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Philosophy 101
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When Is a Picture
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When Is a Picture |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan 
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. not art? Is the distinction more a matter of intent than anything else? . |
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Falling rain
since 2008-01-31
Posts 2178Small town, Illinois |
"matter of intent.." hmm its more the matter of intrest then intent.. or maybe both.. it is art no matter how u look at it. or at least in my opinion.. ~Zach~ |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Take a frame out of any "Cops" episode, frame it and what do you have? . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
What is the frame you present it in, Huan Yi? You can call an original picture "art" because of the degree of its artfulness. The difficulty there is naming your cut-off point, isn't it? One difficulty in speaking of "an original picture" has to do with reproduction. Is print 100 of an edition of 100 art? Is it as artful as print number 1? What happens if somebody makes print 101, is that art? Does this vary if the artist supervises the printing process? With photographs the problem can be the same because so much of the artfulness of an image is created in the process of development? Until recently, each print was slightly different, and each had to be approved by the photographer. Counterfeits were possible in any of these cases. Were the counterfeits art? You'd think not, but then there's the notion of conceptual art, where a thing becomes art simply through the process of being put into the conceptual framework of art. So some collectors will collect counterfeit works of art because they are counterfeits, sometimes because they are the work of specific counterfeiters. My father, who is a collector of antiques, once bought an old copper still pipe, simply because it was a lovely thing, curly as a pig's tail. Then he had to think about how to display it. He had a galvanized pipe screwed onto a threaded flange. The flange he screwed onto the middle of a large board painted flat black, and he taped the still pipe to the pipe with a piece of black electrician's tape. He got a label gun and titled it, Virginia Still Life. I don't know when he got rid of that thing, But I loved that piece, I thought it was as good a piece of conceptual sculpture as ever I'd seen. Folk art, I'd say. In the end, that where you have to draw the line with a picture too, I guess. Somebody's done something that's fascinated them with some sort of drawing medium. It's clicked for them somehow deep down, and somebody else has gotten a gander at it and said, By golly, I'd sure fancy owning that. I could live with that in my room for a number of years and it would make me happy. There are fancier definitions, but that one does a pretty good job for me. BobK. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
A picture is always art just by the fact of being a picture. One may use the art better or worse, but it is still art. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
How is crass pornography (for example) art? Saying it is involves a hopeless elasticity of definition. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
The same way a car is still technology, even though one use it to put garbage in. The car may stink offensively being full of garbage, but nevertheless, it is still a car: a peice of technology. It is not the "garbage" that makes it art, but the fact of being what is already a form of art: in this case, a picture. [This message has been edited by Essorant (05-25-2008 12:27 AM).] |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
I don't think art is easy to define, though it certainly isn't defined as "anything in pictoral form", anymore than the morse code or the sound of a Jack-hammer is itself music. The intent of pornography is to arouse lust coupled with the desire to make money, which has nothing to do necessarily with art. Can art have a pornographic element, or vice versa? Of course. The two elements shouldn't be confused however. And certainly all pictures are not art, simply by virtue of being pictoral. We don't consider a camera itself to be an artist (though most of the representation comes from its functions), nor is someone automatically made one by pressing the button. I would rather say a picture is a tool of art, not a form of art. Stephen |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
I think a picture is a form of art, and was just saying that being a picture is what makes it minimally at least art (aside from anything else), just like a badly written poem may have nothing artful about it except the fact that it is at least a poem and therefore still art. I agree that they are used as "tools" as well. All I am saying is that using the arts and tools badly, doesn't remove the fact that they are still arts and tools. Being minimally arts and tools though doesn't mean any example of them is very virtuous and praiseworthy. For that, it takes using the arts and tools well and with respect and beauty therebeside. