3 ms·

Photographer here. If I spend time working for people to take pictures of them during events, I need to get paid for it, otherwise I can't feed myself. However

by aspyct 4y ago

Photographer here. If I spend time working for people to take pictures of them during events, I need to get paid for it, otherwise I can't feed myself. However I also need to show them the pictures before they buy it (would you buy a picture without seeing it?), and increasingly that's happening online. So no, "individual authorship of art" will not go extinct as long as people are working for it. Are you expecting to be able to take someone's work without any compensation?

beepbooptheory 4y ago
I certainly think right now we live in that reality, and certainly hope you can continue to feed yourself, but the future is long! I didn't mean to make a big claim about how things are now, or will be in the near future. But just kind of projecting what a world will look like if all these things play out like people are saying it will. But you are right, event photography is a great example, where maybe the only change there is that the watermark will point you to the particular photographer-robot-business you can contract in the future, but the watermark itself will still be necessary to show the quality of the robot. (Don't get me wrong, I don't like this idea at all, its not a good future, and many people will suffer for it. I do like the idea of "Art"-art being de-individualized in the future, to free us from egoistic myths of the "Artist" and all its problems and limitations, but I hate the idea of lots of hard working contractor-types like yourself being without a source of income.)
- aspyct 4y ago
  > to free us from egoistic myths of the "Artist" Qualifying art as egoistic is misunderstanding. We do "art" (or any expression, really) to share it. Because we love the effect it has on people. Making them smile, think, wonder, dream... Art in a vacuum is nothing but a senseless waste of time. Fundamentally, art is about relationships. I agree that AI art is also art. I've seen some stunning generated landscapes that made me want to be there, want to explore and go out. However it is still an expression of one's feelings, and the way you experience it is an expression of your own feelings. It will always be personal. Sure, event photographers might be replaced by automated cameras (hell, I have plans on doing that myself to some extent), but then the "art" is simply displaced to whoever uses that tool. Maybe an influencer or something. But ask yourself this: what motivates people to use these tools? Surely it's for expressing themselves or earning money (or both). That, in itself, will make any form of art personal, individual authorship still applies.
  - beepbooptheory 4y ago
    I was simply qualifying a certain kind of way understanding art and the artist that has been prominent since around the 19th-18th century in Western world, since the beginnings of what is known as Romanticism. So prominent in fact, that people have forgotten art could be understood any differently, as your response seems to show here. You describe a certain popular story about the "artist" who strives to externalize the ineffable. Its a good story, and it is rightly attributed to many great works and artists. But it far from exhausts what art can be or was at certain times in the past. Art can be entirely communal, or even entirely institutional/political. There have been cultures that wouldn't understand you at all when you say that only certain people are artists, and that they do something that is particular or specialized. Even further, the idea in general of the "working" artist, one who uses their labor like any other worker, is even younger than that of the romantic artist. Most of the big artists in canon didn't need to "work" like you did, it was either things like patrons, or a lifelong devotion to a church or something. Art is too big and too full of possibilities to define as easily as you are here. For my part, I haven't yet seen something like a good "artistic work" from one of the models, but I see the potential in principal.
    - aspyct 4y ago
      The existence of communal/institutional/political art doesn't forbid the existence of individual art. If for example I like the work of a specific painter, and want to have a reproduction of his work at home, I want his work, not anybody else's. I'm curious about that political art you're referring to though. Any examples come to mind?
      - beepbooptheory 4y ago
        I was not trying to forbid anything, rather just reminding you not to--whether you think "egoistic" is too negative or something, I don't know, but it's certainly pretty common these days. You seemed to be saying its not egoistic, but its still necessarily this "expression of one's feelings". The big example in my mind was art made because of and through the Catholic Church for like a millennia or so. It's function in spreading the religion, encoding meaning, etc. Still some incredible and beautiful art in some cases in my opinion. Consider also things that we tend to classify as "crafts": knitting, sewing, embroidery. These things used to be/are rich with traditional and deterministically cultural-political meaning, but still can be beautiful--certainly pieces of art IMO. In all these cases, there are certainly particular artists with certain abilities and feelings behind each particular instance, but that is only a sufficient, not necessary, quality to them being works of art I think. It's at least not as important as the fact that Van Gogh did Starry Night. Edit: almost forgot a huge one: folk music!

