Becoming an 'artist'

[limr]

Prople do not have to understand and like any piece of art out there. But srprisingly often it is their problem. I, for instance, am seriously deaf to a lot of classical music and I know it is my problem, not Bethoven's or Mozart's. I know I would be much richer if I could undetstand it. And this is my problem as far as I am concerned.

But why is it a problem? Why does it have to be anything? Okay, Faulkner was a great writer. He didn't fail in creating art. But I don't respond to Faulkner. Might I be richer if I did? Perhaps, but it's also not impeding my intellectual or spiritual progress by responding to another author instead. It's not causing me any "problems."

Why can't it just be a simple evaluation of what does or does not enrich my life?

 

[limr]

And...?

Edit: I gues Bri deleted that picture that was post #136. Now it looks like I'm tapping my foot waiting for a response to my previous post. (I'm not.)

 

[Designer]

And...?

The end.

 

[The_Traveler]

From an essay on a large show at MOMA, written by an artist, Brian Dupont

If you have the urge to say something scathing about 'artspeak', just skip it.
It's a cheap shot
What he says is interesting and pretty applicable to photography with its very limited scope.

A better pop cultural reference would be Morpheus stepping back to reveal the desert of the real to Neo[8] at the beginning of “The Matrix.” Coming from the gleaming skyscrapers and clear blue skies of high modernism, the scorched earth and sky of the truth of reality is a foreboding sight. It would seem a landscape of exhausted strategies and unintended consequences where survival will take more work than before, but it also allows for broader interactions and a greater degree of possibility.[9]For artists this desert is terrain where the hierarchies of how to make art and what to make it out of don’t apply. Freed from the need to worry about pushing forward[10] or heralding an agenda, the artist may make what they want out of whatever material will mesh with their formal, conceptual, political, or aesthetic ends. Simply making something “new”[11] is too transient a glory and no longer laudable; the novelty of invention wears off too quickly and everyone’s sources are easily discovered.[12] This end of progress is also the end of avant garde; one can’t be at the forefront of a movement if there is no front, or if looking backward in reflection can’t be labeled as merely retrograde. This is ultimately disorienting for all involved as the criticism of any given work requires a careful approach on its own terms. The old signposts aren’t necessarily relevant, and the headstrong critic will find themselves revealing more about their own bias than the work’s. Likewise the artist must be acutely aware of what s/he stands for, and how they relate to the shifting context that surrounds their work lest they loose control of it.

Brian Dupont
Out of Time Part 1 Forever Now and the New Landscape of Painting. Brian Dupont Artist s Texts
Brian Dupont

 

[pgriz]

The flip side to all this, is that we have a relatively limited attention span, and rediscover what we once knew and then forgot. A truly novel approach is very difficult (someone somewhere in recorded history probably did something similar if not exactly the same), but within one's circle of acquaintances and contacts, it is quite possible to have the "new" thing.

 

[Designer]

The flip side to all this, is that we have a relatively limited attention span, and rediscover what we once knew and then forgot. A truly novel approach is very difficult (someone somewhere in recorded history probably did something similar if not exactly the same), but within one's circle of acquaintances and contacts, it is quite possible to have the "new" thing.

Your post reminded me of an experience I had:

In my second year of architecture school we were to design a building and make a model (of an art museum). My idea was strictly my own, but some time later I saw a building that looked exactly like my model. I'm sure the teachers thought that I had copied that building, but I had not seen it before the class project.

So even original ideas have duplicates sometimes.

ps; that building was not an art museum, but an office building.

 

[bribrius]

I spend much of my time looking at older photos. Often i come across one that was taken in maybe the 40's or 50's and i think "i wish i was that good at this". I could probably make a similar photo than some more aesthetically pleasing (modern tech and processing). Not so sure that makes it a better photo though as it wouldn't carry the same weight. so i wonder if photography has progressed. Or if it just became more processed or high tech. The re isn't many modern images i see that i say to myself "i wish i could take that". I do come across a lot of older ones though. Saw a diner pic the other day. Straight shot probably little dark room fudging. And just thought "i wish i could take that". It was 1950's

 

[bribrius]

And yeah, i take some ugly pics. Because my biggest fear is turning out "aesthetically pleasing garbage" for me. I look through my own stuff, see something processed and kinda pretty. And my mind says "well that is a p.o.s.". The prettier and more processed the more a p.o.s. i think it is. Mostly i shoot that type of stuff at all just to learn some post processing. Just where my mind is, but i probably pertains heavily on how i view modern art. Not that i don't like anything modern. It just isn't what i hold my own standards too or set my guide by.

