Objective quality in purely subjective things

[Kyriakos]

At the higher levels of that art form, if a narrative has too explicit a moral, it's regarded as a defect.

Aesop still has charm, though ^^

 

[Gori the Grey]

A cigar may sometimes just be a cigar but if it is it isn't art.

A pipe can be:

 

[Farm Boy]

I like the parishoner's style stem better, but you do need to pick a place to sit and use it. They need cleaned out like French Horns, or they get bubbly. Nice cool draw, tho.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Take children's books as an example (one I have to interface with @ this moment in my life).

The best have lessons. If there's no moral, no point, just pretty drawings or some stupid rhymes it's low art (in my eyes barely art @ all)

Reading books to young children is less about the story amd more about the closeness of the parent and child. It is about sharing time, listening to words and learning them, participating together in the book's events. A well written childrens story envelopes parent and child in an imaginative time of being together. There are hundreds of wonderful children's books that build the parent child bond and at the same time encourage a love of books and reading in the child.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Creativity shows imagination, imagination is what makes us human (animals may have a little but nowhere near as much)

If a guy has some imagination on canvas, he may have some in the bedroom.

If a poet can talk his way in your heart he may be able to talk his way out of being murdered by some bandits (and his wife being kidnapped and raped)

There's no much more practically useful than imagination and creativity. That's why the best of them thruout history has special status.

One bricklayer is as good as another but how often do you get a Leonardo Davinci? In the past men were largely expendable, those without much imagination or special skills were liable to get recruited to go off to war somewhere but if you're a decent creative, now you've got protection, patrons (and your wife(s) as well) and if you're good enough you'll never have to toil in the fields or battlegrounds.

To not see how imagination is evolutionarily advantageous is a failure of imagination.

Canvas, bedrooms, and murderous bandits are recnet aspects of our human past and unlikely to be influential in evolutionary genetics. i think humans have some innate (genetic?) deep seated, attachment to forms and shapes from which we get dopamine responses.

 

[Narz]

Canvas, bedrooms, and murderous bandits are recnet aspects of our human past and unlikely to be influential in evolutionary genetics. i think humans have some innate (genetic?) deep seated, attachment to forms and shapes from which we get dopamine responses.

For sure. For instance I live a pretty socially isolated life (outside my family) but I appreciate music.

Why? Well music historically (before the invention of recording a blink of an eye ago) signified you were around other people. No tribe, no music. So I'm fooling myself you could say to get thru the day.

 

[Angst]

on a smoke break visiting someone so i'll be quick here

Art is and should be useful, useless art perhaps is a sign of status (like the useless grass-only 'garden' of royalty past that has morphed into today's modern lawn)

People sing songs to kids because song & rhyme sticks in the head better than spoken commands. Armies used to march with a band even tho on first glance one might think it would be better to put an extra weapon in the drummer's hand.

Beauty is sustenance, without beauty people lose their will to live. In times of dire lack art can keep one going, can mean the difference between life & death. So yeah it is of the utmost practicality.

It's not about teaching us something like school where we can pinpoint the exact information we gleaned & write an essay on it, it's more ethereal than that & more important. So like you said it doesn't transmit 'directly' but it does transmit, if it didn't it wouldn't be art.



Art is nutritious that's why it exists, obviously it's harder to quantify that magnesium content but no less real.

so for all this,

Again I'm separating proper art from pop art or art to show off, I agree those have little to no ability to nourish.

this distinction is false, it is purely social. reading your examples of what art is and isn't is all over the place as to use value. you claim: beautiful gardens are bad. beauty is necessary and good. warfare that support those who have the gardens is good. structure in material structures material (surprise) but only for nursery rhymes, not for beautiful gardens.

it's kind of a mess man.

it's also based on claims outmoded by modern scholarship.

art doesn't even have to be beautiful.

One spear no good against a band of bandits, if they see you're armed they'll kill you immediately, but maybe you can bribe them with quick wits (probably not but force 100% won't work if you're outnumbered 5 to 1, life is not a kung-fu movie)

i didn't mean literally one spear lmao, while you seem to think dnd bard spells exist in real life. this is completely absurd.

 

[Narz]

this distinction is false, it is purely social. reading your examples of what art is and isn't is all over the place as to use value. you claim: beautiful gardens are bad. beauty is necessary and good. warfare that support those who have the gardens is good. structure in material structures material (surprise) but only for nursery rhymes, not for beautiful gardens.

When did I say beautiful gardens are bad? And are you saying all art is purely social? Obviously that's wrong as most art is enjoyed privately (books for instance)

it's kind of a mess man.

Especially when you misunderstand it, in reality it's a very simple claim, art is evolutionary adaptive, just as is attraction to beauty generally. If it wasn't it wouldn't exist in all cultures

it's also based on claims outmoded by modern scholarship.

What scholarship?

art doesn't even have to be beautiful.

It has to be attractive is some way, could be in an ugly kind of way (like horror)

 

[Birdjaguar]

When kids do art in elementary school and we put it on our refrigerator or shelf, it is art in the best sense because it creates an emotional response in the parents even after several years. My wife has a significant amount of such things that are getting to be 30 something years old.

 

[Narz]

When kids do art in elementary school and we put it on our refrigerator or shelf, it is art in the best sense because it creates an emotional response in the parents even after several years. My wife has a significant amount of such things that are getting to be 30 something years old.