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Stephanos, Are you actually volunteering to tell people what what is art and what is pornography? Please don't tell me that. It's like volunteering to be a target. I've seen some Robert Mapplethorpe photographs that are profoundly disturbing in terms of my personal judgement of their subject matter ( as in Yuck!) but which I think are very good art. I wouldn't be able to live with the picture in my home, I would find it too disturbing an image, but I want it available for others to see or to look at myself if the mood strikes. About your jackhammer example, you may know the piece by John Cage which involves rolling an airplane engine on stage and turning it on. A piston engine, as I recall it. I think you may be underestimating the power of framing in the definition of things in general and art in particular. While I am particularly fond of Michelangelo's "The Last Judgement," for example, I would imagine there are people around who would consider it pornographic because of it's sadomasochistic content and might consider censorship appropriate. Think of the terrible effect it might have on young children. Imagine the violence it might spur them to. Imagine the violence that such images and such writings have already done over the past 1500 years. No wonder we have so much trouble with our youth these days. All this talks about last judgement and the violence God does to sinners and punishment. You get the idea. I'm only half-kidding here. Folks are very fast about the ascription of evil. About photographs: I have a friend who is a very fine visual artist. She has done some very fine drawing; very fine, I could never afford them, some collages and photographs as well. When I take a photograph, I'm lucky if anything comes out at all. I have no sense of composition, balance, color, anything. I remember stopping with Carla at the top of a hill overlooking Boston. She hopped out of the car, pulled out a camera, looked at the view for about ten seconds, then snapped her photograph. While she knows how to do her own developing, she had this one done commercially. I wouldn't have been able to get that shot if I'd have stood there all day with limitless film and forty cameras to choose from, and I know it. She had skill, experience and talent in the visual arts. She was an artist, I wasn't. Maybe I will be someday, who knows? But I sort of doubt it. How is crass pornography art? That depends on your frame of reference, doesn't it? Beautiful image or sadomasochistic nightmare, depending on your frame, could describe either Michelangelo or Mapplethorpe, though I have to grant that the consensus is pretty heavily weighted. If you're honest, though, and look at "The Last Judgement," you have to acknowledge that Michelangelo wanted it very very clear that those sinners were going to suffer in graphic and severe fashion and he wants the viewer to feel a portion of that pain. Furthermore, he wanted the people of his time to know exactly who some of those sinners were going to be; there are apparently recognizable portraits there. In addition to it's enormous spiritual value, it's a cruel and bitter piece of work. And behind all those bizarre images that Mapplethorpe is putting on display, the thing that he's trying to get across more than anything else is that there's a current of love and affection that runs through these nightmare scenes. For me, they're nightmarish, I should say. It's much the same with some of the poetry of Arthur Rimbaud. What do you think; Have I been too outrageous here or is this a reasonable line of thinking? I'm thinking about the education material. Best to you and your family, BobK. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Bob: quote: In expressing my views, my priority has never been to avoid the pleasure of being a target,  though I'm not exactly looking for that response. But to answer you're question; No. I am however volunteering to tell people that they are not the same. Making particular distinctions and "drawing the line" is only my job within my immediate sphere of activity and influence. I already concede that particular examples of art may have a pornographic element, and that examples of pornography may have an artistic element. That realization is enough to explain all of your examples, without jumping to the conclusion that pornography is simply another form of art. The question may be also framed this way: Can lust rightly be called "an appreciation of art"? More later, no time now ... Stephen |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Bob, It's interesting you should mention John Cage. I almost mentioned him in my post before your response, to give an example of something which ceased to be music by utilizing soundwaves to make an anti-musical philosophic statement of absurdity. And if you really understand John Cage, that's what it was about. Likewise much in the dada movement of art, ceased to be art, not by my narrow judgment, but by its own statements and intent. I really think the artistic content of something may be drained (more or less), leaving only a superficial shell behind it. And by the way, to anyone who gets into a "mood" to gaze at something which they would normally or instinctively call crass or repulsive, perhaps he can consider whether it is best to critique his own tendencies or moods rather than to automatically widen his artistic palette. The assumption I want to counter (and I have hardly spoken about particular examples) is that all obsessive forms of human attraction are comparable to "appreciation". Stephen |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. How about raw footage from a surveillance camera or a Martian Lander? . |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
