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There seems to be a bit of confusion here between art and beautiful compositions. Art is not art because it looks nice or because it looks like something else

There seems to be a bit of confusion here between art and beautiful compositions. Art is not art because it looks nice or because it looks like something else that is widely accepted as "art". I see art as something produced by an artist combining genius + technique. Genius usually implies being original, but also stating what the piece of art represents in contrast to the existing ones (what boundaries it breaks, what pre-conceptions it revolts against, what is its purpose (even if it's purpose is to have no purpose) etc.). Technique means work and expertise. Sometimes genius is so overwhelming that there is little technique needed. Sometimes technique is so skilled that it overwhelms genius. The makers of this app are probably artists (there's certainly a lot of genius involved in devising a way to produce such compositions, and work). What you create with your app probably not art though, regardless of how amazingly beautiful it turns out to be. That's not to say artists may not make use of such tool to make art, but they'll have to find ways to be original. The fact that a button can be clicked to produce a result automatically destroys much of the artistic value of the outcomes. But hey, it's beautiful :)

fiatjaf 11y ago
"Being original"? That's what art is for you?
- alexandrerond 11y ago
  Name an art current which hasn't revolted against what was previously done. Every generation of artists tried to grasp things which were left out by the previous ones. As I said, genious, but also technique. What's art for you?
  - meric 11y ago
    It's consciousness cast onto a medium, like casting a double to a byte.
  - fiatjaf 11y ago
    It's not because in the past (I mean 500 years ago) art was produced by doing something different from what existed that you should conclude that "art is about being original", even less that "art is revolt against what was previously done". These facts, if always true, are just consequences of another, much higher, goal of the artist. It's because modern artists started thinking that _the goal_ of art was to be original that we came to this situation.
    - theseatoms 11y ago
      Avant-garde is likely a better term for what GP is describing.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - emerongi 11y ago
    Producing art with a computer does not go against what has been previously done? You can't even recognize "genius", which this is. It directly challenges the definition of "art", which is pretty wonderful.
imaginenore 11y ago
All this blah blah blah to try to redefine art, and all you end up with is some weird elitist hipsterish definition that excludes tons of artists. Most art has nothing to do with being a genius, it's lots of work, repetition, variation, trying new things, combining.
- alexandrerond 11y ago
  > lots of work, repetition, variation, trying new things, combining. That's exactly genius and technique. It's not about being a genius in the sense of intelligent, it's about having the genius to move forward from the current state.
ramblerman 11y ago
If a computer makes up a joke and it's funny does it count? I think it does. Art is a lot like humor, it works for people because it just 'works'. That is what matters. Not the hard work, and 'genius' of the creator behind it, that's just vanity. Would bohemian rhapsody not count as art if it was made up by a machine?
- alexandrerond 11y ago
  No, it wouldn't count. Because then we would have some thousands of bohemian rhapsodies. An art expression would perhaps be the whole bunch of works together (if you managed to give them a sense of being), and the artist would be whoever devised the program that created them. But individually, it would be have the same art value as those pictures sold in IKEA. Beautiful yes, but not art by themselves. Edit: art is not art because "just works" or because it's likeable. Art goes way beyond what just works or the search for beauty. See the Viennese actionism for example: http://www.theartstory.org/movement-viennese-actionism.htm http://www.theartstory.org/movement-viennese-actionism.htm
  - riquito 11y ago
    > No, it wouldn't count. Because then we would have some thousands of bohemian rhapsodies. The computer broke after completing the work: now does it count? I don't understand your idea of art, isn't there beauty in the result? You give different value if the same result has been reached by a computer, chaos or a human? Do you have to know how the piece has been produced to decide if it's art or not?
    - pegasus 11y ago
      Yes. A rock that's been pleasingly shaped by desert winds is not considered art. But if we'd later find out that it was actually a man-made artifact, it would become a candidate for this label.
      - tbirdz 11y ago
        So then the computer software that generated the joke would be considered the work of art instead of the jokes that were generated? After all, the software was man-made, even though the generated output was computer-made.
cdubzzz 11y ago
Always Sunny's latest episode actually looks at this, haha. The decision of what constitutes art is up to the individual. What you have described is commonly accepted great art/ists, not art itself.
- alexandrerond 11y ago
  Well, yes you can see it that way. But then absolutely everything is art, which is not a very useful definition for it.
  - cdubzzz 11y ago
    Per my comment, this would only be true if you feel that absolutely everything is art. That sounds kind of nice, actually (: And how would you decide if a definition (of anything) qualifies as "useful"?
    - pegasus 11y ago
      Concepts are useful because they help us discriminate - between that which falls under the umbrella of the concept and which doesn't. An attribute that applies to every possible thing equally is redundant, and can be ignored without loss of information.
karlb 11y ago
In his book, “Playing to the Gallery,” the artist Grayson Perry attempts to answer this question. I'll summarize his definition because I found it interesting and challenging: He begins by stating that it's now widely accepted that anything can be viewed as art. Seeing as that's an infinitely broad definition, he goes on to describe the following “scorecard” for what counts as art. A “yes” means it's more likely to be art: * Is it in a gallery or an art context? * Is it a boring version of something else? Does it lack entertainment value? * Is it made by an artist? * Is it limited edition? * Is it admired by hipsters? * If you put it in a dumpster, would a passer-by wonder why an artwork had been thrown away? * Does it detain and suspend us in a state of frustration and ambivalence, making us pause and think rather than simply react? * If it's a photograph that's smaller than 2m and costs less than five-figures, then it scores negatively. He says that the above tests aren't watertight, but if you put them together in a Venn diagram, the bit in the middle (the bit to which all the answers are yes) is pretty well guaranteed to be contemporary art. I dislike the definition, but I wonder if it might be accurate. When I try to come up with a better definition, I wonder if the concept I'm trying to describe is something else—what art _should be_—not what art is.
- delluminatus 11y ago
  I don't think there can really be a distinction between what art "should be" versus what art "is". You could maybe argue that a particular piece or style of art should be different, but does it really make sense to say that art should be something else? More to the point, I think that definition is a little dissatisfying. By that metric, I have probably never created any art in my life -- because I'm not an artist with limited-edition work in a gallery. To me, that is unacceptable for a definition of art. Artistry is something more intrinsic to human nature than just being a thing made by an "artist" and put in an artistic context to be admired by hipsters and to confuse people.
such_a_casual 11y ago
I've always found the "what is art?" question to be pretty hilarious. It doesn't matter if the medium is a picture, a book, a movie, or a game. Great media has a thesis and does a great job of convincing the recipient that their thesis is true using Show-Not-Tell.

