Response to Josh

Does art need to express to the artist at all?

            Cognitive art or art intended to make people think would not be expressing the artist’s emotions. Artists could also create a work intending to communicate an emotion to an audience instead of trying to understand more about their own emotions. People can understand what anger means and aim to communicate it without figuring out the unique aspects of their own emotions. Art could also be intended for the artist to develop their skills or to make them think without it being based around emotion, although I think most art has an emotional component. An artist could also fully understand their emotion having previously expressed it and intend a work of art as a way to revisit it. They could use art to reflect on their past. I suppose art could also be made as an attempt to understand someone else emotionally rather than the artist trying to understand their own emotions. Art could also be used to reflect on the subconscious an emotional response might then be secondary. Someone could also make art for the sake of beauty or to challenge the current standards. Many reasons exist for creating art that do not have to contain an expressive component.

            For any artists out there, what do you think you are trying to do when you create art? Express, communicate, challenge, etc?  

Response to Natalie

It is true that instinct comes prior to emotion, but without emotion would we use our instincts?

            I think that instincts come prior to emotion and can exist without emotion. An instinct is a response to stimuli that people are born with. They do not have the chance to use emotion or thought before acting on them. I suppose an instinctual behavior would be one that is acted upon without any learning or a reflex. An instinct could potentially be learned if it becomes a pattern of behavior acted upon without thought. I think we could have an emotional response after an instinct or in reaction to an instinct. Fleeing from a certain stimuli would probably occur before someone realized they were feeling fear. I guess we could have an instinctual emotional reaction, but not all instincts would involve emotion. Instinct is inherent, unlearned and probably the same throughout the majority of the species. Emotions are subjective and emotional dispositions are often included in the way we describe our personalities. I think emotions and instinct are closely linked. We react to stimuli without thought in instinct and we often seem to have emotional responses before we think through a situation. If we have an emotional response before thinking about something then this would fit under the category of instinct. Emotions also come from thinking about a situation though and instinct does not.

            How closely related are instinct and emotion?

Response to Brycen

Therefore, a question that I pose is can art be an expression of ideas without being able to communicate to the audience?

            I think art can express ideas without communicating them to others. This occurs when someone uses art as a method of getting their own emotions out as a way to understand them. The expression helps the person who creates the art but is not intended for the viewer to understand and the viewer may not be able to understand. This is I think what Collingwood means by art as expression, art allows the artist to recognize, come to terms with and clarify their own emotions. This is not to say that art cannot be intended to communicate to the audience, but if it is the goal is probably not expression of emotions. When someone makes art with the intention of having an audience receive it a certain way, they lose the freedom to fully explore their own emotional situation. When someone uses art to express emotions they are not entirely clear on what the emotions are beforehand so they cannot make art as expression and communication. I suppose this would not be the case if someone fully understood the emotional place they were in and still felt the need to articulate it. Someone might do this if they thought it would help them move past the emotions they understand, but are still weighing them down. Then they would be expressing them with a full understanding and could have a secondary goal of showing them to an audience. People could also create a work of art originally simply because they wanted to communicate a certain emotion to the audience and it could evolve into an expression of their own emotions. They could also express emotions in such a way that it is easily communicated to an audience, but I do think it would be hard to at the same time intend to communicate to an audience and to really plumb the depths of one’s own complicated emotional reactions. I think someone could hope that their expression of emotions would be relatable to other people, even if it was not a strict communication of a certain emotion. If people made are to express emotions and impart the general idea of what they were feeling to an audience, these two goals could be compatible.

            Do you feel when viewing art that you are receiving emotional communications from the artist?    

Horror and Philosophy

               I found a discussion on a forum that analyzes The Philosophy of Horror by Noel Carroll, which I read for my book review, and reaches a lot of the same conclusions that I do.  He also writes that it is not clear why people would not watch fantasy instead of horror and that it does not include human’s that act like monsters. He adds a criticism that if monsters are expected to appeal to our curiosity, then Carroll’s argument does not explain why we would watch films about the same monsters. It would seem that overtime vampires would stop inspiring curiosity and would start to seem normal. He does not mention that idea of breaking category distinctions that is so important to Carroll’s theory, but I think this is what is intended to be appealing to curiosity so it is somewhat implied. Overall I think the post at the top of the page on this forum is a good, quick look at horror and philosophy. He also finds that getting scared is an important part of horror even though Carroll finds fear to be a secondary part of horror and not why most people would read or watch it. I would agree that at least some of the appeal of horror has to do with the fear and other emotions like disgust that it inspires. Otherwise people would be content with non-horror fantasy and it is clear by the persistence of the horror genre that they are not.  

http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/why-do-we-enjoy-horror-films-28527.html

Why do you think people enjoy horror?   

Art and Theory

I read something today looking at how art and theory go together that said that they do not seem to have a lot of bearing on each other. Many artists do not look at theory in an academic way and many theorists do not realize the process of making art is so different from the theory. This is a piece of the article.

