Censorship and Art

Heriotze said:

Art is, inherently, nothing.

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Why call it something then? We don't often assign nothing a name.

Heriotze said:

The world assigned value to Western art and its quality and will continue to do so. I guess I don't know what you're shooting for with this second statement?

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How did they assign it? It's a simple question. You said..

permanently eclipsed all other cultures in the quality of what they can produce

How do you judge quality if art is nothing? Your own statements are contradictory. You say there is no way to even say what are is, and yet you say we have higher quality art because we can't. How do you measure quality?

Again, its a simple question. You tell me a test for measuring quality.

Someone brought up that I didn't respond to this, honestly missed the reply.

Heriotze said:

Why call anything something then? We can delve into existential causation as if we were freshmen and reading Camus for the first time but I feel like you are intellectually well beyond that sir.

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No. I'm not. Labels are what we use to begin defining our world. No one is beyond that. We segregate things from their environment because that is how we describe reality. If you can't agree on that fundamental point, THEN you devolve into existentialism.

We generally assign nothing a name as a last resort to not being able to perfectly define a thing with words. Love, Hate, Virtue. Such is art.

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All those things have specific chemical pathways in the brain, they are responses to certain stimuli to encourage various behaviors in the brain by increasing chemicals which bond with receptors and stimulate activity. The fact that we don't have perfect understanding as to what causes these things is simply an element of our ignorance, not the inability to define and measure them.

Who has produced greater art than the examples that I gave as questions to you?

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Again, when you give me the standard by which you said this statement, I can answer you.

permanently eclipsed all other cultures in the quality of what they can produce

This is a qualitative statement. You said the quality eclipsed other eras. What standard are you using for quality?

We judge quality and beauty subjectively and that's the only real answer.

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So you don't know if our art has eclipsed other eras. Our art could be shit, and in 500 years it could be laughed at as a regression in artistic quality that produced garbage. Right?

Again, as I posed to the Feanor. If you were to find, today, a 2000 year old "classical" (Roman) sculpture, you would pull it out of the ground and say "that's someone's art"--you may not like it personally, you may think its dog shit, but you'd be able to say "A human MEANT to express something with that". Now you tell me, if you knew nothing of our civilization...and you pulled this from the ground....Would you be able to tell it wasn't just a stain?



Be honest with yourself, of course you wouldn't. You need to know WHAT that is and who painted it to even "know" its art. And before you say "stop citing ridiculous examples"--that piece above sold for 90 million dollars.

Heriotze said:

"
And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.
"

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Lithose said:

Now you tell me, if you knew nothing of our civilization...and you pulled this from the ground....Would you be able to tell it wasn't just a stain?

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Heriotze said:

Are we discussing how archaeologists would gauge our world based on what they would find in a gallery of modern art or why our world would have to be dug up by archaeologists?

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You may have misunderstood the question but it doesn't matter. The question requires you to know nothing of our civilization. He may have included the small caveat knowing how it wouldn't work without it. It's flawed so don't bother.

The argument is simple. Originally we were all talking about the subjective nature of art. Then it quickly turned, as expected, to postmodernist criticism. That was always the real point. The debaters confused political postmodernism and philosophical subjectivism with art. They dislike postmodernism (a useless academic term like impressionism, modernism, etc) and would like to discredit it. Fair enough. They want to strip the word art from it but harsh criticism is sufficient to me.

By the way they are already coming up with the next one. Postinternet

Heriotze said:

I can neither tell you what you find pleasing as much as you can tell me in kind.

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That's not what's being discussed.

Heriotze said:

The name attached to a thing should be a bone of contention, it should mean nothing when we are actually feeling something about a piece. I've been as lost in things staring at da Vinci silver ink sketches and Rembrandts as much as I have with looking at how the gallery lights hit the brush strokes of a Rothko or a Kjarval. Does that mean that you should have the same reaction to those? Absolutely not.

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Here you're just trying to distance yourself from the argument. The name is a simple categorization tool to describe the chemical reaction in your brain when exposed to certain stimuli. The question is the range of that stimuli which should constitute categorization. If there is no range, if the range is INFINITE, then there is no NEED for categorization. Understand?

