creating it, or at the very least intentionally giving it new context, and declaring it a creative work.
I'm 90% sure that the drawing of a Scottish town in pen is depicting the town of St Andrews from the pier. Featured very prominently are the ruins of the cathedral and there even seems to be students in robes.
I mean, it depends on your view on art. Consider this example: I'm walking in a field when I notice a specific arrangement of flowers that looks aesthetically pleasing. I quickly snap a picture with my cell phone, and that evening there's a snowstorm and all the flowers die. Yes, anyone could have taken that picture, but I was the one who was there, I was the one who recognized the appeal of it, and I was the one who took the opportunity to take the picture. Another argument, the more pretentious one, is that it's not what the piece ultimately looks like so much as the how or why the artist did it. Let's be real: Jackson Pollock's paintings aren't that nice to look at. But his methodology was fascinating, very different from what anybody else was doing. Or take that infamous exhibit of blank canvases. Those were all about the stories: one artist imagined all the potential, another slept next to it and imagined the canvas absorbing his dreams... basically, it's the narrative that's being sold, not the piece itself.
LOL..... Anytime someone says, "I could have done ThAT," I usually like to say, "...but you Didn't!!" Obviously, you should have but you didn't!! Hell, I "could have" invented the Internet.....but I didn't!! I "could have" found a Million dollars in the parking lot....but I didn't!!
Doesn't really mean that the work in question is art though. What a lot of the "I could have done that" comments are really trying to point out the lack of skill and aesthetic value of in a work. For example, a canvas just painted completely blue. Should such a work really be considered art? Should such a work cost over 40 million dollars? I say fuck no.
Notice the three questions you're really asking here. "Should such a work really be considered art?" is actually two questions hidden under the guise of passive voice: "Should I consider this work art?" No, you don't have to think it's art if you don't want to. "Should others consider this work art?" That's up to them; apparently they see some kind of value in it you don't. "Should such a work cost over 40 million dollars?" Again, that's entirely up to the buyer and the seller. Apparently, the person buying it thinks there's a story in that painting worth 40 mil. Like I said in my post, just because you don't see value in a particular something doesn't mean you get to run around saying, "Stop! You can only value things the same way I do!"
Significantly in Japan, the 'sublime' can be found in the act of drinking a cup of tea, which is seen as an "art". Beauty is found in an old beat up teacup or an aged blackened bamboo tea scoop.
cracked up laughing when you said "just giving up" didn't expect it. Just had my first Philosophy and Literature lecture and it was covering this kind of thing. Appreciate your channel loads. Thanks.
What about Arte is whatever makes you feel something and things of something, I know this is a broad definition but in my opinion it works. For example Morgan Art can make some people think "I could have done that" while "traditiona" arte makes people feel a wide range of emotions.
An artefact that is proposed by the artist to be "art" is art. Even though one could consider something bad, it doesn't follow it isn't art. It can be said to be "bad art". I find this to be very powerful argument, not sure what it's called in philosophy.
I think that something is art if it fits the following requirements: Created by a person (paintings). Or recontextualized by a person who considered it to be art (placing a soup can in a museum). And a significant part of its intended or current function is its perception of others for a purpose other than informing them (e.g. speed limit signs don't count).
I remember seeing a lecture on UCTV about aesthetics in a scientific of biological sense. There was an interesting experiment regarding seagulls with red striped beaks. And they managed to produce a super beak that gull chicks much preferred by having more and thinner stripes. And perhaps humans too have an analogous evolutionary response to the forms, sounds and movements found in art. I think it also had V.S. Ramachandran discussing Indian art in the neurological sense too. Maybe biology can inform the philosophical understanding of art, as it might the philosophical understanding of desire.
I believe you can define art, not in the object itself, but in the experience the observer is having with the object. this definition makes the observer essential to the art, and it expands the umbrella of art to include anything the "looker" finds aesthetically pleasing.
Hmm. I think, for me, art is about conversation. Specifically, art produces some response in the viewer-- I think anything can have artistic value based on what you see in it, what it makes you feel and think. I think you can also "do" art, in which case it's intended to provoke a conversation. The glove at the museum, for example-- that wasn't intended to be art, and most people, as you said, were wondering if they were /supposed/ to be looking at it. They were thinking about themselves, not about any artistic value. You can walk straight past the Mona Lisa without a second glance if it doesn't provoke a response in you. (I know this is an old video, obviously, but I wanted to respond anyway 'cause I thought it was interesting)
So, I am an armchair philosopher at best, and my partner and I argue about what is and isn't art sometimes... And I'm kind of surprised none of these theories cover my basic thought: Art is that which someone presents with intention to cause a reaction, usually emotional, but not necessarily. And I think this definition is robust enough to encompass almost all forms (current or future), but just specific enough to be a dilineating feature. I am not educated enough to know if this is a wild theory, or if it's just one that wasn't gone over in this video, though.
I like a bit of pluralism, and a bit of functionalism. My vague personal definition of art is, something that uses its aesthetic qualities to evoke or create a certain thought or feeling. But obviously that's a bit broad. I also like the 'art is anything someone decides is art' definition, even though it's even more broad. But, I'd rather paint a bit too broadly. There have always been people, smugly sat back, asking if (x) was _really_ art or not. People used to say impressionism wasn't _really_ painting, and non-verse poetry wasn't _really_ poetry. And too often people try to de-legitimize art they don't like, by trying to shore up and make rigid the "real" definition of art. Especially things like "low" art, folk art... art from minority communities. So I'm personally more inclined to keep the definition open.
Here's a definition I found on New Statesman, which I think is reasonable: "What counts as art, and what makes it valuable?Malcom Budd reckons art does these things: prompts an emotional response in its viewer; gives them pleasure; grants them the satisfaction of appreciating a work well done; allows them to feel they’re communicating with the mind of the artist; and encourages them to develop an attitude towards the attitude that it asserts."
Art and crime are the end results of a productive society, but also results of a system which provides fixes retroactively. A proactive society actively incorporates people's needs and wants, whether they appear in a dramatic longing unfulfilled by daily work's normalcy or simple materialist need.
I think that games all have something in common, they all have a goal of some sorts. In football the goal is to kick the goal in the net, in golf it is to hit the ball in the hole and in The Knights of The Old Republic it is to progress through the story line, do quests and earn xp points.
Im curious about an economic definition of art. I read the sentence "Art is Art and everything else is everything else" implying that art is unique. However if we for a moment try to dismiss this notion and look at art as a product that is traded and experienced. In this case art would merely be an avantgarde product. Critics might argue that a painting is worth more than its canvas. Countering the point we might say that art in part is an intangible idea and thereby falls under the notion of interlectual property. Art in that sense is merely another product of which an experience can be build around (see Pine & Gilmores (1999) idea of the experience economy).
