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The social obligation to be bad at things

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Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#131

Post by arexxbifs »

askafriend wrote: post #123
arexxbifs wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your works are displayed in a museum, you're not a struggling amateur. You're supposed to have some kind of ability and that ability shouldn't have to be defended by pointless platitudes. "Modern" "Art" is very far from someone actually creating something out of passion or curiosity. Last time I visited the Guggenheim, there were three different "works" from three different "artists" on display - all of them were…

> I could have done that, but I didn't - because I'm not sufficiently full of shit. I think you're missing the point though. The whole significance of that exhibition is that esteemed artists are given a grand platform (with a long history) to express any idea they want and this (the 3 blank canvases) is the one they chose. That in and of itself is the art. They had no obligation to display those 3 blank canvases. In…

> That in and of itself is the art.

I'm pretty sure we could argue for the rest of our lives about what art is. Suffice to say, I disagree.

> they could have just as easily whipped up something that was technically impressive

I honestly doubt that. At one point, most avant-garde artists were also very capable craftsmen, but that's a long time ago.

> there is also immense beauty in the same exercise

While there is truth to the old adage of the eye of the beholder, I happen to believe there is also universal, objective beauty. I sincerely disagree that any of the two need to be constructed by some contrived abstraction and over-interpretation of the act of exhibiting three blank canvases.

> I think in that artist's eyes "mission accomplished"

I think they considered their mission accomplished by the sheer increase in worth their work will have from being displayed at the Guggenheim.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#132

Post by camjohnson26 »

askafriend wrote: post #123
arexxbifs wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your works are displayed in a museum, you're not a struggling amateur. You're supposed to have some kind of ability and that ability shouldn't have to be defended by pointless platitudes. "Modern" "Art" is very far from someone actually creating something out of passion or curiosity. Last time I visited the Guggenheim, there were three different "works" from three different "artists" on display - all of them were…

> I could have done that, but I didn't - because I'm not sufficiently full of shit. I think you're missing the point though. The whole significance of that exhibition is that esteemed artists are given a grand platform (with a long history) to express any idea they want and this (the 3 blank canvases) is the one they chose. That in and of itself is the art. They had no obligation to display those 3 blank canvases. In…

Except that entire idea is cliche at this point. It’s not that we don’t get the artist’s point, it’s that that point has been made to death already and doesn’t reveal anything new.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#133

Post by rkeene2 »

trgn wrote: post #92
rkeene2 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, that is a meme regarding modern art ("I could have done that" + "But you didn't").

When I make a snarky comment about that sort of concept art, and somebody gives me the "but you didn't" response, I usually double down out of spite. When the only thing anybody can say about some art that it's "interesting" or "cool", it generally means it's pretty awful.

Art is about how we convey emotional information -- the "But you didn't" part of modern art is a reference to the hard part of creating art being the conception, not the implementation.

In other words, making is art is hard NOT because of the physical act BUT because of the intellectual labor of distilling or serializing emotions into something that can be made is hard.

It's kind of a two-for-one in this way since you can delight people with the novel use of technology -- something they have the same access to as the artist and genuinely could have physically done as well as convey the actual message of the art.

Writing software is generally pretty similar, the hard part isn't mashing the keys in the right order -- almost anyone can do that, literally. It's asserting a what will be out of the infinite possibilities of what could be.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#134

Post by camjohnson26 »

xigency wrote: post #98
the_af wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember the first time I saw "Fountain" by Duchamps, which, for the uninitiated, is a urinal, on its side, signed and dated by the artist I totally, completely agree with your point and with the parent post ("I could have created this", "but you didn't"), but... ...you can still, after all of this, conclude that the piece of art is snobbish, artless garbage. In fact I reserve the right to do so. I agree with you…

I’ve been considering Shia LaBeouf’s definition, in response to the question “Are memes art?” on Hot Ones. Art is anything that moves you. > I dislike it or consider it snobbish and not worth my time (or even "not art"). Sounds like you had a reaction to the piece or at least the performance art of signing it off as art.

Literally anything can move you, so by that definition everything is art. If everything is art the term loses all meaning.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#135

Post by ericmcer »

Is there really droves of people waiting to shame others who aren’t good at things? Generally every community I have joined (rock climbing, lifting, programming) has been really supportive to new people. Maybe most of this shame OP is feeling is internal? I can relate to that, it’s hard to be weak/bad at something.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#136

Post by renewiltord »

This is the same misunderstanding as the one that leads to angst at interview selection. You don't have a social obligation to do anything. It's just that you share some characteristics with a lot of kooks.

For instance, I have a few views that would flip the bozo bit on most people (I am anti-organ-donation, pro-lower-quality-healthcare, anti-Office-of-the-First-Lady, and I think people tried to scapegoat Andrew Wakefield for a lot of shit) so I don't usually state those views and attempt to explain until people know I'm not a bozo.