by aspyct 4y ago

beepbooptheory 4y ago

I certainly think right now we live in that reality, and certainly hope you can continue to feed yourself, but the future is long! I didn't mean to make a big claim about how things are now, or will be in the near future. But just kind of projecting what a world will look like if all these things play out like people are saying it will. But you are right, event photography is a great example, where maybe the only change there is that the watermark will point you to the particular photographer-robot-business you can contract in the future, but the watermark itself will still be necessary to show the quality of the robot. (Don't get me wrong, I don't like this idea at all, its not a good future, and many people will suffer for it. I do like the idea of "Art"-art being de-individualized in the future, to free us from egoistic myths of the "Artist" and all its problems and limitations, but I hate the idea of lots of hard working contractor-types like yourself being without a source of income.)

aspyct 4y ago
> to free us from egoistic myths of the "Artist" Qualifying art as egoistic is misunderstanding. We do "art" (or any expression, really) to share it. Because we love the effect it has on people. Making them smile, think, wonder, dream... Art in a vacuum is nothing but a senseless waste of time. Fundamentally, art is about relationships. I agree that AI art is also art. I've seen some stunning generated landscapes that made me want to be there, want to explore and go out. However it is still an expression of one's feelings, and the way you experience it is an expression of your own feelings. It will always be personal. Sure, event photographers might be replaced by automated cameras (hell, I have plans on doing that myself to some extent), but then the "art" is simply displaced to whoever uses that tool. Maybe an influencer or something. But ask yourself this: what motivates people to use these tools? Surely it's for expressing themselves or earning money (or both). That, in itself, will make any form of art personal, individual authorship still applies.
- beepbooptheory 4y ago
  I was simply qualifying a certain kind of way understanding art and the artist that has been prominent since around the 19th-18th century in Western world, since the beginnings of what is known as Romanticism. So prominent in fact, that people have forgotten art could be understood any differently, as your response seems to show here. You describe a certain popular story about the "artist" who strives to externalize the ineffable. Its a good story, and it is rightly attributed to many great works and artists. But it far from exhausts what art can be or was at certain times in the past. Art can be entirely communal, or even entirely institutional/political. There have been cultures that wouldn't understand you at all when you say that only certain people are artists, and that they do something that is particular or specialized. Even further, the idea in general of the "working" artist, one who uses their labor like any other worker, is even younger than that of the romantic artist. Most of the big artists in canon didn't need to "work" like you did, it was either things like patrons, or a lifelong devotion to a church or something. Art is too big and too full of possibilities to define as easily as you are here. For my part, I haven't yet seen something like a good "artistic work" from one of the models, but I see the potential in principal.
  - aspyct 4y ago
    The existence of communal/institutional/political art doesn't forbid the existence of individual art. If for example I like the work of a specific painter, and want to have a reproduction of his work at home, I want his work, not anybody else's. I'm curious about that political art you're referring to though. Any examples come to mind?
    - beepbooptheory 4y ago
      I was not trying to forbid anything, rather just reminding you not to--whether you think "egoistic" is too negative or something, I don't know, but it's certainly pretty common these days. You seemed to be saying its not egoistic, but its still necessarily this "expression of one's feelings". The big example in my mind was art made because of and through the Catholic Church for like a millennia or so. It's function in spreading the religion, encoding meaning, etc. Still some incredible and beautiful art in some cases in my opinion. Consider also things that we tend to classify as "crafts": knitting, sewing, embroidery. These things used to be/are rich with traditional and deterministically cultural-political meaning, but still can be beautiful--certainly pieces of art IMO. In all these cases, there are certainly particular artists with certain abilities and feelings behind each particular instance, but that is only a sufficient, not necessary, quality to them being works of art I think. It's at least not as important as the fact that Van Gogh did Starry Night. Edit: almost forgot a huge one: folk music!