My mom is selling her home & getting rid of a ton of stuff so I'll probably take a few hundred photos of art & short stories I made when I was a little kid

 

[Angst]

When did I say beautiful gardens are bad? And are you saying all art is purely social? Obviously that's wrong as most art is enjoyed privately (books for instance)

so how did you learn to read again

Especially when you misunderstand it, in reality it's a very simple claim, art is evolutionary adaptive, just as is attraction to beauty generally. If it wasn't it wouldn't exist in all cultures

cultures neither share a notion of beauty, nor do they have the same idea of art, nor do they use the same material, nor do they share the ideal of use value that you want front and center, nor is this even consistent within genres of the cultures themselves

What scholarship?

the one i have a goddamn degree in

you could like just read my first post in this thread, it outlines what modern aesthetics care about

It has to be attractive is some way, could be in an ugly kind of way (like horror)

i prefer the word intensity, but not even that covers all art. some of it is very much uninvolving, for a lack of a better word, with that being the point

 

[Narz]

so how did you learn to read again

I learned to read when I was 5, since about 7 I've read to myself

cultures neither share a notion of beauty, nor do they have the same idea of art, nor do they use the same material, nor do they share the ideal of use value that you want front and center, nor is this even consistent within genres of the cultures themselves

That proves art isn't adaptive?

the one i have a goddamn degree in

Ah, hence the username

you could like just read my first post in this thread, it outlines what modern aesthetics care about

I mean I don't care much what art students care about, art is for the masses, IMDB ratings I look @ above what the critics think. It's not really for art students to tell me what art is.

If you link me to your post I'll read it (can't be assed to wade thru whole thread)

i prefer the word intensity, but not even that covers all art. some of it is very much uninvolving, for a lack of a better word, with that being the point

Uninvolving? Can you share an example?

 

[Angst]

I learned to read when I was 5, since about 7 I've read to myself

so how did you learn to read again

That proves art isn't adaptive?

yes? is your question whether i don't think so? when did i say it wasn't?

Ah, hence the username

I mean I don't care much what art students care about, art is for the masses, IMDB ratings I look @ above what the critics think. It's not really for art students to tell me what art is.

i have no idea why you're projecting this snobbery. also, i'm pretty sure you're misunderstanding my education. i am not saying the following to show off medals or whatever, it's just to get the education clear, and it's relevant because you obviously have no clue what such education looks like. so

i'm a musicologist by degree and have another degree from a prestigious writing school. the former is not art school or snooty, it's an university theoretical field which informs my primary position. the latter is snooty, and it's useful because it gives nontheoretical insight into the active creative process, even though it's a narrow sliver of what art can be, but i'll only draw on it if the discussion becomes relevant. and it hasn't yet.

anyways: you don't get to pass the ball like this. you delineated between real and fake art, what art "is". i didn't. infact i objected to that.

i do hold that art is a particular kind of engagement with material, that is my position of what "art" is. but the idea of artistic hierarchy was soundly destroyed during the first year of my studies. it's you who insists on delineating. i spend most of my time with public theory talk explaining why (your) art for the masses is legitimate. because of the things the educated you so hate have taught me. and note - your tastes are also legitimate. but your delineation of material is wrong.

for the username, it has nothing to do with my education or profession

If you link me to your post I'll read it (can't be assed to wade thru whole thread)

that you can't skim a few pages for my username is very promising for this exchange.

i'll add the link in an edit in a minute after posting (i'm on my phone.)

edit this should do

Objective quality in purely subjective things

The 90s decaprio Shakespeare is an incredibly powerful great work of cinema. But like I said, for some people if it’s outside your taste filter, greatness cannot overcome that. I wouldn’t ask you to identify great rap music let alone ask if you liked any of it. Like for me, I won’t like all...

forums.civfanatics.com

Uninvolving? Can you share an example?

it's hard to find a good word over uninvolving. ranges from alienating to indifferent. a lot of minimalist pieces are in their material not particularly outreaching. carl andre comes to mind. besides that, some ambient works. john cage that i've already mentioned. muzak. their way of artistic engagement is peculiar (sort of an active disinterest) and i love to talk about it but it's a whole off topic tangent.

if you think the above isn't art, sure. just means you aren't engaging with it, and still, your view would fit the theory.

 

[Gori the Grey]

He's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Oh my a new avatar! He's keeping his eyes on the game!

 

[Narz]

@Angst I read your original post and can't remember why we were arguing

 

[Gori the Grey]

Oh my a new avatar! He's keeping his eyes on the game!

He's one second from being crushed out of existence by the forces of progress.

 

[Farm Boy]

There is no squeezyball in that iPad. Clever how they try to tell you that it's all still there, but it's all just destroyed.

edit: "unified" if one would prefer. Some loss of the original purpose of a squeezyball of we're tracking the process of it being devoured by bougie applebois.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Everything else that the trash compactor crushes is a physical item connected with the production of a particular art, either the instrument (guitar, camera) or a medium (paint). But nobody makes art with squeezyballs.* What the squeezyfaces therefore have to be doing is standing in for the artist him or herself. Yes, @Farm Boy, the ad's intended meaning is that even the artist gets all squeezed into the new ipad. And also yes: there is in fact no artist in the ipad. My further point is that crushing all the physical items connected with producing art destroys, in that same measure, art. This is the most nightmarish ad imaginable to any actual artist. Artists love the physical items used in the production of their art--including, I'm sure screen-artists loving their ipads. But a guitarist doesn't want his guitar destroyed so that a flat little disembodied electronic device can "make music" instead. The ad celebrates the reduction of all other arts to screen-arts but in fact bodes the destruction of art.

*Yes, I'm sure there's actually somebody who does. No, I'm not going to Google it.

 

[Birdjaguar]

*Yes, I'm sure there's actually somebody who does

Who? Pete Townshend.