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I don't "get" art

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Re: I don't "get" art

#261

Post by Dylan16807 »

wpietri wrote: post #260
starship wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't that complicated. From your original post: > If I go with a friend who understands the context, they can explain to me the history Either your friend's explanation improved your experience at that museum/gallery, in which case I say "Put it on a plaque", or it didn't because our understanding of art can't be improved by any kind of brief explanation and really you need to "take an art history class" as you…

A few minutes of dialog doesn't fit on any sort of plaque. It's interactive, personal, situational. Also, I didn't say that a plaque-sized bite of text can't improve things. What I'm saying is that you won't necessarily get a work after reading one. Try it yourself. Take one of the IOCCC works and try writing a short paragraph that will explain it to the general-audience viewer. And I didn't tell everybody to take an…

Sure, I can do some IOCCC entries.

* This entry is an entire flight simulator/3d demo/fractal generator/graphical chess program in like a quarter of a page! Wow!

There, I've already covered most of the entries in a very easy explanation. Oh, and a lot of them put the source code into a cutesy shape or substitute out normal "C" words to confuse the reader. It's easy to point out features like that too.

* The C language lets you list word replacements to apply to your program before turning it into machine code. For example you can turn every "NEXT" into "start_printer(); feed_page(); shutdown_printer();". It's a great timesaver. You can also use it to say 'dump this entire file here' and centralize code that's used a lot. This entry has hundreds of replacements and does that entire-file-inclusion over and over. It uses tricky methods with all this replacement to pre-calculate the answer to a math problem before it's even turned into machine code. So the actual machine code ends up doing zero computation before outputting the answer.

* This program was being cute. Normally it's tricky to write a program that prints its own source code, because it's like making a sentence that contains itself. But turns out that some compilers will turn a blank file into machine code that does nothing. And doing nothing means you get a blank file for output. They changed the rules after that.

The last example is like a good example about modern art. It makes a point and pokes fun at the rules but you can only make so many clever observations about any particular thing. Almost every winning IOCCC entry has a legitimate purpose. And you can explain the purpose. Even though explaining the joke will never be as funny as natively understanding it. In art, explaining the purpose (even if it's something simplistic like capturing a scene) can expose those pieces of 'art' that have nothing to them (like the ones made by people with too much superglue and a desire to be 'shocking').

Also upgrade complete lays bare its jokey demeanor in the first couple seconds of menu, before you even reach any references or old-school graphics. You may not fully 'appreciate' the game but you can certainly understand and enjoy it without being a gamer.

Re: I don't "get" art

#262

Post by metaphorical »

slurgfest wrote: post #210
metaphorical wrote: post #17

Most contemporary artists works need to be appreciated as a whole, not as isolated pieces. The author here looks at trees but misses the forest. Most people look at art as if they are portfolio pieces in dribbble.com. (Hmm, I like this icon, Hmm, I don't like that color). But art does not merely reproduce the beauty of forms, instead, it gives language to the "soul" so that it may speak. Protip: Keep an open mind.

That "Protip:" thing is really condescending and irritating. I don't understand how ordinary language can't give language to the soul so that it may speak. Especially if what the soul wants to say is something like "I am hungry."

Apologies. It doesn't sound right indeed. What I meant is that it takes a certain mindset to appreciate art.

Not sure what you mean by "ordinary" language though. If you want to express hunger in a way that is not indifferent, how would you say it?

Emin's famous "unmade bed" is actually very ordinary. But when you see it in the exhibition (not a photo), it says something interesting (to me) about privacy and modern life, that even a long essay cannot express.

In contrast, a "retina" ipad icon may look extraordinary, but it doesn't tell me anything interesting.

To me, that's the difference between art and design. Just a thought.

Re: I don't "get" art

#263

Post by metaphorical »

bluekeybox wrote: post #235
metaphorical wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referring to the critiques in the article (e.g. dismissing the works one by one, instead of looking at the retrospective as a whole.) But you raise an interesting point. I'm not sure if groups form because of herd mentality, or if there are parallels in perceiving the modern world. It's hard to say. If I remember correctly, the early Nietzsche (in Birth of Tradegy) discussed the Dionynsian ideal of an artist --…

(Disclaimer: I personally like the individualistic part of Nietzsche's philosophy more than his love for the Dionysian). Nietzsche wrote The Birth of Tradegy back when he was under huge Wagnerian influence (an influence he later renounced), and the duality he introduced there between the Apollonian rationality and the Dionysian irrationality basically gave ammunition to the postmodernism movement. That said, although…

Lots of good thoughts here. Thanks for sharing.

