4 ms·

None of what you describe has ever been my reasons for looking at an image, and yet I immensely enjoy looking at images.

by vidarh 3y ago

masswerk 3y ago
So what is it that you enjoy, when looking at a certain image (especially, when it comes to this particular image, as compared to any other representation of the same subject matter), if not the artistic choices? A weighted average? I'm skeptical…
- vidarh 3y ago
  What it looks like. Whether the image itself appeals to me or moves me Whether those are "artistic choices" or random chance or a set of heuristics does not affect my enjoyment. It does not mean I don't find knowing about the choices of an artist or their process interesting at times, but for the vast majority of art I see I have idea about them. They are separate to my enjoyment of a given image. I don't know why you are skeptical - to me the notion that anything but the image itself should be necessary for me to enjoy it is a bizarre notion and I suspect it would be for a whole lot of people. Most people would not be able to name whomever created the vast majority of art they've seen, nor name the style, and do not spend time thinking about either.
- BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
  > So what is it that you enjoy, when looking at a certain image (especially, when it comes to this particular image, as compared to any other representation of the same subject matter), if not the artistic choices? Things can be visually interesting without intent or artistic meaning. Even if you've never stared into a fire, surely would agree that many people do it? Or the ocean? Or hills covered in snow? Or trees? Or other people having lunch? Or a pretty face? People have gazed contentedly at things that are just pretty without any worry about "artistic choices" since people have existed.
  - masswerk 3y ago
    I'd argue, there's a difference between media and the world as-is. Media are crucially a projection, transposing an impression as an expression into another space, implying a difference in these two spaces and their respective dimensionality. This is, what makes media interesting to us. All what is implied in this: human experience, narrative strategies, focus, depth, texture, skill, choices, etc. Otherwise, we're just immersing in the world as-is, enjoying ourselves and our own choices. But, for art as an act of communication, this doesn't work. It even doesn't work for media, which is why immersive media, like 3D TV, regularly fail: it simply misses the media part.
    - vidarh 3y ago
      You are presuming we all care about art as an act of communication all the time, or even at all. A lot of the time what the artist is trying to communicate is not all that interesting to me. I can enjoy just looking at something, whether it's a painting or a generated image, or just the sky. It doesn't take away anything from the experience to me if I know there is no meaning or intent behind it.
      - masswerk 3y ago
        I can just try to relate what kind of impact this has on me. As mentioned above, visual media are important to me. I graduated in the theoretical side of this, part of my work is visual design. First, I observed that these images made me depressed, whenever I encountered them, then, that I now just ignore any images by default. It hurts. I miss what had been a constituent part of me.
        vidarh 3y ago
        I struggle to even imagine feeling that way about it. I don't know what to suggest, other than perhaps try experimenting with meditation as a way to see if experiencing detachment of your feelings about the process vs. the outcome and images might make a difference. To me the two are entirely separate, and e.g. when I make things myself, whether I draw, or play the piano, or write code, the outcome is often secondary (I'm shit on the piano, and mediocre at drawing, but it doesn't matter). When I learn about an artist, the person and ideas might be interesting even if I have no interest in their art (I pointed out my favourite part of the Matisse museum in Nice is not his art, but the olive garden outside it, elsewhere, but Matisse is fascinating even if I don't care about his art at all). But when I watch their art, it's purely about what I see then and there. It's not that knowing history behind it never affects me, or interests me, but that I don't need it to enjoy the work, nor will I always - or even most of the time - feel the slightest urge to learn about the work or the artist.
- PsylentKnight 3y ago
  I would say that the default mode of consuming art is on a surface level where you don't pick apart why it's "good" or how it came to be, you either like it or dislike it in an unconscious/intuitive way. I can understand your mode of art consumption, but I'm not sure I understand why you're so skeptical about this.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
TeMPOraL 3y ago
Do you like procedurally generated content in games? Or do you quickly find it boring and empty, devoid of soul? I thought about it, and while part of my overall dislike of procgen in games comes from it being lazy and repetitive (too easy to spot the patterns), another part comes just from realizing there's nothing behind it. No mind, no plan, just RNG that I can keep rolling to get variations of the same theme. (There's also a sense of loneliness - when everyone is consuming unique content, it stops being a topic of conversation, because there's no shared experience anymore.)
- vidarh 3y ago
  My issue with procedurally generated content is that it is often a replacement for effort, and so the problem is not lack of a mind behind it, but as you note that it is often lazy and repetitive, and so simply not good. Humans can be lazy and make repetitive crap too, and when they do I'll consider it just as crap whether or not their underlying ideas were amazing.
  - asadotzler 3y ago
    Humans may be lazy and produce crap, but AI is lazy and produces crap. See the difference?
    - vidarh 3y ago
      No, I don't agree that's a meaningful difference.
      - asadotzler 3y ago
        unable to discern a difference between "may be" and "is", perhaps you missed that day of school?
    - Towaway69 3y ago
      And who described, designed and built AI algorithms? See the connection? /s
PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago
lmao, so glad to see this comment. I was about to post that not all of us are art snobs but your post captures the idea succinctly.
- vidarh 3y ago
  I used to get angry at my Norwegian teacher when we were forced to analyze poems, because I like writing poems but never once felt compelled to insert the kind of forced symbolism he kept insisting we rip apart and shred and murder poetry to identify. Because it wasn't what I wrote or read poems for. Sometimes I'd even seek out a certain translation of a work because I enjoyed the beauty of the choice of word of the translator more than the authors underlying ideas. (I've never gotten through the original of Whitman's Leaves of Grass, because I find it trite, but there's a particular Norwegian translation I loved - the authors intent was identical, but one presentation of it was beautiful to me in ways the other has never been because of the patterns of words rather than meaning) Whether or not that intent or symbolism was there in a given poem, I found the process inherently destructive for my enjoyment of those poems, and I utterly detested the process because it felt like violence. The one time I wrote a poem with a message was as a task in his class, and it was a sharp denunciation of the analysis of poetry. No analysis was necessary - the intent was brutally apparent and quite rudely expressed. It is also the only poem of mine I've performed in 'public', which was a mistake of him, because it's perhaps the one thing that I have written that has met with the most universal approval among those who heard it, and it hardly improved the attitude towards the analysis of poetry. I still find pulling art apart to often be brutally destructive and occasionally insulting in it's often shallow insistence of knowing intent that usually is without actual evidence and mired in dogma. I don't mind people finding meaning in knowing more about how it was created when the creator of a piece of art wants that context to be known or part of the work, but I feel very strongly about assuming intent even for human art, because to me at least, for what I wrote, my intent usually was to write without any deeper meaning or symbolism, to evoke emotion. For me, for what I wrote, picking it apart ruins that on every level in ways people rarely are able to undo for themselves. It's like trying to reassemble a cadaver. People can find their own meaning in anything, and make their own choices, but so much art snobbery revolves around that assignation of a dogmatic interpretation of intent as "correct" and objective that often feels outright disrespectful to assume to me.