If a name means nothing, then there is no reason to have a name.

This is a shitty hill to waste your energy on sir. You are, literally, picking apart arguments in order to discuss semantics sentence by sentence now. You like things that I agree with and I like things that you do but I also like things that you do not and you are responding in detached quotes to rebutt. What is even happening at this point? We're agreeing on 95% of an argument and concisely arguing about he other 5% even though we partially agree on that as well.

If we're going to continue this conversation answer the questions and quit picking apart responses like Tanoomba would. What do you consider your status quo of art; paintings, sculpture, poetry, novels, music, cooking, architecture, drawing. Which Pieta is going to be dug up to counter your definition of what anything modern can come up with?

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I didn't claim any status quo, or any metric by which to measure, I simply claimed there must be a metric. YOU claimed there was some measurement of art, which I've been trying to get you to answer for over a month now and you're stamping your fear, writing absolutely vacous flowery prose about how rational dissection of an argument is "semantics".

First off, when you dismiss someone as arguing "semantics" it means they are attempting to quibble over different ways to say the same thing. Our argument is not doing that, we are trying to ACTUALLY define a thing--which is what the field and meaning of semantics is (Definition below)

1. the study of linguistic development by classifying and examining changes in meaning and form.

You literally (The correct use of the word) can not have an argument about the changes in the scope of art without using semantics. So every argument you have about "what art is", is going to be a semantics argument. You understand that right? You're using the "semantics" dismissal completely incorrectly, it should be used in arguments where say one side is saying "law enforcement" and another side is saying "policing" to describe enforcing the laws. If we're going to continue this argument, you need to start understanding how words are used. Attempting to use semantics as a retaliation here is showing an obtuseness to what the argument actually is.

What are we discussing now; a mirror of the world at present (or past) or an artist's interpretation of how he took in that world? Anthropology class was over in (and I guess still is) the political thread and talking about how Venezuela and South Africa are divulging into chaos.

Are we discussing how archaeologists would gauge our world based on what they would find in a gallery of modern art or why our world would have to be dug up by archaeologists?

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The entire argument is about does art have a classification? I'm arguing that it must, that what stimulates the human brain has environmental factors based on pattern recognition, and a divergence from that has lead to art being more about relationships and general knowledge of the history of art (IE Who you know, and how popular the artist is--its fucking baseball card collecting the art world edition), than of tapping into that area of the brain and learning what makes humans appreciate things (Which was the quest of classic artists).

In short, Micahelangelo didn't need people to know who he was, or how famous he was, or how appreciated he was for people to reocgnize his works as art--they may not have enjoyed them, but everyone would stop and say "hey, that's art."....Modern artists who paint everything one color, or move a rock in front of a museum without altering at all (That's real btw)...Yes, you'd never know they were "art" unless you know the story behind the pieces.

That being said, the ENTIRE argument comes down to this statement, which you used as a defense for the shitty art we have today. You gave me THIS argument as the reasoning to why no definition was a good thing.

Heriotze said:

It is a very good thing that everyone can be an artist in western culture, it's given us such a talent pool to draw from that it has, basically, permanently eclipsed all other cultures in the quality of what they can produce and how fast they can create new masters.

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Now all I want you to do is answer a simple question. By what measure have we eclipsed other cultures in quality of the art?

Any other argument you make needs to defend this point. (And by defending it, you will prove me correct, because to defend it, you have to give me some measurement to judge the quality of art.)

I don't really expect an alien civilization would be able to draw any specific conclusions from our art. They might realize that we HAVE art, and that's a pretty big thing to realize.

But art requires context to be meaningful. Without the glory of Austria Beethoven is just a smattering of self consistent euphony. Which would tell you something. But the man was telling you something very specific. He was relating observations. Without the context you could not possibly know it or be expected to know it.