I like your example of art as naming the unnamed. It's similar to Paul Klee's "art does not reproduce the visible, it makes visible".

I don't think rational/irrational are two separate realms. Personally I believe the totality of "existence" is an open system - so you seek connections of what you know with a rational mind, and you push the boundaries of what you don't know using intuition.

(And no, I'm not quoting Rumsfeld)

Re: I don't "get" art

#264

Post by SiVal »

slurgfest wrote: post #203
SiVal wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a rule about art. It doesn't have to be everybody's rule; it's just mine. If the artist creates something that he would want for himself, for his own living space, even if he knew that nobody else would ever get to see it, I'll accept that it's art, even if I can't stand it. If the artist is working on commission, the rule applies to whoever commissioned it. If it's something he would want for himself for his…

I don't know, people make lots of things they want in their houses for purely practical reasons. Does that really make them art? I guess you are only applying this rule in a negative way - if people DON'T want what they produce then it's not art to you?

Almost right. It goes both ways. I'm not talking about making things in general. I'm talking about things you make as art (or craft, I suppose, where part of the design is chosen based on your own esthetic preferences.) If you design it in a way that satisfies your own esthetic desires--it's art that you would enjoy for yourself--then it's your art, even if I don't like it, and even if it will end up going to someone else or bringing you fame and fortune.

But if it's not something you'd ever want yourself but, for example, you made it as a vehicle to gain notoriety or money, then it's not art, as far as I'm concerned. I don't owe your childish demand for attention or $20,000 "statement about capitalist oppression" any reverence just because you claim it's art.

Re: I don't "get" art

#265

Post by wpietri »

crasshopper wrote: post #254
crasshopper wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Duke Ellington: "If it sounds good, it is good." Sculpture professor whose class I modelled for: "Most people are going to completely ignore your work [that you spent weeks on, had your ego destroyed by peer criticism, fixed, put your soul into, etc] -- or look at it for about three seconds before moving on. If you can hold their attention longer -- if you can make them pause for an extra five seconds, and notice, or…

Related: the jazz educator David Baker has described the progression of learning jazz to first, joining together big, pre-made pieces; then, joining together small pieces; finally (as a master) joining together atoms. I think something equivalent could be said for programming (journey from modifying a script that already works to understanding the atoms of the language) and there's some close-enough statement that co…

That's really interesting. It sounds similar to the shu-ha-ri model of learning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shu_ha_ri

Re: I don't "get" art

#266

Post by lobster_johnson »

b0rsuk wrote: post #114
olavk wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that true art needs to be immediately understandable without requiring some background knowledge? This is not true for e.g renaissance art either. It usually uses a host of obscure (to modern people) symbols to communicate.

Obscurity, as a general rule, is not a virtue in itself. Consider books of Stanisław Lem and Gene Wolfe. You could say both are difficult to read science-fiction. Both use sophisticated language and long, intricate sentences. After reading several books by each author, I came to this conclusion: - Lem's books are difficult, but you're getting something out of them. They are thought-provoking, make you see the world o…

Well, by saying you don't like Wolfe you are just stating a personal preference. The fact that you have found a very specific reason for your dislike doesn't any in way invalidate Wolfe's authorship or his readers as much as it further illuminates your own way of thinking.

In fact, in one sense your explanation is painfully ironic, as you seem to consider yourself morally superior to those readers who -- you claim -- read Wolfe for entirely superficial reasons. Are we really stooping so low now as to criticize people for their reading tastes or to second-guess their reasons for reading what they do?

Personally I derive as much pleasure from reading Wolfe as I do from Lem, although I would never compare them. And the key word is "pleasure": I, like I suppose most people, read books to enjoy them. I enjoy Wolfe for many reasons, but "moreal superiority" is not one of them. And I am wary of terms such as "literary significance" to guide my tastes; that's a term for scholars and academics to worry about, as a reader I am concerned with books and stories that affect me emotionally and stimulate me intellectually.

I see your point about Wolfe's complexity being more of a device and less about genuine depth. Despite this, I do enjoy the richness it imparts on the narrative. Wolfe's template is Borges, who uses similar devices and whose stories often have a sort of insular quality where the narrative only exists to create a clever gadget whose cleverness can be admired, but cannot be applied to anything outside itself. For example, Borges has a neat story, The House of Asterion, about a lonely person who roams a large house with many corridors; at the end of the story is killed, and we realize that he's the minotaur in the myth about Theseus.

