Is this art?

[anthony]

OK. But we have to start somewhere, objectively - before we delve into the subjective (or, put

another way, the instant psycho-epistemological assessment by a viewer.)

What is more precise and explanatory than "art is a selective re-creation of reality

according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments"? Or, more neutral?

For an extreme example, a splodge of brown paint on a dark canvas can qualify.

If the splodge is recognizable as filth, and the background taken as the void, as human existence - there's the "re-creation of reality". When the artist, or a savvy connoisseur of modern art, identifies the work as indicating "Life is shit" - there's his "metaphysical value-judgment".

We'd take his word for it.

Bad naturalist art, but art nonetheless.

[Jonathan]

Is this art?

I would say that it's not art, but that it's a photograph of a work of art, unless the fisheye distortion and the reflections of the room and lightbulb were intended to be expressive effects, in which case it's art.

J

[Guyau]

Tony (re #76):

Rand did not consider such a painting as you describe as a re-creation of reality in her intended sense. See the last several paragraphs of her essay “Basic Principles of Literature.”

That one gives an interpretation to a creation (or even to a natural scene of life), an interpretation that expresses a metaphysical value judgment, is also not enough for satisfying that characteristic of what she was trying to isolate as art. In a visual work of art, the iconic and indexical representations and associations have to make their own case, in the cultural context, for meaning of the work. If there is so little constraint there that most any meaning made of it is as good as many others so freely imagined, then there is little of the artistic concretization of some metaphysical value judgments there, in the sense of artistic concretization that Rand was after.

Similarly, if I string a sequence of words, I do not thereby always make a sentence. If I generate the sequence under the right conditions of free association, a shrink might use it to find a meaning of some dream I’ve had. Supposing it is sound to attribute such meanings to dreams, it is the dream, not my set of associations, that comes closer to being a work of art (a picture in which one is moving), though falling short of that by lack of the elements contributed by an awake creator of fiction and creator of the visuals.

Further, if I string sentences together to compose an essay, I have not thereby created a work of fiction, which is what Rand would require for literary art, with all its re-creation of reality and concretization of metaphysical value judgments.* (Scroll down to the second half of the linked post.)

[anthony]

Stephen, thank you. At time of writing I was aware of crossing the line, and am fully deserving

of your correction. My intention was to illustrate Rand's definition, but it was absurd and clumsy, of course. Put it down to some wry hyperbole I indulge myself in, and do not always suppress. It was worth it just to read your essay - one hell of a fine work, if I may say.

(I've been promising myself an overdue revision of The Romantic Manifesto - every reading reveals

further layers of that remarkable book.)

[caroljane]

Jonathan, regarding Best Friends Forever necklaces -- no, I haven't seen them. But that is a good and rational way to preserve our mutual heiriness, or what have you.

You may not know, but I am also an amateur sculptor. If you could sketch the design, I will make a prototype, cast it, and then bake copies using either clay or acrylic clay.

You know my home email and I know yours, but we had better be transparent about this. So, post the sketch, I will post my interpretation in plasticene, and we can take it from there.

If I can make a suggestion, it would be that leaping upward be incorporated somehow.

(one thing occurs to me, though - will my (Adam Selene-confirmed) Socialism be a problem? Or my Progressive-ism?)

-- in other news, Michelle Bachman has been re-appointed to the House Intelligence Committee. She is embroiled in a wee scandal-ette, in which it is insinuated or implied that she uses the secrets she learns on the Committee to make charges against sitting house members and members of the administration. Usually Mooslem related folks. She does not name them, but takes a leaf from McCarthy and simply lays out a thesis that the adminstration shelters al-Qaeda sympathizers and operatives, including a top aide to Clinton.

Well, really. When I sent you a picture of my brain. you just said it had nice contours and made you think of a clear winter sky, or some painting that I looked up which was just all blank with a kind of blob on it.. ,No jewellery was even mentioned .Not that I could be jealous or anything ha, ha I am above all such pettiness, but just asking, you know -- is that friendship? Is that art?

[william.scherk]

Share with me your address backstage and I will send you an even more special gift by parcel post ... because, in the words of Elton John's lyricist: "That's what [mutually-trading independent instances of Man) are for ... the good times, the good times, I'll be by your side when you instantiate my values, that's what 'Friends' are fooooooor."

[Selene]

Share with me your address backstage and I will send you an even more special gift by parcel post ... because, in the words of Elton John's lyricist: "That's what [mutually-trading independent instances of Man) are for ... the good times, the good times, I'll be by your side when you instantiate my values, that's what 'Friends' are fooooooor."

