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RUSH

What Is Art?

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I mean really, what is it? By definition art is "The various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature, and dance." But in reality so much of art you see at exhibits is complete rubbish - or is it? They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I once saw an exhibit that consisted of a video showing this butt naked woman dancing. That's it. (How creative!) Another was just a single running shoe sitting in the middle of a room, within a glass box. There was a story on the wall about how "This shoe represents life. Every step taken means it gets a little more worn..." etc. So then, is everything art? People pay to see these things because they see "beauty," when the world and nature is full of beauty.

And then there are critics who "review" art. They use big words to describe something like this: http://wwwwwwwww.jodi.org/ (Which is also considered art by the way.) By what standards and values should we decide whether some "art" is good or bad, talented or untalented, successes or failures? How can we ever know what we think is right? Is nature art, or is that shoe art? Are both art? Are neither art?

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Everything can be considered art.

Minimalists are a prime example of what I mean (I remember Rauschenberg who passed a glass of water as a tree... Some of his other stuff was nice though), If you can come up with some bullshit story and meaning behind why you have just put a white dot on a piece of black paper then you can consider yourself a minimalist.

This post could be considered art, this forum and even the blue background of it...

But don't get me wrong, there is some "great" artists (In the eye of the beholder of course, in other words in my opinion) that do grand and complex pieces of artwork that actually take time and effort (and not putting something like a shoe in a box then pretending you are an artistic genius) to create a piece of magnificent work.

overall it really depends on what you think art is or better yet, what an artist thinks is art.

-

On a somewhat related note, I took art as a GCSE and they made us copy the styles of other artists and I can tell you for a fact that was one of the easiest/hardest things you could ever try and do depending on who you got (I am so jealous of the pricks that got minimalists as their focus).

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Sadly pop art essentially destroyed what little barriers were left and now shit in a can can be considered art.

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to make my points on this clear, i am going to put this into chapters.

1 - To me art is something which can never be formulated, an artist can never go to school and get a diploma in creating art. If you get a diploma to make art you are not making art but a business or company.

2 - art is born deep inside an artists mind the meaning of it can not simply be written down as it is part of a gigantic mental process, it flows out without pre-designed or designated ideas. it happens with the moment.

3 - i am certain many of the modern 'business and company' artists just invent the meaning of their creations after they made them... they had no meaning it where just moneybags needing a commercial. like with all the modern simple explosion filled action movies getting designated as 'deep' and 'exiting' psychological stories about life... all you see is a macho shooting things, or people fighting because it looks good.

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What a deep question, RUSH, allow me to post here for others to determine whether this is art.

 __ _  __  ___  ____    ____  _  _  ____  ____   __   ____ 
(  ( \(  )/ __)(  __)  (_  _)/ )( \(  _ \(  __) / _\ (    \
/    / )(( (__  ) _)     )(  ) __ ( )   / ) _) /    \ ) D (
\_)__)(__)\___)(____)   (__) \_)(_/(__\_)(____)\_/\_/(____/

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I am far from an art expert. However, I have my own concept of what I believe art is. It is a creation whose primary purpose is not functional, but rather designed to elicit an emotional response. For instance, you can build a bland, generic, rectangular brick structure to serve as shelter. However, architecture goes far beyond the functional, adding detail to the design of the structure whose purpose isn't simply pragmatic. Compare, for example, a bland, generic skyscraper vs. a cathedral. Now, a skyscraper, too, can be art, and maybe someone would call a bland skyscraper minimalist art, but there's nothing to the bland skyscraper beyond its basic functionality.

Or just think of something as simple as Doom level creation. It's incredibly easy to string together a series of rooms full of monsters with no details whatsoever. However, we all add details to those rooms that have nothing to do with gameplay but make them more appealing to the eye.

That's a reason I have a hard time considering that abstract, minimalist "line on a piece of paper" crap art. It doesn't elicit a reaction. Of course, it's entirely possible that it means something to the creator, but oftentimes you get the feeling it doesn't even mean anything to them, they're just doing it because they can get away with it (since art is ultimately in the eye of the beholder, so it's difficult to argue objectively that something isn't art).