fiatjaf 11y ago

"Being original"? That's what art is for you?

alexandrerond 11y ago
Name an art current which hasn't revolted against what was previously done. Every generation of artists tried to grasp things which were left out by the previous ones. As I said, genious, but also technique. What's art for you?
- meric 11y ago
  It's consciousness cast onto a medium, like casting a double to a byte.
- fiatjaf 11y ago
  It's not because in the past (I mean 500 years ago) art was produced by doing something different from what existed that you should conclude that "art is about being original", even less that "art is revolt against what was previously done". These facts, if always true, are just consequences of another, much higher, goal of the artist. It's because modern artists started thinking that _the goal_ of art was to be original that we came to this situation.
  - theseatoms 11y ago
    Avant-garde is likely a better term for what GP is describing.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- emerongi 11y ago
  Producing art with a computer does not go against what has been previously done? You can't even recognize "genius", which this is. It directly challenges the definition of "art", which is pretty wonderful.

imaginenore 11y ago

All this blah blah blah to try to redefine art, and all you end up with is some weird elitist hipsterish definition that excludes tons of artists. Most art has nothing to do with being a genius, it's lots of work, repetition, variation, trying new things, combining.

alexandrerond 11y ago
> lots of work, repetition, variation, trying new things, combining. That's exactly genius and technique. It's not about being a genius in the sense of intelligent, it's about having the genius to move forward from the current state.

