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Nah that's post hoc rationalization. The amount of busy-work that went into it is ridiculous. Just because a colossal amount of effort was poured in this wallpa

Nah that's post hoc rationalization. The amount of busy-work that went into it is ridiculous. Just because a colossal amount of effort was poured in this wallpaper doesn't mean that they used the right tool for the job or that the output was better because of it.

sph 2y ago
You're thinking like an engineer, and speak as if there is a right amount of time to spend on artistic endeavours; if you cross this threshold for you it is a "ridiculous and colossal amount of effort". Budget aside, art isn't constrained or criticized by how much effort the artist put in. All that matters is the result. A wallpaper or any other artistic creation isn't less beautiful or evocative because the artist spent thousands of hours on it.
- surgicalcolor 2y ago
  No, he's just being realistic. Even without getting into semantics about "what is art", the reality is that this is promotional material for advertising. This wasn't commissioned by a rich patron to put up on exhibition for MoMA. This isn't to take away from the artists skill, effort, creativity etc. but the context of this is inherently a business and economic decision. There's no artistic impetus, no political/social/cultural message. It's a computer wallpaper that monopolistic megacorp funded to show off how wealthy it is. It's a very typical "look at how much money we spent" exercise to showcase success or whatever.
  - dspillett 2y ago
    > Even without getting into semantics about "what is art" They say, before making comments about what they think is art :-) > There's no artistic impetus, no political/social/cultural message. There is, as you state in your next couple of sentences: > … monopolistic megacorp funded to show off … typical "look at how much money we spent" exercise to showcase You can, probably rightly, call it a crappy impetus. But that was impetus for the exercise and could be called the artistic impetus. Even if you disagree strongly on that particular point, it is definitely a message. To be slightly more fair, that wallpaper is a major part of the initial impression people have of the OS version, much like XP's Telly Tubby Hill did. The XP image was trying to convey “friendly, welcoming”, the Win10 one tries to convey something more like “dynamic, technically competent, flashy”. While it may not be an expression of someone's inner feelings or a societal property or anything like that, some art is more about directing your impression of something than it is about expressing someone else's and that is what this image was for and what it does.
  - ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
    > Even without getting into semantics about "what is art", the reality is that this is promotional material for advertising. This wasn't commissioned by a rich patron to put up on exhibition for MoMA. 99.9999% of all art is not commissioned by a rich patron to put up on exhibition for MoMa. It's just something that artists do. IT geeks are all for imposing their own creative restrictions on their work -- using Haskell when the competition is using PHP, developing their own distributed network persistence layer on top of SQLite when there are products out there that already exist but they just don't like for pseudospiritual reasons. But artists who just make pictures are expected to be cost-effective and not to put any value on their artisanship?
  - sph 2y ago
    You know, it's art even if it has no ambitions to be exhibited at the MoMA. > It's a computer wallpaper that monopolistic megacorp funded to show off how wealthy it is. Groan. It's not possible to have a serious discussions with someone starting from such a cynical position. After all, what is even the point of creating anything? We're all going to turn to dust and be forgotten forevermore.
    - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
      The point is it's poorly done by the standard you'd expect from top level no-expense-spared commercial graphic design. And that reflects poorly on the company and the product. The Win XP field was the opposite. It was organic, calming, and oddly fascinating because you couldn't tell if it was a plain photo or an edit or... what. And it had an unexpected reference to the Windows branding in the composition. Win 10 was more like meaningless window-shaped visual noise.
      - sph 2y ago
        Again, it does not matter, and it is entirely subjective, if art is poorly done or not. It does not matter if it doesn't calm you. It does not matter if it reflects poorly on Microsoft. Why do you care so much? Like it or not, art exists in a vacuum. It does not need to justify its existence. That's the very definition of art.
- ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
  There's a right amount of time for artistic endeavours and it has all been used up by our niche metaprogramming project.
- dev1ycan 2y ago
  "All that matters is the result. A wallpaper or any other artistic creation isn't less beautiful or evocative because the artist spent thousands of hours on it." Disagree, HEAVILY, a ton of the biggest marvels in the world are so because of how much work was put into them.
- TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
  It's a ridiculous and colossal amount of effort from (I think...) 34 people for something that looks like it was knocked together in a garage. The proportions and composition are weird, messy, and obviously asymmetric in both axes. Both the horizontals and verticals are slightly off, which makes it feel unsettled. It seems quite clumsily edited, with a blotchy cut-off at the left that feels claustrophobic and doesn't seem to be there for a good aesthetic reason. IMO it would have been stronger and more powerful rotated left through 90 degrees so the light was shining down.
ErigmolCt 2y ago
I think the process of creation is the thing

sph 2y ago

You're thinking like an engineer, and speak as if there is a right amount of time to spend on artistic endeavours; if you cross this threshold for you it is a "ridiculous and colossal amount of effort". Budget aside, art isn't constrained or criticized by how much effort the artist put in. All that matters is the result. A wallpaper or any other artistic creation isn't less beautiful or evocative because the artist spent thousands of hours on it.