I've always thought of art as creative expression + some amount of thought or skill. From there you can examine any piece of "art," and argue whether or not it has those two components.
I think what makes art art is largely its context. Two otherwise identical pieces could be art or not art, just from being in a different context. And that includes stuff like who currently is looking. I.e., while you could find some features or functions common in some subsets of art, where large parts of population (either general population or "The Art World") would agree "yes, this is art", ultimately it's a very personal notion. It just so happens that the least controversial pieces of art do tend to have similar properties, but I don't think you could, like, nail down necessary and sufficient conditions even for such uncontroversial pieces. The art producer *and* the art consumer both matter to whether something is art.
While defining art is a difficult task, I think the question of when can a piece be considered art is easier to answer. What most people consider shitty art, like ketchup on a canvas for example, can be considered art if at least one person can look at it and see it as art (I don't know how, maybe he sees something we can't see). Like ugly people, how do we decide if someone is ugly? When 99% of humans see someone as ugly but 1% find him beautiful, is he really ugly? That's what I think about for example minimalist art or abstract art, I personally don't get most of it but some people do, so it must be art.
The first answer that came to my mind when you asked 'what is art?' is expression. An expression of an idea, concept or emotion or literally anything is art. Maybe that doesn't make sense, there are probably loads of flaws. Who tf knows
Also, it may be that object being art is not actually a property of the object itself but our understanding of its purpose. So then it makes no sense to look at objects themselves for some property that they have in common. So, for example, what is a seat? It is anything that someone would like to use for sitting. What makes a seat? Just the intention of the person I guess.
One of the issues that present in this video is whether the category preseeds the particulars or does the particulars preseeds the category. Since particular pieces of art including the first piece of art was created then would the category of art be created as well? To put it another way, when small children play, they don't think in terms of games, if the children were to look back they would be able to call their play a game.
To me, art is defined by its purpose. Something is art if its creator (designer, artist...?) wanted it to be an artwork. A glove on the ground wouldn’t be art if someone unnoticedly dropped it, but it would be art if somebody voluntarily put it there with an artistic intention. I’m not sure if this is a “functionalist” definition... A deliberately created work of art would still be so, whether or not it succeeds to accomplish that “artistic function.” Now, I’m not sure this isn’t some kind of circular definition (how do you create something with an artistic intention without having defined what art is?) and I don’t know if it’s perfectly consistent... but it’s the best one i’ve come out with!
Perhaps it's not so much about our perception, but the artist's intention. If you were standing in an art gallery, to your left was the statue of David and to your right, a fire extinguisher, you would know that the statue was art because Michelangelo intended for it to be art. Where as the man who placed the fire extinguisher intended to prevent a disaster. So art shares the common feature of 'the intention to be art' so to speak. IDK just spit balling here...
My own definition: art is anything that I bring into my life without it contributing to my survival or day-to-day tasks, but solely because I like the thing or it has a special meaning to me. Examples: - I get a sword because I like how it looks and put it on my wall. In this context it is (it becomes) art. If I were to buy a sword because I need it to fight it wouldn't be art, while it might still be the same sword. - The framed song lyrics Olly showed are something with special meaning to him, while someone who sings in a choir might find this way of storing them just impractical. In my definition, what is and what isn't art is a purely subjective matter. And what is displayed as art are simply things that a large enough number of people agree upon that it is meaningful and/or enjoyable.
but dropping a glove in a museum, pretend that it's art, and spread the reaction on social media isn't a form of interactive performance art?
maybe that is under the realm of "social practice" art.
It is, as long as people decide to play along. Art didn't exist before people experience it or at least think they do
I'd argue as long as there is intention of communication...
But what is interactuve performance art? Is it with us here in this room?
But… L. Wittgenstein writing a book of philosophy stating that philosophy isn’t possible is philosophy?
I appreciate the chad move of putting you plugging your artwork as the thumbnail.
Asking "what is art" is no different than asking "what is a home" or "where do tall bushes end and short trees begin"
To help us understand reality, our minds have created categories to aid us. Categories themselves do not exist. They are just cognitive shortcuts. Most of the time categories are not exactly defined and much of the time they do not need to be.
the problem is that this ends the process of naming or designation itself - it ends with the statement that everything is inherently uncategorized - noting is anything or everything is whatever we want it to be - there is no truth whatsoever. So what is the process of categorization heling us to understand? Art is either something or it is nothing - if it is nothing it is unjustifiable as an activity (action). The solution requires serious jujutsu. As Kant implies, it has to do with the very nature of awareness itself. Consciousness is identity. Designation is the process of making things whatt-they- are. Art is that which triigers the awareness of this ground condition - the sublime creation. Long discussion.
Art is everything we call art. That’s the one and only definition. We can rely on it because you as an individual can tell wether something is art or not (although you might disagree with other people) even if you can’t define art. That’s because our brain is able to recognize patterns much better than our conscious mind. We can tell there is something essential to art because otherwise our brain wouldn’t be able to use the concept.
Jole Schütz so in a sense a mostly silent piece of music or shit in a tin can could be considered art, as long as we are willing to define it or categorize it as art?
Don't even say "mostly silent." John Cage has written "4:33," after all.
Art must be communally defined. If two people have a similar enough definition of art that they are able to use the word and both understand its meaning, that's enough. I assume that's what Mirza meant when he talked about the silliness of acting as though definitions of categories are objective and independent things, rather than useful heuristics human brains use.
I've always considered art "anything intentionally made such that the process of making it and/or the end result attempts to evoke an emotional and/or intellectual response." Not sure if it's robust enough to fit everything I'd consider art, and it includes things which I consider bad art, for sure, but that's my working definition until I'm forced to adjust it for edge cases.
Adam Hansen But “art” as a concept only exists because of the human brain. It seems much more reasonable to consider the definition of art to be mutable and defined culturally and temporally, rather than existing as some abstract ideal.
It seems like there's a deeper linguistic issue here that complicates the problem. An issue with the very concept of definitions in general. A definition usually lists the descriptive commonalities between all the already existent and possible examples of the thing that is being defined. But because new examples are constantly being added and there's no real agreement on whether those examples really are examples of the thing that is being defined, you can never define that thing. It's like creating a border around something that keeps expanding. If something like art is to be defined then I would probably expect it to not be a static definition, but a a dynamic one. A definition that evolves over time based on current trends that decide whether or not certain artworks are actually considered art. I guess this could fall under pluralism since it allows for multiple definitions of art, but it may also be related to the historical and institutional perspectives where the definition is more or less arbitrarily made....
This is amaazing. Really appreciate your comment.