None of what you describe has ever been my reasons for looking at an image, and yet I immensely enjoy looking at images.

by vidarh 3y ago

None of what you describe has ever been my reasons for looking at an image, and yet I immensely enjoy looking at images.

masswerk 3y ago

So what is it that you enjoy, when looking at a certain image (especially, when it comes to this particular image, as compared to any other representation of the same subject matter), if not the artistic choices? A weighted average? I'm skeptical…

vidarh 3y ago
What it looks like. Whether the image itself appeals to me or moves me Whether those are "artistic choices" or random chance or a set of heuristics does not affect my enjoyment. It does not mean I don't find knowing about the choices of an artist or their process interesting at times, but for the vast majority of art I see I have idea about them. They are separate to my enjoyment of a given image. I don't know why you are skeptical - to me the notion that anything but the image itself should be necessary for me to enjoy it is a bizarre notion and I suspect it would be for a whole lot of people. Most people would not be able to name whomever created the vast majority of art they've seen, nor name the style, and do not spend time thinking about either.
BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
> So what is it that you enjoy, when looking at a certain image (especially, when it comes to this particular image, as compared to any other representation of the same subject matter), if not the artistic choices? Things can be visually interesting without intent or artistic meaning. Even if you've never stared into a fire, surely would agree that many people do it? Or the ocean? Or hills covered in snow? Or trees? Or other people having lunch? Or a pretty face? People have gazed contentedly at things that are just pretty without any worry about "artistic choices" since people have existed.
- masswerk 3y ago
  I'd argue, there's a difference between media and the world as-is. Media are crucially a projection, transposing an impression as an expression into another space, implying a difference in these two spaces and their respective dimensionality. This is, what makes media interesting to us. All what is implied in this: human experience, narrative strategies, focus, depth, texture, skill, choices, etc. Otherwise, we're just immersing in the world as-is, enjoying ourselves and our own choices. But, for art as an act of communication, this doesn't work. It even doesn't work for media, which is why immersive media, like 3D TV, regularly fail: it simply misses the media part.
  - vidarh 3y ago
    You are presuming we all care about art as an act of communication all the time, or even at all. A lot of the time what the artist is trying to communicate is not all that interesting to me. I can enjoy just looking at something, whether it's a painting or a generated image, or just the sky. It doesn't take away anything from the experience to me if I know there is no meaning or intent behind it.
    - masswerk 3y ago
      I can just try to relate what kind of impact this has on me. As mentioned above, visual media are important to me. I graduated in the theoretical side of this, part of my work is visual design. First, I observed that these images made me depressed, whenever I encountered them, then, that I now just ignore any images by default. It hurts. I miss what had been a constituent part of me.
      - vidarh 3y ago
        I struggle to even imagine feeling that way about it. I don't know what to suggest, other than perhaps try experimenting with meditation as a way to see if experiencing detachment of your feelings about the process vs. the outcome and images might make a difference. To me the two are entirely separate, and e.g. when I make things myself, whether I draw, or play the piano, or write code, the outcome is often secondary (I'm shit on the piano, and mediocre at drawing, but it doesn't matter). When I learn about an artist, the person and ideas might be interesting even if I have no interest in their art (I pointed out my favourite part of the Matisse museum in Nice is not his art, but the olive garden outside it, elsewhere, but Matisse is fascinating even if I don't care about his art at all). But when I watch their art, it's purely about what I see then and there. It's not that knowing history behind it never affects me, or interests me, but that I don't need it to enjoy the work, nor will I always - or even most of the time - feel the slightest urge to learn about the work or the artist.
PsylentKnight 3y ago
I would say that the default mode of consuming art is on a surface level where you don't pick apart why it's "good" or how it came to be, you either like it or dislike it in an unconscious/intuitive way. I can understand your mode of art consumption, but I'm not sure I understand why you're so skeptical about this.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