surgicalcolor 2y ago
No, he's just being realistic. Even without getting into semantics about "what is art", the reality is that this is promotional material for advertising. This wasn't commissioned by a rich patron to put up on exhibition for MoMA. This isn't to take away from the artists skill, effort, creativity etc. but the context of this is inherently a business and economic decision. There's no artistic impetus, no political/social/cultural message. It's a computer wallpaper that monopolistic megacorp funded to show off how wealthy it is. It's a very typical "look at how much money we spent" exercise to showcase success or whatever.
- dspillett 2y ago
  > Even without getting into semantics about "what is art" They say, before making comments about what they think is art :-) > There's no artistic impetus, no political/social/cultural message. There is, as you state in your next couple of sentences: > … monopolistic megacorp funded to show off … typical "look at how much money we spent" exercise to showcase You can, probably rightly, call it a crappy impetus. But that was impetus for the exercise and could be called the artistic impetus. Even if you disagree strongly on that particular point, it is definitely a message. To be slightly more fair, that wallpaper is a major part of the initial impression people have of the OS version, much like XP's Telly Tubby Hill did. The XP image was trying to convey “friendly, welcoming”, the Win10 one tries to convey something more like “dynamic, technically competent, flashy”. While it may not be an expression of someone's inner feelings or a societal property or anything like that, some art is more about directing your impression of something than it is about expressing someone else's and that is what this image was for and what it does.
- ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
  > Even without getting into semantics about "what is art", the reality is that this is promotional material for advertising. This wasn't commissioned by a rich patron to put up on exhibition for MoMA. 99.9999% of all art is not commissioned by a rich patron to put up on exhibition for MoMa. It's just something that artists do. IT geeks are all for imposing their own creative restrictions on their work -- using Haskell when the competition is using PHP, developing their own distributed network persistence layer on top of SQLite when there are products out there that already exist but they just don't like for pseudospiritual reasons. But artists who just make pictures are expected to be cost-effective and not to put any value on their artisanship?
- sph 2y ago
  You know, it's art even if it has no ambitions to be exhibited at the MoMA. > It's a computer wallpaper that monopolistic megacorp funded to show off how wealthy it is. Groan. It's not possible to have a serious discussions with someone starting from such a cynical position. After all, what is even the point of creating anything? We're all going to turn to dust and be forgotten forevermore.
  - TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
    The point is it's poorly done by the standard you'd expect from top level no-expense-spared commercial graphic design. And that reflects poorly on the company and the product. The Win XP field was the opposite. It was organic, calming, and oddly fascinating because you couldn't tell if it was a plain photo or an edit or... what. And it had an unexpected reference to the Windows branding in the composition. Win 10 was more like meaningless window-shaped visual noise.
    - sph 2y ago
      Again, it does not matter, and it is entirely subjective, if art is poorly done or not. It does not matter if it doesn't calm you. It does not matter if it reflects poorly on Microsoft. Why do you care so much? Like it or not, art exists in a vacuum. It does not need to justify its existence. That's the very definition of art.
ecjhdnc2025 2y ago
There's a right amount of time for artistic endeavours and it has all been used up by our niche metaprogramming project.
dev1ycan 2y ago
"All that matters is the result. A wallpaper or any other artistic creation isn't less beautiful or evocative because the artist spent thousands of hours on it." Disagree, HEAVILY, a ton of the biggest marvels in the world are so because of how much work was put into them.
TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
It's a ridiculous and colossal amount of effort from (I think...) 34 people for something that looks like it was knocked together in a garage. The proportions and composition are weird, messy, and obviously asymmetric in both axes. Both the horizontals and verticals are slightly off, which makes it feel unsettled. It seems quite clumsily edited, with a blotchy cut-off at the left that feels claustrophobic and doesn't seem to be there for a good aesthetic reason. IMO it would have been stronger and more powerful rotated left through 90 degrees so the light was shining down.

ErigmolCt 2y ago

I think the process of creation is the thing