There is a school of thought in which art does not require context. It's an interesting philosophical position. It's also demonstrably false. Any time an artifact is observed context is created. The only situation in which art exists devoid of context is the situation in which art does not exist. Interesting. Not particularly insightful or relevant. And meta. You can very much see how that philosophy is born out of and a reaction to rapid technological change. Change so rapid that we can barely adapt to it -- and it may be that we actually cannot adapt to it this quickly.

And that's why you get self-conflicting nonsense like post modernism.

Feanor said:

You may have misunderstood the question but it doesn't matter. The question requires you to know nothing of our civilization. He may have included the small caveat knowing how it wouldn't work without it. It's flawed so don't bother.

The argument is simple. Originally we were all talking about the subjective nature of art. Then it quickly turned, as expected, to postmodernist criticism. That was always the real point. The debaters confused political postmodernism and philosophical subjectivism with art. They dislike postmodernism (a useless academic term like impressionism, modernism, etc) and would like to discredit it. Fair enough. They want to strip the word art from it but harsh criticism is sufficient to me.

By the way they are already coming up with the next one. Postinternet

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He did misunderstand the question, and it absolutely matters--because its the point of the argument. No one confused anything, Feanor. Postmodernist art is an art philosophy that is critical of values in art. Through the elimination of values the hope was to expand the creativity in art by allowing more things to be art.

You don't deny this is the definition, most artists will tell you they don't want art defined because its subjective. That's fine. Then again, the question is what the fuck is art? If ANYTHING is art, then the walls in your home can be masterpieces. Why not? If tomorrow the art community got together, came to your house and said "the man who painted this, Tim Mcfuckstick, was found to be an art genius, and his roller pattern painting here is just exceptional--these are now the greatest art pieces in the world." That would be all it takes for them to be highly valued.

Which is an illustration that art has become more social status within a specific community than actual stimulation from a piece. You could shit on a plate and if a few major art houses wrote about your genius, and then appraised it at 10 million dollars, it would be a significant piece of modern art. Because that is all modern art requires.

Again, this is modern art in one of the most prestigious museums for it IN the world. A place 99.9% of 'artists' will NEVER be able to get their work into.



Now, if Yoko Ono had not fucked John Lennon, and she was screaming like that--you guys think she'd be invited to the museum, or do you think someone would tell her to shut the fuck up and/or think she was having a mental break?

Yeah. Modern art is about who knows you, personally, not about the work. Many of the premier pieces in modern art would not be recognizable as any attempt at art to anyone outside the field if you were to include them in a randomized ink blot test. Meanwhile, try doing that with a classical artists work--think no one would be able to recognize it as art? If you answer these questions honestly, you'll see why you, as an artist, are so troubled by this. You shouldn't be angry at me for that, be angry at the shitstains that are trying to turn your medium into some kind of political statement, and social club. It's shitty for artists.

It's a null statement. Objectively it's all the same thing. You can judge it that way, it's easy to do. What you wind up with is ...1=1=1=1=1=1... That might be true, but tautologies tend to be. So the measure has to be subjective. This allows for 2+3 = 5 = 4+1. This is where things live.

That's all Lithose was saying. Post modernists use an intricate method to express that tautology. That's why it's relevant. Sure, they're expressing something. But in order to deem it worthwhile you have to reject their premise.

There's a reason why people don't "get" modern art. There is intentionally nothing to "get". Every now and then that's actually profound. Usually not though and it's certainly not a subject that bears 50 years of exploration.

iannis said:

I don't really expect an alien civilization would be able to draw any specific conclusions from our art. They might realize that we HAVE art, and that's a pretty big thing to realize.

But art requires context to be meaningful. Without the glory of Austria Beethoven is just a smattering of self consistent euphony. Which would tell you something. But the man was telling you something very specific. He was relating observations. Without the context you could not possibly know it or be expected to know it.

There is a school of thought in which art does not require context. It's an interesting philosophical position. It's also demonstrably false. Any time an artifact is observed context is created. The only situation in which art exists devoid of context is the situation in which art does not exist. Interesting. Not particularly insightful or relevant. And meta. You can very much see how that philosophy is born out of and a reaction to rapid technological change. Change so rapid that we can barely adapt to it -- and it may be that we actually cannot adapt to it this quickly.