Indeed, unlike things in the "Natural World" which is - presumably - static and immutable in terms of categories (and this is arguable) Art is dynamic and ever rebellious and transgressive. When someone says Art is a particular thing, Artists will do something that defies that definition and declare it Art. And some of the finest pieces of art are such things. So then not only is this very hard to define but when you do it is likely to soon become a defunct definition.
Art is the Universe
Well, it is like a person. They evolve over time. But they stay identical. So, art remains identical, but not the same.
this is in essence his opening statement on essentialism
Philosophy tube 3 years ago: aesthetics theorem
Philosophytube now: aesthetics PRAXIS
Unbelievably crisp and clear. Pairing down these concepts into relatable essential bytes takes mastery. Brilliant. I cried.
Honestly I subscribe to the idea that anything has the capacity to be Art within context. The reason modern art has earned respect is not because (for example) an inanimate everyday object is intrinsically Art, but because we observe it from an angle that makes it so. What that angle might be varies, but that's just part of the context. When you think about it, paint is just a liquid, and could have absolutely zero value in another culture or species. Yet people arrange that liquid into a way that brings context. It is no longer a liquid but a relatively understandable formation, becoming more than it's base component.
I think a definition like this allows 'art' to continue evolving, since no one person or institution can arbitrate value, while still actually being able to carry value to anyone or anything given that the context is right. You could argue it's broad and relativistic but if that means not constricting the definition of art I can be content with that. I don't think we can stop something being art, since art is not a binary to begin with. Who can predict what we will value as 'art' in the future but those within the context of that generation?
you do not suck
The fact that Olly has a lot of somewhat kitschy, sentimental art in his flat makes me happy.
I quite like Scott McCloud's definition: "Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn’t grow out of either of our species’ two basic instincts: survival and reproduction."
Now, that of course also has some problems with it though...
so are gas chamber art? (point godwin just for the sake of it)
SuperMegaPeanut is that from Highlander?
Oh, you beat me to it!
One can argue that it isn't. The gas chambers were design the kill what the Nazis considered "enemies." It was created for the purpose of survival by way of killing perceived threats. As vile as the logic of Fascists is, the reasoning for the gas chamber is survival. Therefore, by Scott McCloud's definition gas chambers aren't art.
what if someone points a gun to your head and tells you to paint a picture (that you wouldn't otherwise paint) or they'll shoot you on the spot is that art?
or if you pick up a guitar and write cheesy songs with the idea that hay maybe this'll get me laid
you're the real definition of art
Damn girl
Damn weebs
I love how you went through the content at the end. The repetition helps remembering most of it so discussing about the subject will be easier. Thank you!
It's annoying when people confuse the terms "Modern" and "Contemporary" art.
Modern is a very specific art movement (around the 1900s to around the 1950s).
Just because something is new and a bit wacky or out there, people say it's "modern art". That's contemporary art, or belongs to another movement entirely.
It's why we also have the term "Post-Modern".
It's just vernacular English. "Modern" means "relating to the present or recent times", so why not, I think almost always you understand using
Far out in the 3020's we will be able to witness the culmination of human creation: Post-post-post-post-post-post-post-postpost-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post-post movement.
Actually, I don't think its a good idea to keep this naming convention up.
For me, producing art is a form of relaxation, therapy or meditation. When it is displayed or presented for others, it's a form of communication.
Maybe, essentially, doing and 'consuming' art is information processing.
which is a valid definition for you're art, without a doubt, but there are so many artist who destroy themselves because of their art.
Frahamen I suppose the point is that we're inwardly processing and outwardly expressing information when we do art.
JE Hoyes i like this definition (what do you know it looks a lot like mine) i think that art is expression in terms of the artist, and the extraction of meaning or feelings on the part of the spectator.
Jonathan Eby I expect there's a huge mountain of art (of any kind - music, culinary, painting, writing) that doesn't even get seen or experienced by others because its purpose isn't to transmit meaning to others, only to construct meaning for oneself as one does it. We can do art even as we wander about simply by leaving a gate ajar by a certain amount in order to enjoy how its shadow looks in a puddle of oily water.
But what if one has no reason to believe that doing and consuming art is information processing. And what if one does not know whether or not it is good or bad that people know this.
Did someone say
a e s t h e t i c ?
i t ' s a l l i n y o u r h e a d
*brave*
ass dead dicks
n o o o :/
"We can't even give up without encountering problems" what a fantastic line!
Yes! Yes! Yes! Thank you so much for making a series on Aesthetics!!! I'm a classical musician and I've been bothered so much by trying to define 'good' music to other people and why they should listen to it! This made me try to read Kant and Heidegger (auf deutsch) but it led me nowhere. Thank you!
Great stuff. Is this the beginning of a series? I hope so.
Art and aesthetic are not synonymous though, natural scenes or people are often judged on aesthetic terms, but are, by almost any definition, not art. I think the title is somewhat misleading, then.
Aesthetic is a subject that you study in a Philosophy College. It's in this subject that people learn about the philosophy of art.
@@F3eeerr, that's true, but they learn other things as well in estethics, don't they?
@Sebastian Schumacher
It's introduction to aesthetics though. That may be why it starts with a part of it.
Can we define art as aesthetically pleasing things created on purpose by people or other conscious beings?
@@user-dd9uv3bi7i Some art is quite deliberately not aesthetically pleasing
I don't know where I heard this definition, but I really like it:
"Anything that someone creates that is meant to invoke an emotional response."
So if someone made a poem but never intended it to be read, just wanting to put some thoughts on a page, would that not be art?
I also find any claim to the artist's intention to be dangerous. We don't know a whole lot about what Shakespeare intended with his plays, but we still assume they're art. If it was revealed that his original works were made by a monkey on a typewriter, would they suddenly become not-art?
To be honest, the definition you gave is pretty close to what I imagine as art, but just playing devil's advocate.
@@kittyandtiny9159
*shrug* yeah, I don't think any definition will be completely perfect. And while I feel like the creator's intent is an important intent, it's certainly not the only valid one. But I do still feel like there needs to be some intent involved in creating art, even if that intent is lost down the line. Honestly, if it WERE discovered that Shakespeare's plays were written randomly by a monkey on a typewriter, I actually probably would reconsider whether or not it's art. Not that they suddenly become un-entertaining as plays, but I would definitely have to rethink the works. Otherwise, literally everything could be considered art =P and maybe to some people everything IS art, but personally, that definition would make me wonder if there's even any point to the concept of art.
And even if someone made a poem but never intended it to be read, there is still some meaning in that poem for the author. Maybe it's valid enough that it invokes some response in the author, him/herself.
@@kittyandtiny9159Would the person that wrote the poem not have an emotional response to it? Is the creator excluded from the definition?