The Art Newspaper: The topic of the Frieze panel is “Have Art and Theory Drifted Apart?” What are your thoughts?

Robert Storr: I’m not sure that art and theory were ever that close to begin with. There are some artists who read theory seriously but not all that many. And some of the theoretical writing that was done about artists was very important, but what people now call theory is a vast field and a relatively small amount of it bears directly on art, or at least on art production.

We’re in a very strange situation where some artists have derived a lot from their theoretical reading but never as systematically as people are inclined to think. Felix Gonzalez-Torres, who I know read theory carefully, nonetheless made a point of saying that it was not to be read in a kind of rigorous, academic way, but to help unblock thoughts and open up questions.

A lot of artists don’t want to tip their hands and show how selective and shallow their understanding is; a lot of people who do theory full time don’t really want to acknowledge that the process of making art is fundamentally different from the process of writing theory. And, therefore, even though you may share a vocabulary, you don’t share at all the same kind of generative process or goals.

How much impact do you think theory has on art?

Response to Andrea

However, is success even applicable to art, if it is so subjective?

I think the ways you suggested success enters into art are absolutely true. If the artist is happy with it and the individuals involved and in the audience are happy with it is has been successful. This does leave the question of how many people need to be happy with it for it to be a success. If the director is the only one who likes it is it a success? If one member of the audience likes it is it success? I do wonder where financial aspects come into play. With a student production monetary aspects are not terribly important, but in many productions a goal is for the members of the cast to receive a paycheck. If people are to survive as artists there has to be financial gain and this is a kind of success. If a play is not particularly liked by the cast and crew but it makes money is it a success? Also if a student production is not well liked, is it still a success if the students learned something in the process? I think success is applicable to art but first it has to be determined what the goal of the art is. If the goal is making a profit and it does it is successful. If the goal is education then if people learn it is successful. If the goal is happiness and people like it then it is successful. A play does not have to make people happy to be a success though. If the audience does not like it but it causes them to question their outlook on something, that is a different sort of success. The artist could also create a work to release pent up emotions and if it does so it has succeeded even if nobody including the artist likes the final product.  

                What goals are typical of an artist when they produce a work and how can they determine if they are successful?

Response to Brycen

Now a question that I pose is could something that is ones skill also be something that they are talented at?

I think something one is skilled at is often something that one is talented at because I think people often enjoy things they are talented at so they work at them and gain skills. That is not to say that someone cannot learn something they are not talented at, people often do, or dislike something they are talented at. I do think that when people try something and are good at it they come to like it and want to continue. This talent may give them self esteem which allows them to continue the subject even when they struggle with it. They remember that they can do it and so they do not give up. When someone struggles with every aspect of something they learn it is much easier to simply stop and say they cannot do it. I think many skilled people began as simply talented and may have surpassed their natural skill as they gained skill or combined their talent with skill.

Do you think having talent inclines people to gain skills?

Response to Andrea

Can someone be better at an art form than someone else? Or is the skill just different?

                I do think that some people are better at an art form than others especially when it comes to skill. Skill involves practice and experience with an art form. Working 100 hours will increase skill more than 10 hours. I do not think this is elitist at all because anyone can achieve a high level of skill. To say that skill is just different is like saying that a kindergartner’s essay is as good as someone with a college degree in English because we cannot be completely objective. To take skill away as an important aspect of art production is equivalent to saying that hard work does not matter. No matter how little time you spend trying to learn something you are just as worthy of being an artist as your neighbor who never spent time trying to learn. Skill is a matter of levels which are not just different but important. This is not to say that simple or primitive artwork is not art because the work is not as complicated. It probably takes some skill to recognize the beauty in simple things and some art may turn out quite well without a high skill level. Talent certainly contributes to how well an art form turns out. I also think it is a mistake to associate skill purely with academic learning. Practice by working with an art form in your own way in your own time can also contribute to skill level. Someone working with a form the first time is not going to produce as well as when they work with a form the second, third or any future time. The more skill a person has the more they will be able to present their ideas as they imagine them. People with more skill will be able to express themselves to a greater degree.

                How important is skill in art?  

Competative Art

                Art is usually thought of as creative and imaginative, not competitive, but certain art shows involve competitions to see who will be allowed into the exhibit. One article, linked below, is about Nikaten which is a Japanese art show where judges choose which art is worth putting in an exhibit based on number of votes. The decisions are made in less than 30 seconds. I think art is often thought of as a slow and contemplative process involving a lot of thought and introspection, but certainly this is not true of all art. Also, even if the process of making art was an involved process, many people who visit museums or view art do not spend much time on each piece. Does it follow that art needs time to be properly judged, or is it possible to see a work of art and judge it based on one quick view? This is what many museum guests seem to do, but that does not make it the right way to view art. Also, if this is a legitimate way to view art, does it follow that judges should make decisions about art quickly? It would fit with the way many people view art, but it would also seem that they might miss minute but important details and they would not take the time to allow the art to provoke much thought or emotion, if that is the art’s intention.  

 http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fa20090904a3.html

How do you feel about art as a form of competition?