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Technician said:

Sadly pop art essentially destroyed what little barriers were left and now shit in a can can be considered art.

I don't see why shit in a can can't be art. Granted, it's not very good art, but if the artist says it's supposed to make a statement, I don't see why it's not. Art doesn't have to be good to be art.

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The problem with art seems to be that since it only works if it has an effect on observers, context is everything.

Almost nobody ever argues those very-common landscape paintings aren't art, but they might not feel like anything other than a common decoration if you spend all your time in an environment so filled with them you can't see them anymore.

Sometimes those minimalist things work very well on their own. The best one I saw was a black orb suspended from an invisible thread. It was in a very bright alcove and made of a material that appeared to reflect no light at all. Why was this art? Because everybody who walked in there seemed a bit scared of it. It was neat because it was alien.

Then there's the sculpture my city put by the freeway one day. It looks like a huge pile of giant, shiny ball bearings. If it's meant to symbolize something nobody can tell because there isn't a plaque you can see. When I first passed it I asked my friend what they were building because it looked like material for a construction project.

Maybe those guys are knowingly scamming the art world. In that case, good for them! :D

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GreyGhost said:

If it serves no useful purpose, it must be art.


In that case, politicians would be artists. That makes sense.

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Art is a category. Ignorance or misunderstanding of how humans categorise the world is the source of various pointless and rancorous debates over exactly what constitutes a "true" example of something, be it art, a game, a sport, a crime, a planet, etc. Often this stems from an over-simplistic view of categories that includes several fallacies: That categories actually exist a priori in the structure of the universe, that the boundaries of categories are fixed and precise, and that all members of a category are equally valid.

In fact, all three of these are manifestly false. For example, every tree is individually distinct from every other tree, but due to shared characteristics we place them in a category called "trees". But the category "trees" does not actually exist in the world, it is a human idea, the same as the categories "plants" and "living things", into which a tree might also be placed. Similarly, the boundaries of the category "trees" are not always clear - one person might consider Bonsai as trees, while another might not. Or they might consider them as trees, but as a somehow less "good" example of a tree than, for example, an oak or beech tree.

We can try to reduce these ambiguities by using scientific measurement and legalistic language to nail down the exact definition of a particular category, but for some categories this is impossible. Art is one, because it does not relate to a set of similar objects in the world about which we can measure shared characteristics and precisely define boundaries. Art is too abstract and metaphysical a category, and attempts to define it inevitably end up too broad ("art is anything") or too narrow ("art is painting, drawing, music and literature").

The answer is to realise that art doesn't need to be defined. It's possible to enjoy it and talk about it without nailing it down, and it's possible for me to consider something a great work of art that someone else doesn't consider to be art at all.

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Zed said:

In that case, politicians would be artists. That makes sense.

Yep - bullshit artists, every one of them.

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Anything can be art but there is one major splitter: there is good and and then there is bad art. Somebody can claim what they are doing is art but it doesnt mean I enjoy it.

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If it's up for a Turner Prize, it isn't art.

I'd say the snobbish, hipster "intellectualism" in art is all just pretension to hide a lack of actual talent. People don't dispute paintings, sculptures and the like because you don't need to disappear up your own arse to understand and appreciate it. I think art does have purpose though - the purpose is either to express yourself, entertain others or to add to a location aesthetically (if not necessarily architecturally)... So by my definition, the visual assets in games are art, but the game itself isn't :p

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Phobus said:

So by my definition, the visual assets in games are art, but the game itself isn't :p

I agree with that.

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Art is something with an aesthetical function, I mean, it serves a purpose to give us an aesthetical impression, beyond just thinking about its real "functionality". Art things can have other "more useful" functions. They can, but don't have to be made with the aesthetical function in mind. But what I've described in the first sentence is what I consider a defining characteristic of art.

Good art is something that gives us a stronger impression, makes us think beyond our usual borders of experience, makes us think more deeply about the skill put in the piece of art by its author, and makes us realize that it's far above our skill possibilities to craft out something similar casually and effortlessly, if at all.

Bad art gives a less strong impression and can be easily imitated or reproduced in a similar quality as the model is, and by pretty much anyone.