@@nordgothica Fair point, but there can be a disconnect between the emotions of an artist and their intended audience. For example, a writer might use skill to create an incredibly tense sequence, but wouldn't feel that tension in the writing process.
Yes! I love philosophical discussions of aesthetics, it's a neglected realm of enquiry in my time of studying philosophy. Great video olly. Hope to hear your philosophytube essentialism. I'll check your Twitter in hopes.
I'm watching this while I'm studying for my Art History's exam and.... yup. Nice intro.
I look at art as a perspective that can be applied to anything, much like how sex not necessarily is tied to particular actions, but it can be a mindset that you apply to bodies, objects, subjects, relations, actions and situations. in that way, art is almost like a metaphysical field that permeates everything, that creates space for thoughts and maneuvers that just the material aspect of whatever is triggering the art-observing perspective alone can't address with the same acuity.
I've heard a lot about how the concept of art (as understood by artists and those with art-related specialties) has expanded over the millennia. Duchamp's _Fountain_ and various readymades, for example, are taken to have greatly expanded the range of what's considered art. But has anything ever _stopped_ being art? I get the impression art is a thing that just grows monotonically and eternally--that is, there are no retractions or permanent barriers to stop it from covering every conceivable thing.
exactly. art has an infinite potential and anybody who claims the contrary can kindly fuck off.
In German, there is an interesting linguistical hint: the German word 'Kunst' is related to the German word 'können', which basically means 'to can' but is not as flippant; its use can also imply that you have a certain skill, nominalized as 'Können' it expresses your competence, as in 'Mein Können reicht nicht aus' which means 'I am not able/sufficiently skilled'.
Similarly, the phrase 'Das ist keine Kunst' (literally 'This is no art', or rather 'This is not art' ?) means 'this is is easy, anyone could have done it'.
The word 'Kunst' stems pretty much directly from the Old High German word 'kunst' which means something along the lines of 'knowledge, cognition' (and it still does today).
'Kunst' is contrasted against experience or perception, sentiment, as being a matter of skill.
This relation can also be seen in English, for instance in the class at Hogwarts 'Defence against the Dark Arts': here 'art' seems to refer to a certain class of ability.
Perhaps this sounds rather noble?
Out of all the branches of philosophy, aesthetics, for me has been the toughest one, in fact I gave up looking for a definition of art not for the reasons say later Wittgenstein would give, but because I found something so beautiful that I never found anything comparable to that "object". So common features or resemblances just went out of the window.
I have a simple definition: If you say something is art TO YOU, then that's true. So nothing is intrinsically art, but if someone feels like it is, then to them it is legitimately art.
In this case the concept would be reduced to meaninglessness
I'm a biologist, so I'm kind of fond of the comparison with the biological species concept. The vast majority of the time, it's enough that we have a pretty good idea of what you mean when you say "species". It's only in some sideline cases where the definition becomes important (when 2 subspecies are different enough to be separate species, for example). And then the answer to "Is this a species?" depends on why you're asking. A geneticist might look at the genetic divergence between the two subspecies, and somewhat arbitrarily say that X amount of divergence equals different species. An ecologist might say that they are functionally different species if they use the ecosystem differently (again, somewhat arbitrarily deciding how much is enough). I could go on, but instead I'll bring it back over to art. At what point does something become art? That answer would be very different depending on the artist. One person may draw a beautiful picture of a house, and call that art, but to an architect, the artwork still needs to be built before it will be art. To a photographer, a piece may become art the second they snap the photo, or maybe not until after they cull out the 'bad' photos, or maybe not at all, maybe they're only taking photos to later base a painting off of them, and it's not art until then. Generally, when you say "art", people know what you mean. But in these niche cases, it kind of depends on who you ask. And all of those answers could be equally correct.
What is the feature that is the essence of art that you defend?
Games do have a thing in common : a set of rules. HIde and seek, Call of duty, monopoly, football. They all have rules.
Anyway, great video! I just subscribed.
But lots of things have rules that aren't games?
Rules are not exclusive to games. But they do are something all games have in common. If you are looking for attributes that separate games from other concepts, Huizinga's idea of the "magic circle" might fit the bill.
Another thing that games have in common is competition.
I believe you're competing against yourself. I mean, you're trying to improve your skills so you're competing with past you.
Oldboy This video shows a clear lack of understanding of the psychological mind and similarities, I don't even where to begin. You are so ignorant, I'm just going to leave those quote here by Sigmund Freud and allow you to put some thought to it:
"When I was a young, I used to play a lot. But now... I'm an old boy and now I lay a lot."
Boiled down, I'd say one of art's most important qualities is that it is a social exchange between individuals, where meaning is created, questioned, and/or considered. Not all things that exhibit these qualities have to be art of course, but for something to truly be art it must contain these things. If it doesn't then it's probably something else. An equally important quality is that both the creator and the viewer recognize the work through which this process takes place, and/or the process itself, as being art.
I like testing this definition with propaganda. If the viewer perceives a work as art, but the author's intent was to create propaganda disguised as art, rather than a multi-directional exchange, it isn't art at all. The same can possibly go for the definition of games. If both parties don't consider the game a game, it's probably something else, even if one member considers it so. Think tag or hide and seek, both simulations of actually threatening circumstances.
Fledgling and scattered thoughts on an old video, I know.
Great video Abigail!
Art can only exist in the eye of the beholder (IMHO), of any image, sound, or sensation. As far as the entities who create this wonderful mess.... well, that's a whole other ball game.
This is why Steve Jobs said " People don't know what they want until you show it to them". That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.” - Steve Jobs
Now I fully understand..... wow. Steve was far ahead of society.
I think art is the one thing that is proof of human intelligence. It is literally anything humans make or do. in my opinion, whether it is a sport or a history book, art is a documentation in past or present that shows the human capacity to think creatively. It doesn't matter if it is a good or bad piece of art. In "the fine arts", it's a celebration of this quality, and more abstract and left to individual interpretation for experiencing themselves, BUT is also the artist attempting to make oneself understood, we can talk all day but we can never entirely give another person a true look into our own minds. The best way of relaying images and emotion is art. Art is the celebration of the human mind, but also an attempt to give others a chance of understanding the creator OF the art.
But sports, history, science, architecture, and the rest are more the products of the artistic mind.
I don't know how to entirely sun up my statement, ironically. One last thing though, if you take a photograph, when you see the place or person firsthand you may comment "oh that looks cool" or "hey take a picture of that, it's beautiful", but it isn't until that photograph has been taken that we ACTUALLY call it art.
Or maybe you have an invention, say the toilet. I wouldn't necessarily call that art per se, it's the product of our capacity to make art though, it's more the tangible proof that reminds us what we are.
I know I've ranted a lot, but to sum it up and make sense, I guess I mean art is the celebration of the human mind and/or trying to connect with someone else on an individual level.