And that's why you get self-conflicting nonsense like post modernism.

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It's not though (Demonstrably false). Beethoven can induce a response even in people who have no clue who Beehthoven is. Without ANY context (And I believe there are studies which actually measure brain activity, I'll try to dig them up). But if someone ignorant to Beehtoven listened, they will say "that's music, someone organized that to try and say something (IE draw an emotional reaction)"--they might not know anything else, but they will categorize it, even if it doesn't draw emotions from them. You yourself even described it as a euphony, pleasing, and self consistent (A note that it had a pattern). Now, can some people not like it, find it boring or not pleasing? Sure. But most humans, if you run it by them, will be able to tell you it is an attempt at music. It is an attempt to draw emotions from them. (And whether they know it or not, this attempt was made through the exploitation of patterns of sound we've come to find pleasing through evolutionary responses.)

Now look at this.



If you didn't know shit about art, and I played this sound to you. Would you describe it as music? Would you even say it was a "self consistent euphony"?

You are a meat machine. Certain patterns stimulate you. There is a large variance in how you react to these patterns, the depth of your reaction, and your specific type of reaction--that is what is subjective about art. But the core essential 'soul' of it? Yes, it can be categorized without the knowledge of history.

History of art is what makes the Mona Lisa one of the 'greatest paintings of our time'. But its the fact that the painting fits a lot of the patterns we find stimulating/provoking which makes it recognizable as an attempt at art even without context. Eliminating the former, eliminating context of how famous the Mona Lisa is, would not change the fact that you could tell Mona Lisa was an attempt to communicate something (Though it might be just another woman's portrait).

Here is a 10 million dollar piece of modern art.



That's it. That's the sum total of the art. Can you tell, without context, that a human was trying to say something with that?

Well, we're human.

I was using the "what if aliens came to earth" jump off. I think an alien would say, "That's organized sound. That was created. (an important point). Some willful complexity went into that and some industry. These creatures call that "music"."

In that way you actually -could- equate Beethoven and Yoko. Utterly objective. Objective in a way that we can't be with ourselves. Our inability to do that is exactly why Yoko and Beethoven are not equitable.

I don't see that it's a particularly valuable thing to be able to do personally, tbh. That's why we create complex tools. So that we don't have to be math machines. Jesus, that's why we create God.

It's just rotten the way that it permeates through so much thought. I had a professor tell me that the observer effect applies to people. A professor spouting pseudo-shamanistic bullshit with the AUTHORITY of science without even the least bit of self reflection or wry realization on the issue.

I told her that i've never understood how a person can be so educated and so fucking stupid at the same time. She doesn't talk to me anymore.

I wonder if she stopped existing once I stopped looking.

It's just rotten with this mind cancer.

iannis said:

Well, we're human.

I was using the "what if aliens came to earth" jump off. I think an alien would say, "That's organized sound. That was created. (an important point). Some willful complexity went into that and some industry. These creatures call that "music"."

In that way you actually -could- equate Beethoven and Yoko. Utterly objective. Objective in a way that we can't be with ourselves. Our inability to do that is exactly why Yoko and Beethoven are not equitable.
.

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Yeah, on the aliens note--you do at least need the context of a human and evolution within our environment. But as you mentioned in your other post (I believe, but might be misinterpreting it), at some point everything does become subjective, because our measurements rise from arbitrary selections of measurements that we define to help us categorize the world. It doesn't mean that those things don't exist, but our pattern finding is based on how our brains work. If you attempt to go beyond that, it's just using existentialism to ensure you can never be wrong; which is what postmodernism is, effectively. Eliminating measurement to ensure no one is wrong.

Such a thing just ends up being mind cancer--is entropy of thought, the disillusionment of order in our thoughts. Some people think it will lead them to nirvana, those are the people that don't understand nirvana means the end of existence, and nothingness.

Honest question.

What do you say to an ISIS executioner who claims that his beheaded victims are all works of religious art?