I know that P(bozo | having these views) is pretty high, so I first have to demonstrate that P(bozo) is low in the first place.

P(can't write code | can't write code in an interview) is pretty high. P(isn't that good | claims to be good) is pretty high.

You know you so you know you are not a bozo, that you can write code, that you are good. But the other party is operating in the space of not-just-you. It's just an information asymmetry that works against you. So, if the social validation matters to you, you have to symmetrify that in a trusted fashion. And honestly, life is short, no human has infinite time to evaluate another human, so your symmetrification had better be speedy if you want the effects you desire.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#138

Post by odshoifsdhfs »

bondarchuk wrote: post #127
throwaway_pdp09 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So my post was downvoted and flagged. And without any reply, ok, here's why I said you'd swallowed the bullshit. > the simple fact of calling this art was a profound statement, A statement of what? Why is it profound? > one worth considering within its context. Why is it worth considering? Why is it worth doing so within its context ? Its context is its siting within an art gallery, so does the re-siting it into an a…

I would like to know why some people get so extremely angry about something being in a museum that they don't think should be in a museum.

Maybe because in many cases (not saying this one as I don't know the details) it is because it costs people in taxes to keep these museums/pay the artists and also it is also very much linked to favours/connections (there is a word but I am missing it, opposite of meritocracy) for these artists? If I signed a urinal on the cafe I am now, I would be label a vandal, but if some 'important' person does it, it has meaning and perspective?

I never went to a modern art gallery since maybe 15 years ago when tax-funded museum displayed a piece of art that was just an old piece of bread in the floor. No-one at the floor when I visited 'understood' it and found it the tacky and just self masturbation by the 'artist'. My tax money paid for that idiot to put a piece of bread on the floor and call it art, and through connections (which are more important in the art/movie/music world than people realised) I paid to have someone put a piece of fucking bread on the floor.

Yes, after 15 years I am still angry because my tax-euros still go for this shitty things that are justifiable as 'art'

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#139

Post by nullc »

dorkwood wrote: post #50
evmar wrote: post #12

I found that, as a person who (sometimes) creates things, my attitude towards other people who create things has significantly shifted. When I was younger I would just see the fault -- the typos, the narcissism, the pointlessness, the already-been-done-better-by-others -- of people's work. But after trying a bit, it sometimes (for the same reasons the OP talks about) creating anything new ends up being really hard in…

Years ago I can remember seeing an artist on Twitter hitting back against some critics in the comments, saying something like "I didn't ask for your criticism". At the time, I didn't understand why they were posting their work online if they didn't want to be criticized. I thought they needed to get a thicker skin. Now that I've started sharing my own work with others, I completely see where they're coming from. Havi…

> Having someone who makes nothing and shares nothing log on to tell you how you should have done things differently is unwanted and not at all useful.

What is especially frustrating is that inevitably 99% of such comments are also ideas that you had in your first seconds of thought on the subject, but discarded for good reason by the end of the first minute after thinking it through.

None of the people commenting gave it a minute of thought.

If the under-informed comments were at least kind that would be something else, but often they are not.

Sometimes a lovely conversation can arise from sharing your insight but you can't tell when instead of finding joy at a shared interest you'll find someone who just wants to debate and win at all cost, where their toy misunderstanding is the hill they want to die on. ... so you don't bother.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#140

Post by a1369209993 »

karatestomp wrote: post #15
commandlinefan wrote: post #3

Can I agree with his overall premise but disagree with thinking that scheduling weekly one-on-one's with your wife is in any way a good idea? I also wonder if the social obligation to be bad at things - that is, to avoid arrogance at all costs, even at the risk of withholding potentially useful advice - is more an American thing than a worldwide phenomenon. Not being embarrassed when you can't spell words correctly s…

> Can I agree with his overall premise but disagree with thinking that scheduling weekly one-on-one's with your wife is in any way a good idea? Some folks have a gut-level extremely bad reaction to structuring or treating relationships (romantic or otherwise) "scientifically" or in some structured way. I'm one of them. Grosses me out as surely as seeing maggots burrowing in my steak. It's not rational and goes agains…

> It's not rational and goes against everything [...]

It's a justified reaction to how corporations work[0]. Similar to how people feel viceral revulsion at burn scars, even though burn scars are not in any way contagious, (in part) because they look similar to horrible skin diseases that are quite contagious.

It's (probably) unfair in this particular case, but it's not at all unjustified.

0: As usual, someone more eloquent than me has put it:

"This company is my dream. ...And it's built from the dreams of people who work here. Just the way this building is built out of stone."

"This building is made of concrete. Actually. [...] Stone that's been ripped out of the ground, pulverized, mixed with foreign materials, and forced into molds to fit the will of the designer. Stone that bears no resemblance to its original form."

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