I want to take a shot at defining art and this might seem a little uninspiring and technical but, art is anything that A) is experienced through the senses and B) provokes thought, emotion, mood or message to so much as a single human being and C) The creator can be anyone, or anything (nature for instance). In the wise words of philosopher and renowned art critique Deidara, art is also D) an explosion. I know that using these parameters you can pretty much call anything art, but that's only because you just watched a video about art, or read about art, or randomly thought about art. It's currently on your mind and so you're consciously involved in looking for art in the things around you. But when you turn that off and become mentally occupied elsewhere later on, not everything around you will seem like art. Only popular art like paintings, music, movies, sculptures/models will seem like art, or rather give the essence of art (because you're not thinking about defining art, so you're not consciously involved). And so E) Art has a volatile essence. You might look at a fork and experience B and C right now, but you wouldn't when you're not consciously involved in detecting art.
My mentor in philosophy was good friends with Danto who, as you may know, is an essentialist. Weirdly enough, his paper on the Artworld is often read as institutional. He was often invited to defend his theory that people just seemed to read as institutionalism.
That said, I actually heavily subscribe to his essentialist theory that art is embodied meaning. It's probably one of the most vague ways to maintain essentialist rhetoric so it maintains art's place as socially defined and hard to grasp.
My roommate, also a philosopher, is a fan of saying that when you try to define art, you've already lost. In response to him, I think the best way to discuss art is as almost an Eastern Taoism of meaning and harmony. Art is political, it's meaningful and it's systemic and no matter what, we force ourselves to have a relationship with it and I find that rather beautiful. I don't find essentialism robbing art of any of that.
I've been studying Graphic Design and the way I've had the difference between art and design explained to me was that art is "something you do for yourself" while design is something you do for other people. So I guess when it comes to defining art you could say it's just an expression of self? Which probably means that anything can be art
Well said
I've always thought of art as an expression of skill and/or creativity that evokes a strong emotional and/or intellectual response in others. So your map, the hot dog ad, the figurine, and the Mary Shelley book are both expressions of skill (and the ad and the fiction book are also an expression of creativity), and the model saxophone, your painting of flowers, and your friend's poetry book are creative expressions. They clearly evoke an emotional and/or thoughtful response in you, which is why you keep them, so they fulfill my definition. This is why a beautiful wedding cake could be referred to as "a work of art," or a child's hand prints placed in a frame can be a "work of art."
I guess my definition would be a form of essentialism? Great video!
I just finished reading Art and Anti-Art regarding Dada. It made me think that art is a snake eating its own tail. But, I can't define the snake.
Lately I've been making works where the art is in the aesthetics of the social interactions mediated by the artefact, but people struggle to get it: the artefact doesn't directly have arty aesthetics so it isn't seen as art.
The definition I’d use is “anything purposefully designed to cause an emotional response, usually pleasure or intrigue, through its perception, principally by sight (including reading), sound, or taste.” So a textbook doesn’t work because you’re supposed to learn but a piece of literature would. Paintings would work but a splatter of paint because you tripped wouldn’t. Includes culinary arts too.
Everything is art. My personal definition is anything that can create a conversation. This would encompass the usual like painting, film, videogames, as well as what we wouldn't necessarily consider art; like politics. Because what are debates and speeches but performance. The performances will be talked about and speculated over. And they will be a driving factor of who wins (or at least wins in the electoral college in some instances)
I think the closest we've come to defining "art" is "That which is made for the purpose of evoking emotion." Whether it's "good" or not depends on whether it achieves its goal, which is an entirely subjective stance.
Then again, by that definition, an insult can be considered art, so feel free to rip into this definition and call it art, because the definition itself defends this. I'm not saying it's right, just that I think it's as close as we've gotten to a definition that works without excluding any intentionally made art.
I've favoured the defintion that art is made when one is trying to express something that is done for no "indistrious" or monetary value. I recognize the problem of having the definition of art being totally unobservable, but I find it interesting that that definition doesn't seem to fit any of the groupings here. Maybe essentalism? Or maybe "processism"? I would love to hear what anybody thinks about this.
How about this: a functionalist definition in which art is anything created by a person or group that evokes emotion in others. This leaves room for almost anything being able to be considered art, even if there wasn't specific intent by the creator or if everyone has their own unique, subjective emotional response to the art. And then what we categorize as "good" or "bad" art has to do with what kind of emotions the art tends to elicit. E.g., some people would consider a work of art to be "bad art" if it make them feel disgusted or bored or contemptuous, etc. One person might consider a work of furry porn to be bad art because it makes them feel uncomfortable, but someone else might think it's great art because it makes them feel understood and excited. I like this definition because I think it leaves enough room for just about anything to be considered art depending on the subjective intentions and responses of the creator and the audience.
With the risk that I may sound abrasive, here's my position on the subject:
My approach is to look at what the term „art“ actually does. If this term is assigned to an object or an action, this object or action enjoys a greater level of protection and the appreciation of the object or culture is considered a sign of being cultured. Art is conveniently vague, so it can arbitrarily be extended. Which brings me to the discourses which determine what is art. We shouldn't forget that there are careers and institutions which only exist because we assume that being art is an actual proberty which justifies spending our resources or making exceptions to the common rules of society. This function of the discourse is best for kinds of art that aren't well established as art. After all, that means that these priviledges can easily be taken away. This is a very strong incentive for anticipatory obedience.
To me, the most interesting discourse of art is the discourse about movies. To me, it is very interesting how art fims, which are supposed to be unconventional, have very strong conventions in cinemetography that define the genre.
"Do you know the Tristan Rêveur quote about bad art? It's 'bad art is more tragically beautiful than good art because it documents human failure.” - Ryan Gosling as Henry Letham in Stay (2005)
Art is something that makes you contemplate something beyond the tactile/sensory experience of the thing itself.
" the i see/hear/think (in the clairvoyant sense) something in it"
That would include man-made object or constructed ideas, accidental art (as re the lost glove in the museum which by way of it's placement context attained a " meaning") and nature as certain landscapes (mountains, deserts, lifeforms, natural occurrences like storms, stars, rainbows make you wonder about....other meanings say Mount Olympus, the rainbow as a bridge, the crossing of the sun, the Milky way and so on). I would include these as often they've been directly copied and used in man-made art and have been interpreted as having extra layers of meaning.
That would also include the sort of meta-art because that was something that would make you think about art and not the art object itself.
That would also include the (I'm bad at cars but say a Jaguar or so to be a car work of Art, because the construct meaning becomes something more - sat a symbol of a certain lifestyle) beyond it's mechanical construct.