ramblerman 11y ago

If a computer makes up a joke and it's funny does it count? I think it does. Art is a lot like humor, it works for people because it just 'works'. That is what matters. Not the hard work, and 'genius' of the creator behind it, that's just vanity. Would bohemian rhapsody not count as art if it was made up by a machine?

alexandrerond 11y ago
No, it wouldn't count. Because then we would have some thousands of bohemian rhapsodies. An art expression would perhaps be the whole bunch of works together (if you managed to give them a sense of being), and the artist would be whoever devised the program that created them. But individually, it would be have the same art value as those pictures sold in IKEA. Beautiful yes, but not art by themselves. Edit: art is not art because "just works" or because it's likeable. Art goes way beyond what just works or the search for beauty. See the Viennese actionism for example: http://www.theartstory.org/movement-viennese-actionism.htm http://www.theartstory.org/movement-viennese-actionism.htm
- riquito 11y ago
  > No, it wouldn't count. Because then we would have some thousands of bohemian rhapsodies. The computer broke after completing the work: now does it count? I don't understand your idea of art, isn't there beauty in the result? You give different value if the same result has been reached by a computer, chaos or a human? Do you have to know how the piece has been produced to decide if it's art or not?
  - pegasus 11y ago
    Yes. A rock that's been pleasingly shaped by desert winds is not considered art. But if we'd later find out that it was actually a man-made artifact, it would become a candidate for this label.
    - tbirdz 11y ago
      So then the computer software that generated the joke would be considered the work of art instead of the jokes that were generated? After all, the software was man-made, even though the generated output was computer-made.

cdubzzz 11y ago

Always Sunny's latest episode actually looks at this, haha. The decision of what constitutes art is up to the individual. What you have described is commonly accepted great art/ists, not art itself.

alexandrerond 11y ago
Well, yes you can see it that way. But then absolutely everything is art, which is not a very useful definition for it.
- cdubzzz 11y ago
  Per my comment, this would only be true if you feel that absolutely everything is art. That sounds kind of nice, actually (: And how would you decide if a definition (of anything) qualifies as "useful"?
  - pegasus 11y ago
    Concepts are useful because they help us discriminate - between that which falls under the umbrella of the concept and which doesn't. An attribute that applies to every possible thing equally is redundant, and can be ignored without loss of information.

karlb 11y ago

In his book, “Playing to the Gallery,” the artist Grayson Perry attempts to answer this question. I'll summarize his definition because I found it interesting and challenging: He begins by stating that it's now widely accepted that anything can be viewed as art. Seeing as that's an infinitely broad definition, he goes on to describe the following “scorecard” for what counts as art. A “yes” means it's more likely to be art: * Is it in a gallery or an art context? * Is it a boring version of something else? Does it lack entertainment value? * Is it made by an artist? * Is it limited edition? * Is it admired by hipsters? * If you put it in a dumpster, would a passer-by wonder why an artwork had been thrown away? * Does it detain and suspend us in a state of frustration and ambivalence, making us pause and think rather than simply react? * If it's a photograph that's smaller than 2m and costs less than five-figures, then it scores negatively. He says that the above tests aren't watertight, but if you put them together in a Venn diagram, the bit in the middle (the bit to which all the answers are yes) is pretty well guaranteed to be contemporary art. I dislike the definition, but I wonder if it might be accurate. When I try to come up with a better definition, I wonder if the concept I'm trying to describe is something else—what art _should be_—not what art is.

delluminatus 11y ago
I don't think there can really be a distinction between what art "should be" versus what art "is". You could maybe argue that a particular piece or style of art should be different, but does it really make sense to say that art should be something else? More to the point, I think that definition is a little dissatisfying. By that metric, I have probably never created any art in my life -- because I'm not an artist with limited-edition work in a gallery. To me, that is unacceptable for a definition of art. Artistry is something more intrinsic to human nature than just being a thing made by an "artist" and put in an artistic context to be admired by hipsters and to confuse people.

such_a_casual 11y ago

I've always found the "what is art?" question to be pretty hilarious. It doesn't matter if the medium is a picture, a book, a movie, or a game. Great media has a thesis and does a great job of convincing the recipient that their thesis is true using Show-Not-Tell.