TeMPOraL 3y ago

Do you like procedurally generated content in games? Or do you quickly find it boring and empty, devoid of soul? I thought about it, and while part of my overall dislike of procgen in games comes from it being lazy and repetitive (too easy to spot the patterns), another part comes just from realizing there's nothing behind it. No mind, no plan, just RNG that I can keep rolling to get variations of the same theme. (There's also a sense of loneliness - when everyone is consuming unique content, it stops being a topic of conversation, because there's no shared experience anymore.)

vidarh 3y ago
My issue with procedurally generated content is that it is often a replacement for effort, and so the problem is not lack of a mind behind it, but as you note that it is often lazy and repetitive, and so simply not good. Humans can be lazy and make repetitive crap too, and when they do I'll consider it just as crap whether or not their underlying ideas were amazing.
- asadotzler 3y ago
  Humans may be lazy and produce crap, but AI is lazy and produces crap. See the difference?
  - vidarh 3y ago
    No, I don't agree that's a meaningful difference.
    - asadotzler 3y ago
      unable to discern a difference between "may be" and "is", perhaps you missed that day of school?
  - Towaway69 3y ago
    And who described, designed and built AI algorithms? See the connection? /s

PH95VuimJjqBqy 3y ago

lmao, so glad to see this comment. I was about to post that not all of us are art snobs but your post captures the idea succinctly.

vidarh 3y ago
I used to get angry at my Norwegian teacher when we were forced to analyze poems, because I like writing poems but never once felt compelled to insert the kind of forced symbolism he kept insisting we rip apart and shred and murder poetry to identify. Because it wasn't what I wrote or read poems for. Sometimes I'd even seek out a certain translation of a work because I enjoyed the beauty of the choice of word of the translator more than the authors underlying ideas. (I've never gotten through the original of Whitman's Leaves of Grass, because I find it trite, but there's a particular Norwegian translation I loved - the authors intent was identical, but one presentation of it was beautiful to me in ways the other has never been because of the patterns of words rather than meaning) Whether or not that intent or symbolism was there in a given poem, I found the process inherently destructive for my enjoyment of those poems, and I utterly detested the process because it felt like violence. The one time I wrote a poem with a message was as a task in his class, and it was a sharp denunciation of the analysis of poetry. No analysis was necessary - the intent was brutally apparent and quite rudely expressed. It is also the only poem of mine I've performed in 'public', which was a mistake of him, because it's perhaps the one thing that I have written that has met with the most universal approval among those who heard it, and it hardly improved the attitude towards the analysis of poetry. I still find pulling art apart to often be brutally destructive and occasionally insulting in it's often shallow insistence of knowing intent that usually is without actual evidence and mired in dogma. I don't mind people finding meaning in knowing more about how it was created when the creator of a piece of art wants that context to be known or part of the work, but I feel very strongly about assuming intent even for human art, because to me at least, for what I wrote, my intent usually was to write without any deeper meaning or symbolism, to evoke emotion. For me, for what I wrote, picking it apart ruins that on every level in ways people rarely are able to undo for themselves. It's like trying to reassemble a cadaver. People can find their own meaning in anything, and make their own choices, but so much art snobbery revolves around that assignation of a dogmatic interpretation of intent as "correct" and objective that often feels outright disrespectful to assume to me.