So yup, includes well made and decorated cakes, cocktails and recipes and a lot more. If the art is called Sex -on the Beach and it manages to convey that meaning to you, there you go. And art can be used to advertise of course - hence art directors on commercials. Graphic artists for company logo's. That Apple means something.
Art is the perfection of a skill through experience. There are different forms of art, visual which is the most common, performing, culinary, martial, economics, etcetera. Aesthetics is not necessarily physical beauty but the invocation of feelings by the creator and the observers. Not all art is physically appealing but the significance and meaning it puts in lives is what makes art great pieces of work
I'm not sure if I heard this somewhere, but I suppose I would define art as something that is an expression of an internal world/reality. That's why most art plays mostly with nonverbal expression. Because it's more about emotion than something empirical. Even lyrics and writing become more artistic the more they play with language. A shoe is a shoe, but colour, flair, and style are artistic features.
Perhaps this is just me, but I don't look at an architects sketch as particularly artistic (typically). Despite the required artistic technical skill and them often looking very beautiful. I think because something like that isn't about the picture itself you've drawn. it, after all, was only drawn to lay a blueprint for something that has already been decided to be built. Imagine, however, an architect draws you (a construction worker) an *odd* blueprint. Deviates from what a blueprint typically looks like. Now it's suddenly got a strange quality to it and you don't know what to make of it. You, the worker is probably very pissed and confused but show it to someone who hasn't a clue this was supposed to be a building plan, serve a functional purpose, and it's like something they've never seen before. Creating similarly odd feelings without the anger. You tell them you're supposed to make a building out of this, and boom, they're confused and a little angry. Why did the architect do this? Perhaps they felt sick of drawing buildings.
I think language is too limiting for us humans to communicate our feelings a lot of the time. So we express it in other ways. Ultimately, that dissonance between what one person is expressing artistically and what you're feeling internally when you come across it is why art has value. Because it's people trying to communicate with their feelings.
I'm not sure what kind of definition that is. I think it's an essentialist one.
I don't see any contradiction here but I'm stoned, so who knows. 😂😂😂
I guess everything can be considered art, but maybe then that would be the same as saying that nothing can be considered art. For me, art lies in the eyes of the beholder. You make your own art and you define what art is for yourself. Obviously tho social constructions play a huge role into general and particular definitions of art.
There are two definitions of art that I tend to jump between.
The first comes from Scott McCloud. In his book, "Understanding Comics," he defines art as anything that doesn't under basic human instincts which are survival and reproduction. The benefit of this definition is that it's a broad and inclusive definition. When a new art comes it doesn't have to contradict. The downside is that it can reject art that was made for reasons beyond for just art's sake. For example, what is someone makes a painting to attract a lady, what if someone writes a story so that he could get money to pay his rent, what if someone makes propaganda to progress his ideologies? Are these still art?
The second is that all art is communication, a dialogue between artist and audience. It could be as complex as Star Trek talking about the needs of the many vs the needs of the few or as simple a a James Bond movie saying 'Look at this guy. This guy is cool." Doesn't matter how abstract it is or isn't if it communicates something it's art. The problems are that: 1.) Does this mean my conversation with my friends about pizza a form of art? 2.) If I draw something with the intent of it being shown to no one but myself, which I do a lot, is it still art?
I'm probably not the first person to come up with this and it sound like a softer version of intitutionalist theories but I think a useful way of defining art. Art is what ever a large enough number of people agree is art.
How about these?
Essence of Games:
•Goal is to have fun, and
•There is a win or lose outcome, and
•The outcome is not impactful. For example, nobody would die if you failed.
Essence of Art:
•Man-made, and
•One of the goals is to be aesthetically pleasing, ie, beauty for beauty's sake. Whether it fails at it or not is irrelevant.
*Art is a creation that demonstrates a talent on the part of the creator and which seeks to acquire recognition of said talent from some, if not most or all, of those who experience it by means of their senses, depending on the type of art in question* (Most art forms are seen, like Paintings, Plays, Films, Books, Sculptures, etc., but many are also heard, like Music, Films, Plays, etc., some can also be smelled and/or tasted, especially Cuisine or even Perfume Making, and a few art forms can be also be touched)
but... all games *do* very obviously share one unifying essential trait. They are all at their core simulated conflicts/problems that you, the player, seek to resolve/fix. Chess, football, KOTOR, poker, a footrace, WoW, solitaire... Everything and anything that can accurately be described as a game fits this criterion.
The sound you made at 5:03 is my definition of art.
I think art is so broad that literally anything can be could art. I belive art is something that 1 was made and 2 makes you feel something or think. Very broad I know but I think it's the only definition I have that fits everything I consider as art
I would say everything can count as art. Whatever it is, someone can probably find meaning and beauty in everything. So there is nothing that noone can enjoy as art, making everything art.
All art has to exist in some physical form and can be observed in some way(?), music as sound waves, stories as books etc.
But can you have a piece of art that was completely unobserved? Or is the only way to have art exist is for it to be observed? OR is it just 'bad' art because it doesn't fulfill its function?
Marvel Mockingjay Isn't art just a label supposed to give recognition to a certain object? And to be given recognition widely, any object will have to be physically existent.
Do people exist because we observe them, or do people exist because they serve a good or bad function?
And if there are people who can create a good or bad function, how do those people go about talking to their university professors about this?
There was in fact a piece of art made with this exact purpose - helium canisters released in the desert, with no observers, and not recorded. There is some debate about whether this is, in fact, 'art'.
Art is philosophy in practice that occurs when time is spent deeply observing, listening and perceiving the world without a fixed goal.
Something illustrative here is that the question of whether we would recognize alien art as art kind of already happened here on Earth, where colonizers often put indigenous peoples' art in natural history museums, not art museums.
which is not to say they don't recognize it as art or that it's completely alien but it's not a consumable product of their own culture and takes on completely different meaning.
Whereas, really, the aesthetic elements of indigenous cultures aren't really different from the aesthetic elements of colonizing cultures, and its instructive to think about that.
A good starting point for art could be reflection. Is the art or artist reflecting on something, either public or private? Reflection inherently highlights something, what we or the artist find important/not important, an event that is captured, in some part by the piece of art or commentary through reflection, highlighting something through selective reflection, either public or private.
Since our senses are not perfect and our mind inherently contains biases and faults and assumptions, reflection, selective or replicating, could be considered a reflection of perspective, both in thought and experience. Every time you see it, then reflect and create, it changes due to perspective like a photocopier or an organism.
Maybe.
I've regurgitated this a lot:
Given that it's anonymously publishes, conveys a message/feeling, has no instrumental purpose, and its creator has no pressure to create it, restroom graffiti can be argued to be the purest form of art.
An interesting take on some of the more traditional definitions, is all.