It can be edited and presented in an artistic fashion. But it is not art in and of itself, as art is commonly defined. Why would raw footage from a surveillance camera be any more "art" than random sounds recorded off of a freeway? Stephen |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. What if there was no editing but merely presentation as "art"? . |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
I don't know. I haven't seen in particular what you're referring to. But what makes it artistic according to your thinking? Stephen |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Raw footage from a camera is still minimally art, edited or not edited. It takes art to record anything through technology and art to be a record through technology. The technology nor the record made through it, doesn't spring out of raw nature, but we use skill to make it do what it does, and make it work, and make it work with success. Cameras and recordings may be everydaily things now, but that doesn't mean they are not art. Such things just don't feel like art very much when they are so common and casualized in our culture. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Folks find it simple to overlook the power of "framing" and "reframing" as activities and what "framing" and "reframing" do to the "reality" of a situation. Discussions about the nature of the (especially visual) arts frequently run off the rails because of lack of clarity on this subject. I believe that one of the requirements for a thing to be considered as art is that it be "framed," or presented, as art. Without this requirement being met, one may enjoy or admire a thing endlessly, but it is not art. With this requirement being met, even the most outlandish of experiences and things is transformed and becomes art, and is subject, thereafter, to the sort of judgements to which art may be subject. This is a lovely piece of art, for example; or I have never seen such an unlikely piece of art before in my life. It is in terrible taste, and it should be destroyed on the spot for the good of all humanity. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Essorant, Then in effect, it has ceased to be art. A video surveillance of a store robbery isn't recorded to express any artistic sentiment ... but pragmatically to catch a thief. I think motive, not technology, is the central idea in artistic expression. What is the motive behind the presentation? Stephen |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Stephanos, But the moment somebody makes the claim for it that it is art, art is what it becomes and it demands to be evaluated in that framework. It may be good art or bad art, but one it has been framed as art, there you have it. It's a matter of a shift in the frame of reference. BK |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Stephanos, The surveillance and the recording is the art, not the robbery that the surveillance and recording "capture". There is skill and virtue in the technologies and that is why they are at least minimally art. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Bob I think you are automatically assimilating things to the "frame" because the frame itself is art. If you put either a beautiful painting or a piece of dung in a frame the frame is almost always still art, a good piece of woodwork, a good piece of technology, a good and familiar way of holding art in general. Therefore, holding up a frame with a piece of dung in it, is still holding up the artwork of the frame itself, despite the filth inside it. But I think it is best not to confuse the two. Just because the frame is art, doesn't mean what is put inside is art as well! |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Dear Essorant, I have not made myself clear. By "frame" I do not mean the literal wood or metal appliance that holds the picture. I mean the ideational structure that supports the point of view epitomized by the way the object or idea is discussed. Erving Goffman speaks about the idea in his 1974 classic work of Sociology, Frame analysis. Peter Berger also speaks of a similar set of concepts in his book, (year forgotten) The Social Construction of Reality. The idea has recently been given attention as a political instrument. I give a reference to a link below that will offer some short introduction to a few of the ideas: http://www.rockridgeinstitute.org/projects/strategic/simple_framing What I was suggesting in my comments was that simply calling a thing a piece of art, no matter what it was, shifted its catagory. It now has to be considered as good art or bad art and not simply a long reel of film with pretty much nothing going on, as in some of the early Andy Warhol experimental films. They were art, I believe, simply because someone had the idiocy to call them art, and now must be considered in that way. Boring art, perhaps, but art. John Fowles had some interesting things to say about frames from a different perspective than mine, and seems to be worth looking at. Some book about the Arabian Nights. Best to you, with a red face, BobK. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
quote: I think that consideration is actually a much more important one. |
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