 

[Designer]

..so i wonder if photography has progressed.

The technology is different now, but many of the principles of photography, such as; composition, manipulation of light, etc. have remained essentially the same, which makes those old images timeless.

 

[minicoop1985]

So now that I wear glasses, does that mean I have more arteest cred? Is that like street cred?

 

[limr]

So now that I wear glasses, does that mean I have more arteest cred? Is that like street cred?

Are they hipster glasses? Then no. No cred for you! Come back one year!

 

[Gary A.]

Some of this stuff is the equivalent of trying to making learning calculus art.

Why do you think mathematics, and specifically calculus is not an art?

Having taught calculus for the last 13 years and being a professional mathematician, I believe that mathematics has much more in common with art and philosophy than with science.

Pedagogically, it's often best to help students understand that mathematics is not some vast absolute quantity to be learned exactly, it's a social discipline. What students learn is the communication process that is accepted by the group.

This is really interesting. I've often heard mathematics referred to as a language, and heard about how proofs can be elegant or clumsy. The problem is how to reconcile this concept with the experience of math as a rigid set of rules that have to be followed but given no real explanation of what those rules are for. That's how I think most kids experience it in the schools, anyway. But it can be likened to language, and if language can be the tool of artistic expression, then it follows that math too can be a tool of artistic expression, no?

Hmm, gonna be thinking about this one for a while

Sooo 2+2=3 ... is art?

 

[Gary A.]

However, I fully disagree with @qleak (sorry--see my reasoning!) with regards to mathematics being more in common with art than science. It's not one or the other..it's both. Just because something is artistic doesn't mean it can't be scientific. And vice versa.

Spoken like a true engineer (Just joking with you )

I do not disagree with you. It is certainly both! I personally see more relations with art / philosophy than with science. I didn't say there weren't relationships with science

The problem with mathematics as a discipline is that there is a divide between applications based courses (calculus through differential equations and linear algebra) and more theoretical offerings which tend to hold much more of the philosophical and artistic questions.

The transition is often difficult for students they move from classes where they are taught how to do technical things to classes where they are asked why things work and have to think creatively for themselves. I think the parallel to photography is quite apt here

Certainly. That parallel is eerily familiar to me having recently graduated from photography school. I found myself utterly underwhelmed for my entire freshman year, learning next to nothing that I didn't already know, halfway through sophomore year I got hit over the head with "meaning" "concept" and "narrative". At the time it tripped me up quite a bit. I thought "why is this necessary?" "This doesn't pertain to my work..."and plenty of other negative things about it until I finally gave in and really attempted to understand it. Now its all I think about. I can't even see a photo without thinking about the concept, the ideas, and the narrative of an image. Technical precision is just a nice doorway to a much larger mansion of possibility.

I was taught as a photojournalist, that there wasn't much difference between photography and the written word. Both are tools for communication.

 

[limr]

Sooo 2+2=3 ... is art?

I have no idea. What the hell do I know from math?

 

[Gary A.]

Simply said, isn't anything beyond utilitarian ...art? A person crafts a simple clay pot for holding water. Another person adds some shape to that utilitarian design ... it serves no utilitarian purpose ... thus art. Art can be good or bad, elaborate or simple, high or low. according to collective and individual tastes ... but can't/isn't anything extra beyond utilitarian be considered art.

Which has me perplexed about writing code and art. Given, I know nothing about code ... but using the above definition as the lowest common denominator to define art, (a segway into math), how is using less code artistic?

I understand the idea of bumbling, clean, pure, et cetera and that with code accomplishing the same task with less ... is more ... to be desired ... but is that art? A craftsperson throws a utilitarian clay pot equal to another utilitarian clay pot but with less clay ... is that art or is it engineering (redesigning the same volume pot with less material) or is it craftsmanship (it takes more skill to use less clay)?