Are you permitted to ship body parts by Parcel Post in Canada?

[caroljane]

Share with me your address backstage and I will send you an even more special gift by parcel post ... because, in the words of Elton John's lyricist: "That's what [mutually-trading independent instances of Man) are for ... the good times, the good times, I'll be by your side when you instantiate my values, that's what 'Friends' are fooooooor."

Are you permitted to ship body parts by Parcel Post in Canada?

As L. Magnotta demonstrated, Yes we can.

(Can`t believe nobody got this one in first!)

[Selene]

LOL!

Ah, it is so refreshing that the females who have. "staying power," and, continue, on our OL journey into the philosophical future, are incredibly perceptive, and, as Bob would say, over and over again, "smart as paint!" {All corrections on the "grammar," "punctuation" and "sentence structure," will be appreciated.}

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luka_Magnotta

Luka Rocco Magnotta (born Eric Clinton Kirk Newman; July 24, 1982) is a Canadian pornographic actor and model accused of killing and dismembering Lin Jun, a Chinese international student, then mailing his severed limbs to the offices of Canadian political parties and to elementary schools in another province.^[10][11]

Could you not ask for a better story?

A CANADIAN pornographic actor!

He "dismembered" an Asian.

Mailed the parts to political parties!

Thank you Carol.

A....

[william.scherk]

Is this art?

-- even knowing it was a photographic image digitally transformed by MSK's recommended program (Sketch Drawer)?

The truth: is ugly.

Edited February 11, 2013 by william.scherk

[BaalChatzaf]

Is this art?

It looks like something one would see through a microscope. What is it?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Jonathan]

Is it shawarma? If so, then yes, it's art. Or is it an image of burritos? If so, then no, it's not art. Images of shawarma objectively communicate metaphysical meaning where burritos do not. They only communicate mere "moods."

J

[Brant Gaede]

Just as an "artist" can call his work "art," someone else can call it "not art." They are both free to be right and not wrong unless they posit standards and then self-contradict those standards.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

I got it! That image is a petrograph. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrographic_microscope

Ba'al Chatzaf

[william.scherk]

Bob, you call yourself a scientific man and a Jew?

Ha!

You cannot even tell a digitized photo of matzo on a plate? (seriously, I gave a clue in the edited post above, 'the ugly truth')**.

Jonathan, it is not shawarma and it is not burritto. The dough is extra-chewy, however, and the fact of the art is that wheat in the form of flat breads have emerged in wheat cultures everywhere, whether Chinese pancakes or one of six kinds of chapati/naan whathaveyou.


I otherwise agree with your sage analysis. Bob may have been puckish instead of myopic and knew indeed that unleavened bread is various and that microphotographic examination of the fine grain in prepared slides might establish what the actual kind of rock was depicted. Puckish indeed, since as I say the dough is extra-chewy while still being soft as a baby's cheek.

In other news, my sculpted Objecto-Heir bracelet project languishes in the workshop. Still waiting for your commercial 'art' design, Jonathan. Upward, naked, headback, dancing on the tips of our toes, exulting in the exhaltedness of O.

_________

** The image of Argentine-style Syrian Matzo before the digital fooferaw:

[caroljane]

Is this art?

-- even knowing it was a photographic image digitally transformed by MSK's recommended program (Sketch Drawer)?

The truth: is ugly.

Without checking out the answer or reading the rest of the thread until after I post, if this is art, the left hand corner of my fridge is a mini Louvre.

[Jonathan]

Jonathan, it is not shawarma and it is not burritto. The dough is extra-chewy, however, and the fact of the art is that wheat in the form of flat breads have emerged in wheat cultures everywhere, whether Chinese pancakes or one of six kinds of chapati/naan whathaveyou.

Damn it. You had to go and mention naan. Now I'm gonna have to go to the India Palace for lunch, both for the naan's nutrients and its metaphysical value-expressions.

In other news, my sculpted Objecto-Heir bracelet project languishes in the workshop. Still waiting for your commercial 'art' design, Jonathan. Upward, naked, headback, dancing on the tips of our toes, exulting in the exhaltedness of O.

Great art takes time, and this is going to be great art rather than "commercial 'art.'" And not just great art, but great heroically Romantic Objectivish art. So please try to be patient, and remember that your anxiety is a natural part of artistic collaboration, and that soon we'll trade positions, and you'll hope to not hear me begging, "When will you make an end?".

J

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob, you call yourself a scientific man and a Jew?