By these "definitions" (that I just made up, according to my feelings), various things can be considered art, less of them can be considered good art. For example, regarding the Doom community scene, I find Esselfortium's, DrDoctor's, darknation's textures to be definite examples of a good art. Also maps themselves - the great thing is that art can show in various different places, ways and means. Notably artful levels I've had an experience with were from Espi, from gggmork, or Darch's mapping "realism".

Not just things, but also some processes or authors actions can be artful themselves. I see Obsidians speedmaps/speedmapping as a form of good art because I admire how unified, purposefully crafted and enclosed "idea-packages" his maps are, but probably also because I realize the quick process from which they originate.

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Eris Falling said:

If somebody wants to let a black circle on white background to aesthetically impact him, then the piece can be considered an art.

Nobody can convince me to find it a good art, though.

(then again, I don't really understand art as I'm overally artistically untalented, but I feel I have a right to have this opinion)

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Here's some abstract music to go with it :P
I'll have you know it got to number 1 in the UK.

I agree with you though. We've basically immortalised a black circle.
You don't need artistic talent to create art.
Still, as long as the ones who actually can produce REAL art aren't pushed aside by the abstract rubbish, it's cool.

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Eris Falling said:

You don't need artistic talent to create art.

That's something I agree with as well. Time and effort *can* be enough to replace a native talent in an attempt to create art, both emulated art and original art, even a good art.

I can imagine myself studying gggmork maps for 10 hours, emulating a comparable idea for 100 hours, and coming out with an equally artful and mindblowingly-original masterpiece in his style, eventually. Similarly with any other particular artist I can think off, or (better) some original art style that forms in my head after hundreds of hours thinking. Who values the means how the art is created, the important is just that it exists.

Of course, I'll better let gggmork's job to gggmork himself, as he undoubtly has an artistic talent, which I admire. gggmork - sorry for using you as an example, man, you're great. :D

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I'm with Jonathan on this. You simply don't need to care about some stupid definitions. Enjoy life.

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The thing about art is you can take objects and cobble them together, like the fore-mentioned shoe in a box which doesn't seem like very good art, yet somebody could photograph, paint, draw, etc the subject in question and turn it into something worthy of being called art.

I prefer to create art than talk about what it is or isn't. :p

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Games are a medium with several arts involved.

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The inability to objectively defne art, in addition to the continual birthing and decaying of various trends within art--not to mention how photography, film and computer graphics have influenced it--have resulted in a startling array of things that might constitute as art. The last century has strayed quite far from traditional paint and sculpture, which is great. But there are things I've either personally observed or read about that are so asinine, I can only call it art in its most desperate form.

In the past year or so, I've viewed a few modern art exhibits and was shocked by the blatant disregard for professionalism. Here were people older than me, scribbling on wrinkly paper; crudely doodling over found objects; representing the female orgasm with juvenile, bland, thinly viewed vaginal sculptures; filling entire rooms with arbitrarily colored sand piles; draping another room with ugly, transparent curtains and hastily splattering paint in the center; displaying a low quality home video of a car's dashboard and randomly splicing it with blackness and a high pitched tone; displaying a wall of videos consisting of two men mucking around with everyday objects; masking drab abstractions with hideous, ill-placed shadowy blobs; carving a uniform cube out of hay; messily painting huge canvases with no regard for fundamentals; it comes off as desperate.

Whenever I bothered to read of the artists' intent, it made me loathe the work more. Did I react emotionally? You bet I did. Contempt, dismissal, repulsion, sarcasm. I felt I could see right through them, as if to say, "You're not fooling me. You have a degree, so it doesn't matter that neither your ideas nor their execution is anything other than immature. People will still take you seriously.

I tread between commercial and fine art. To me, some of the greatest modern art can be found in contemporary media. Have you stopped to examine the incredibly human facial expressions and hand details of the first two seasons of "Ren and Stimpy"? Or Disney animation from the 1930s and 40s? Then there's films like Blade Runner, The Holy Mountain and Eraserhead, which are so vivid and immersive to me that I get emotional just mentioning them. Film and animation are what I pay attention to in modern art.

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It's not the artist who decides if it is art, but the viewers. What is art to me may mean nothing to another. I guess that's why art is such an amazing concept.

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