I would argue that a work of art is an attempt to create something with the intention of producing an experience which transcends what currently has been experienced. It's an attempt to expand what's possible to experience by a human being. Critique on this view is appreciated.
Wouldn't that mean that "Institutional Theories" basically mean only a select few rich people get to pick between "Essentialism" and "Functionalism".. ? Which I guess could be interesting to think about in terms of, how institutions managed to gatekeep what the 'correct' theories are from the people who make the art?
Art is a creation with the purpose of storytelling. Art seems so ethereal and arbitrary because you can find a story in anything; whether that story is intricate or good does not matter. It may still be regarded as art.
I was actually offered a place at the royal college of art and also an apprenticeship with the BBC when I was 16 based on the art work I had done - I didn't ask for them... I went to a shitty midlands school, so it wasn't even something I thought I could do, but my art teacher apparently knew people. But I turned those positions down - I was much more interested in science. I knew the mind was limited - I was more inspired by what the mind was made of and other things beyond my imagination... an imagination which I had quite frankly already used up (I was getting bored of the limits of my own mind). LOL - I surrendered myself to nature!
Liking the props Olly!
I'd also reccomend people checking out the art assignments video "case for abstraction", I thought it was an interesting counter to the common "yeah but anyone could paint that etc," that's often said of abstract art.
The thing with art is that we have two concepts of art that we mix together.
First: Art as the act of creating something that is an expression of a feeling/feeling for they joy of doing so.
Second: Some form experience that stirs up feelings for some reason.
If a modern piece of "art" does not stir up strong feelings inside you it may still be art for the creator, but then a different definition of art.
When a designer designs a car that designer may do it just as a part of menial labor. So for that person it is not art. But for the buyer of that car it may be are in a different way.
In Behaviourism
there are a couple main functions for behaviour (sensory reinforcement, social /attention , access to a tangible item, and escape.
Two behaviours with different functions can both still be counted as behaviour
Similarly,
I think art has a couple common functions and could, in theory, be categorized by these functions.
Something I've been wondering about for a while now, and now I will share my conclusion (aren't you lucky). Art is any human contrivance which evokes or has the potential to evoke a visceral emotional response.
So, a corpse is art? (Sorry.) But seriously, that seems a bit broad :)
Felix Troendle
It is broad, but look at how many different things people attribute as art. Painting, sculpture, writing, dance, film, photographs, weaving, landscaping, music, automotive design, combat... it seems to be due more to the reaction than the actual item or subject.
I would actually agree with you Deep Astray. But yeah... it should be narrowed somehow...
This most closely agrees with my definition of art. I see the two key portions of this definition as "human contrivance" and "emotional response."
bamischijfje123, yes, that's a performance, lol
Very nice eye openener. I think that glove story is great, because It shows how, if the definition of art is subjective, the art itself can be unintended, which is contrary to the etymology of the word, because then natural phenomena could be considered art. It shows how context is important aswell. :)
I'd argue that art is about the creative intention. For any given piece of art, a person has gone through the effort of creating it, or at the very least intentionally giving it new context, and declaring it a creative work.
I'm 90% sure that the drawing of a Scottish town in pen is depicting the town of St Andrews from the pier. Featured very prominently are the ruins of the cathedral and there even seems to be students in robes.
The "I could have done that" argument seems bulletproof..........
I mean, it depends on your view on art. Consider this example: I'm walking in a field when I notice a specific arrangement of flowers that looks aesthetically pleasing. I quickly snap a picture with my cell phone, and that evening there's a snowstorm and all the flowers die. Yes, anyone could have taken that picture, but I was the one who was there, I was the one who recognized the appeal of it, and I was the one who took the opportunity to take the picture.
Another argument, the more pretentious one, is that it's not what the piece ultimately looks like so much as the how or why the artist did it. Let's be real: Jackson Pollock's paintings aren't that nice to look at. But his methodology was fascinating, very different from what anybody else was doing. Or take that infamous exhibit of blank canvases. Those were all about the stories: one artist imagined all the potential, another slept next to it and imagined the canvas absorbing his dreams... basically, it's the narrative that's being sold, not the piece itself.
LOL..... Anytime someone says, "I could have done ThAT," I usually like to say, "...but you Didn't!!" Obviously, you should have but you didn't!! Hell, I "could have" invented the Internet.....but I didn't!! I "could have" found a Million dollars in the parking lot....but I didn't!!
If that argument applies, cover songs shouldn't be a thing. We can still recognize that Johnny Cash sang a really good version of Hurt.
Doesn't really mean that the work in question is art though. What a lot of the "I could have done that" comments are really trying to point out the lack of skill and aesthetic value of in a work. For example, a canvas just painted completely blue. Should such a work really be considered art? Should such a work cost over 40 million dollars? I say fuck no.
Notice the three questions you're really asking here. "Should such a work really be considered art?" is actually two questions hidden under the guise of passive voice: "Should I consider this work art?" No, you don't have to think it's art if you don't want to. "Should others consider this work art?" That's up to them; apparently they see some kind of value in it you don't. "Should such a work cost over 40 million dollars?" Again, that's entirely up to the buyer and the seller. Apparently, the person buying it thinks there's a story in that painting worth 40 mil. Like I said in my post, just because you don't see value in a particular something doesn't mean you get to run around saying, "Stop! You can only value things the same way I do!"
Significantly in Japan, the 'sublime' can be found in the act of drinking a cup of tea, which is seen as an "art". Beauty is found in an old beat up teacup or an aged blackened bamboo tea scoop.
cracked up laughing when you said "just giving up" didn't expect it. Just had my first Philosophy and Literature lecture and it was covering this kind of thing. Appreciate your channel loads. Thanks.
What about Arte is whatever makes you feel something and things of something, I know this is a broad definition but in my opinion it works. For example Morgan Art can make some people think "I could have done that" while "traditiona" arte makes people feel a wide range of emotions.
An artefact that is proposed by the artist to be "art" is art. Even though one could consider something bad, it doesn't follow it isn't art. It can be said to be "bad art". I find this to be very powerful argument, not sure what it's called in philosophy.
I absolutely loved this! Hope it's the beginning of a series on aesthetic philosophy .
I think that something is art if it fits the following requirements:
Created by a person (paintings). Or recontextualized by a person who considered it to be art (placing a soup can in a museum).
And a significant part of its intended or current function is its perception of others for a purpose other than informing them (e.g. speed limit signs don't count).
I remember seeing a lecture on UCTV about aesthetics in a scientific of biological sense. There was an interesting experiment regarding seagulls with red striped beaks. And they managed to produce a super beak that gull chicks much preferred by having more and thinner stripes. And perhaps humans too have an analogous evolutionary response to the forms, sounds and movements found in art. I think it also had V.S. Ramachandran discussing Indian art in the neurological sense too.