Ha!

https://rfbd.webex.com/mc0806l/meetingcenter/meetinginfo/meetinginfo.do?siteurl=rfbd&confID=1003501741&Action=MI&FrameSet=2&siteurl=rfbd&AT=MI&EventID=105477602&UID=1556564817&Host=7dbd9d0301730312075f5102161510090901532430020159063456&FrameSet=2&PW=NMTlmYjUzNzA0&rnd=0.6694396314778022&UUIDFromJAction=1556564817

Look at the first image in that wiki article I referenced and tell me how wrong I was.

At least I am scientific.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[william.scherk]

Jonathan, in case you haven't seen this already, a skookum BBC video on art, brain, emotion:

In his book The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, Dr Kandel explores the science behind our emotional responses to works of art.

In Klimt's painting Judith, for example, the gold surface and soft rendering of the body trigger the release of dopamine, activating pleasure circuits, he says. The repetitive pattern stimulates serotonin, which regulates sleep. And Dr Kandel says the combination of the two so intrigues us.

Some log-rolling from a fellow neuroscientific name, at Amazon:

“Eric Kandel has succeeded in a brilliant synthesis that would have delighted and fascinated Freud: Using Viennese culture of the twentieth century as a lens, he examines the intersections of psychology, neuroscience, and art. The Age of Insight is a tour-de-force that sets the stage for a twenty-first-century understanding of the human mind in all its richness and diversity.”

—Oliver Sacks, author of The Mind’s Eye and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

Edited February 14, 2013 by william.scherk

[william.scherk]

In re the skookum BBC video on art, brain, emotion:

In Klimt's painting Judith, for example, the gold surface and soft rendering of the body trigger the release of dopamine, activating pleasure circuits, he says. The repetitive pattern stimulates serotonin, which regulates sleep.

This gives me an idea for my next 'is this art' query for Jonathan and Brant. If I use a gold surface and soft rendering of a body, will dopamine surge? If I also have a repetitive pattern embedded, will serotonin really be stimulated?

In the meantime, zzzzzzzzzz. Klimt is making me sleeeepy. Very sleeeepy.

Edited February 15, 2013 by william.scherk

[Jonathan]

Jonathan, in case you haven't seen this already, a skookum BBC video on art, brain, emotion:

Thanks. I don't remember having seen that video, but I remember having dicsussions on similar research/views that someone posted on, I think, the old SOLOYahoo group. The O-argument in response to it was that, although colors, textures, patterns, etc. can have certain effects on people, they don't count as art because they are only an automatic physical response to stimuli, where art is conceptual. My response was something like, "Well can't something which causes automatic physical responses be used for a conceptual purpose?" To which they probably responded, "Fuck off, pomo."

Anyway, it's time for the unveiling of my end of our collaborative masterpiece. Below is my design for our co-intellectual heirs split medallion.

If you'll recall, I was intially thinking that a split brain would be the way to go -- like the split heart BFF pendants. But the more I played with that concept, the less it seemed to work. Then I remembered that you had mentioned the novel idea of incorporating leaping upward. It was such a brave and original new concept that it took a while for it to sink in that it might just work. And as you can see above, man, does it ever work!

My idea here is that you and I are leaping upward, with heads thrown back in metaphysical joy, in front of the sun (which is a subtle symbol of a "sunlit universe"), and, in midair, we happen to notice each other and realize that we share a common love of existence, so we momentarily clasp hands and appoint each other intellectual heirs.

The jagged split down the middle is borrowed from BFF pendants, but is improved upon here, or I should say perfected, so that it becomes a lightning bolt representing the flash and power of our mutual intellectual awesomeness.

The figure representing me is tinted green to represent my capitalist views, and yours is tinted red to represent your commie leanings.

I did take this farther than I had expected, and, although I already view it as one of the top five masterpieces ever created, it's still technically a prelimanary sketch, and I'm expecting that your creative input will help to make it the greatest work of art of all time.

J

[caroljane]

Humph. Very clever, I suppose. Why don't you boys just draw nice pictures of your mothers?

[Jonathan]

Because we're awesome Romanticists with heroic cores, that's why.

J

[caroljane]

Because we're awesome Romanticists with heroic cores, that's why.

J

Well, that's all very fine, but what money is there in that? My Jimmie wanted to paint that brazen hussy with the wooden leg - the very idea! But I got him to listen to sense.

[caroljane]

Not that I deny your heroicness, J. For a Minnesotan to depict himself cavorting naked in the February sunshine, that takes real courage. William in balmy BC likely carries on like that all the time, for all we know.