As for The New Sun, I think that Severian's unreliability is more a ruse (or at best evidence of a flawed character) than an important plot point -- compare this to his Latro trilogy, set in ancient Greece, where the main character, having suffered brain damage, is unable to form new memories, and is therefore genuinely unreliable. The Short Sun also has a character who loses his sense of identity when his mind is merged with another's, and his lack of reliability comes from an inability or refusal to recognize who he actually is.

(Incidentally, while I admire The New Sun greatly, I found its two loose sequels, The Long Sun and The Short Sun, to be much more emotionally stimulating. It helps that the main characters are not borderline sociopaths. They are also less prone to the kind of cryptic connections that are evident in the first book.)

Re: I don't "get" art

#267

Post by wpietri »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #261
wpietri wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few minutes of dialog doesn't fit on any sort of plaque. It's interactive, personal, situational. Also, I didn't say that a plaque-sized bite of text can't improve things. What I'm saying is that you won't necessarily get a work after reading one. Try it yourself. Take one of the IOCCC works and try writing a short paragraph that will explain it to the general-audience viewer. And I didn't tell everybody to take an…

Sure, I can do some IOCCC entries. * This entry is an entire flight simulator/3d demo/fractal generator/graphical chess program in like a quarter of a page! Wow! There, I've already covered most of the entries in a very easy explanation. Oh, and a lot of them put the source code into a cutesy shape or substitute out normal "C" words to confuse the reader. It's easy to point out features like that too. * The C languag…

Right. I agree that one can put text next to art explaining something about it, and you have demonstrated it well.

However, starship was upset that the plaques weren't sufficient to make him get the artwork as a novice. I think you'd agree that explaining each work fully is impractical; there's just too much context that's relevant.

Re: I don't "get" art

#268

Post by Dylan16807 »

wpietri wrote: post #267
Dylan16807 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I can do some IOCCC entries. * This entry is an entire flight simulator/3d demo/fractal generator/graphical chess program in like a quarter of a page! Wow! There, I've already covered most of the entries in a very easy explanation. Oh, and a lot of them put the source code into a cutesy shape or substitute out normal "C" words to confuse the reader. It's easy to point out features like that too. * The C languag…

Right. I agree that one can put text next to art explaining something about it, and you have demonstrated it well. However, starship was upset that the plaques weren't sufficient to make him get the artwork as a novice. I think you'd agree that explaining each work fully is impractical; there's just too much context that's relevant.

I got the impression that he was complaining about the exhibits that have no explanatory plaque at all, not even a paragraph.

Re: I don't "get" art

#269

Post by thenonsequitur »

peteretep wrote: post #154
cynicalkane wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think modern art is what happens when your "understanding art" circuits get into a feedback loop of some kind, there's something going haywire in there. Modern art is the mental equivalent of an allergic reaction. So we get these famous artists who made things like big canvases of entirely purple, and we say it's art because art critics sneezed out a bunch of reasons why it's art. Laypeople look at Rothko and wonde…

> I think modern art is I think what you are describing is "art I don't really see the merit of". Modern art - as understood by most people - encompasses Van Gough through Matisse, Hockney through Warhol. Is the work of Dali an "allergic reaction"? How about Roy Lichtenstein? How about Jackson Pollock? How about Tracey Emin? Where do you draw the line here? If you draw the line at the point where you stop seeing the…

A little off-topic, but why is your xkcd link using ssl? Really curious, since I didn't think xkcd ever exposed https links, can't see any reason for it, and not sure how you got it.

Did you add the "s" manually, for, I dunno, the sake of art ;) ?

Re: I don't "get" art

#270

Post by peteretep »

thenonsequitur wrote: post #269
peteretep wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think modern art is I think what you are describing is "art I don't really see the merit of". Modern art - as understood by most people - encompasses Van Gough through Matisse, Hockney through Warhol. Is the work of Dali an "allergic reaction"? How about Roy Lichtenstein? How about Jackson Pollock? How about Tracey Emin? Where do you draw the line here? If you draw the line at the point where you stop seeing the…

A little off-topic, but why is your xkcd link using ssl? Really curious, since I didn't think xkcd ever exposed https links, can't see any reason for it, and not sure how you got it. Did you add the "s" manually, for, I dunno, the sake of art ;) ?

I'm using a browser extension called HTTPS Everywhere, as a direct result of Firesheep.
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