Maybe biology can inform the philosophical understanding of art, as it might the philosophical understanding of desire.
I believe you can define art, not in the object itself, but in the experience the observer is having with the object. this definition makes the observer essential to the art, and it expands the umbrella of art to include anything the "looker" finds aesthetically pleasing.
Hmm. I think, for me, art is about conversation. Specifically, art produces some response in the viewer-- I think anything can have artistic value based on what you see in it, what it makes you feel and think.
I think you can also "do" art, in which case it's intended to provoke a conversation.
The glove at the museum, for example-- that wasn't intended to be art, and most people, as you said, were wondering if they were /supposed/ to be looking at it. They were thinking about themselves, not about any artistic value. You can walk straight past the Mona Lisa without a second glance if it doesn't provoke a response in you.
(I know this is an old video, obviously, but I wanted to respond anyway 'cause I thought it was interesting)
So, I am an armchair philosopher at best, and my partner and I argue about what is and isn't art sometimes... And I'm kind of surprised none of these theories cover my basic thought:
Art is that which someone presents with intention to cause a reaction, usually emotional, but not necessarily. And I think this definition is robust enough to encompass almost all forms (current or future), but just specific enough to be a dilineating feature.
I am not educated enough to know if this is a wild theory, or if it's just one that wasn't gone over in this video, though.
I like a bit of pluralism, and a bit of functionalism. My vague personal definition of art is, something that uses its aesthetic qualities to evoke or create a certain thought or feeling. But obviously that's a bit broad. I also like the 'art is anything someone decides is art' definition, even though it's even more broad.
But, I'd rather paint a bit too broadly. There have always been people, smugly sat back, asking if (x) was _really_ art or not. People used to say impressionism wasn't _really_ painting, and non-verse poetry wasn't _really_ poetry. And too often people try to de-legitimize art they don't like, by trying to shore up and make rigid the "real" definition of art. Especially things like "low" art, folk art... art from minority communities. So I'm personally more inclined to keep the definition open.
Here's a definition I found on New Statesman, which I think is reasonable: "What counts as art, and what makes it valuable?Malcom Budd reckons art does these things: prompts an emotional response in its viewer; gives them pleasure; grants them the satisfaction of appreciating a work well done; allows them to feel they’re communicating with the mind of the artist; and encourages them to develop an attitude towards the attitude that it asserts."
Art and crime are the end results of a productive society, but also results of a system which provides fixes retroactively. A proactive society actively incorporates people's needs and wants, whether they appear in a dramatic longing unfulfilled by daily work's normalcy or simple materialist need.
I think that games all have something in common, they all have a goal of some sorts. In football the goal is to kick the goal in the net, in golf it is to hit the ball in the hole and in The Knights of The Old Republic it is to progress through the story line, do quests and earn xp points.
Please teach me everything in life, with you most complicated matters are not only easy but fun !
Im curious about an economic definition of art. I read the sentence "Art is Art and everything else is everything else" implying that art is unique. However if we for a moment try to dismiss this notion and look at art as a product that is traded and experienced. In this case art would merely be an avantgarde product. Critics might argue that a painting is worth more than its canvas. Countering the point we might say that art in part is an intangible idea and thereby falls under the notion of interlectual property. Art in that sense is merely another product of which an experience can be build around (see Pine & Gilmores (1999) idea of the experience economy).
I've always thought of art as creative expression + some amount of thought or skill. From there you can examine any piece of "art," and argue whether or not it has those two components.
I think what makes art art is largely its context. Two otherwise identical pieces could be art or not art, just from being in a different context. And that includes stuff like who currently is looking. I.e., while you could find some features or functions common in some subsets of art, where large parts of population (either general population or "The Art World") would agree "yes, this is art", ultimately it's a very personal notion. It just so happens that the least controversial pieces of art do tend to have similar properties, but I don't think you could, like, nail down necessary and sufficient conditions even for such uncontroversial pieces. The art producer *and* the art consumer both matter to whether something is art.
While defining art is a difficult task, I think the question of when can a piece be considered art is easier to answer. What most people consider shitty art, like ketchup on a canvas for example, can be considered art if at least one person can look at it and see it as art (I don't know how, maybe he sees something we can't see). Like ugly people, how do we decide if someone is ugly? When 99% of humans see someone as ugly but 1% find him beautiful, is he really ugly? That's what I think about for example minimalist art or abstract art, I personally don't get most of it but some people do, so it must be art.
The first answer that came to my mind when you asked 'what is art?' is expression. An expression of an idea, concept or emotion or literally anything is art. Maybe that doesn't make sense, there are probably loads of flaws. Who tf knows
Also, it may be that object being art is not actually a property of the object itself but our understanding of its purpose. So then it makes no sense to look at objects themselves for some property that they have in common.
So, for example, what is a seat? It is anything that someone would like to use for sitting. What makes a seat? Just the intention of the person I guess.
One of the issues that present in this video is whether the category preseeds the particulars or does the particulars preseeds the category. Since particular pieces of art including the first piece of art was created then would the category of art be created as well? To put it another way, when small children play, they don't think in terms of games, if the children were to look back they would be able to call their play a game.
To me, art is defined by its purpose. Something is art if its creator (designer, artist...?) wanted it to be an artwork. A glove on the ground wouldn’t be art if someone unnoticedly dropped it, but it would be art if somebody voluntarily put it there with an artistic intention. I’m not sure if this is a “functionalist” definition... A deliberately created work of art would still be so, whether or not it succeeds to accomplish that “artistic function.”
Now, I’m not sure this isn’t some kind of circular definition (how do you create something with an artistic intention without having defined what art is?) and I don’t know if it’s perfectly consistent... but it’s the best one i’ve come out with!
Perhaps it's not so much about our perception, but the artist's intention. If you were standing in an art gallery, to your left was the statue of David and to your right, a fire extinguisher, you would know that the statue was art because Michelangelo intended for it to be art. Where as the man who placed the fire extinguisher intended to prevent a disaster. So art shares the common feature of 'the intention to be art' so to speak.
IDK just spit balling here...
My own definition: art is anything that I bring into my life without it contributing to my survival or day-to-day tasks, but solely because I like the thing or it has a special meaning to me.
Examples:
- I get a sword because I like how it looks and put it on my wall. In this context it is (it becomes) art. If I were to buy a sword because I need it to fight it wouldn't be art, while it might still be the same sword.
- The framed song lyrics Olly showed are something with special meaning to him, while someone who sings in a choir might find this way of storing them just impractical.
In my definition, what is and what isn't art is a purely subjective matter. And what is displayed as art are simply things that a large enough number of people agree upon that it is meaningful and/or enjoyable.
I really like the idea that everything artificially organized is art.