Response to Natalie

                To be honest, I have no idea what a higher form of art even means. I suppose it could mean a few things. It could be another way of saying good art which is ambiguous by itself. It could be a way of saying art that is based on more than instinct. A higher art being roughly like saying a higher being to mean more evolved. Higher is used metaphorically and we often use it when we mean something is more than something else, like a higher price. In order to know if one work of art is more of something than another we would need to know what we are referring to. If the quality we are referring to is more unique then we might be able to make a case that performance art is a higher art, as Natalie suggests. In order for something to be higher it has to be in regards to something else. We could also say that non-performance art is higher if our standard is something like permanence. I agree that we could not say that a cellist is higher or lower than a composer because there are different standards at play. We could say that one cellist has a higher skill level than another cellist because we are comparing two things and using higher as a metaphor meaning more skilled.

In direct response to the question on art existing on a common plane, I do not know if everything in art could be said to exist on the same plane because I am not completely sure what plane is being referred to. Of course all art occurs on this plane of existence if we mean this world, but many forms of art require very different types of skills so we would not compare them directly. It seems odd to compare a cellist to an actor because the required abilities are different. If we delineate planes as groups of differing skills then different art is not on the same plane. Although, I think vastly different types of art would be more like parallel lines. They would be on the same plane, but they would not intersect. We would not talk about them together in conversation because they do not overlap each other, at least commonly. We can probably come up with a few qualities all art has, so the parallel line concept is by no means a perfect analogy, but it shows how something could be on the same plane without being directly related. We also use plane to refer to a state of consciousness or existence, mostly within religion, so I suppose if art all comes from the same aspects of consciousness it could be considered on the same plane. I think that different art requiring different skills would utilize different aspects of thought and so would not be considered on the same mental plane.

                When we refer to something as higher art, what are we really trying to say?

Character Identification

                I read something recently describing character identification in fiction and I’m going to try to figure out some things about the concept. People often say that they identified with a certain character when reading a novel, but it is difficult to describe what they really mean. To say that one identifies with a character it seems like they mean they become one with that character at least on an emotional level. It sounds like they take on the identity of the character. One of the definitions of identification on Princeton.edu is the attribution to yourself the characteristics of another person. If this is the case, character identification does not seem valid to describe what happens when we read. People often feel emotions that the character does not when they read. For example, the audience may know that the protagonist is in danger before they do so we feel fear while the character feels content. A character might also lose a family member and we feel sympathetic, but we do not grieve with them. People cannot be in the same emotional state as characters for much of the time that we spend reading and even if we feel something similar, our feelings are tempered by knowing the source is not an actual person. No matter how terrifying a description of a monster is, we are not going to respond the same way as a character because we never believe one is attacking us. Wikipedia has a brief section on character identification that says it is when “readers or spectators see themselves in the fictional character.” I’m not sure that we can really see ourselves in another character, we can relate to their emotional reactions and responses, but we never think we are part of that character. What I think we do is relate strongly to the character. We think if I were in that situation I would probably do the same thing or this situation the character is facing reminds me of something in my own life. I do not think that in everything we read we have to be able to relate in this way. We can enjoy reading about someone acting in a way we would not, like a text from the perspective of a vampire hunter, or be surprised by someone’s emotional reaction. We always see the characters as someone reacting to the context of the story, but we maintain our perspective as outside the action. There is never a point where we become so caught up in a novel that we think we become the character.

                Does this make sense? What do you think it means to identify with a character?  

Response to Andrea

                I think we insist on saying that art is either good or bad because it has to mean something and if it does than each one cannot portray that meaning equally. People often think of art as a way to express emotions and some expressions of emotions are stronger than others. Some people think of art as a way of communicating emotions and some must do this better than others. If art is just lines and shapes and colors than one example is not better than another but then art is pointless. I think art has to have emotional content and if it does not than it is bad art. If every work of art was created equal then no artist could be really respected in their field because they could never be better than average. Everyone would be the average. There would be nothing to strive for. In order to know whether a work of art is good or bad if first needs to be determined what the goal of that piece of art is. The degree to which it reaches that goal would determine how good or bad it is. If a piece of art is made to portray a social message and manages to do so it is likely a good piece of art even if it is not aesthetically appealing while a work that is meant to be aesthetically pleasing is a good work of art if it is for many of the people that view it. I do not know if all art should be held to the same standard or if art has more than one purpose. Maybe it cannot be defined because as such a broad category the different categories are not only different in their methods but in their intended purposes. Art is a difficult concept to define and until it is defined it cannot be known what is good and what is bad, but if nothing is good or bad then art can never be judged. If it can never be judged no work can be superior to another. In a practical sense this would be bad because art chosen to be in a museum would be completely arbitrary. There would be no reason to choose one piece and not another, so museums could have no standards and would be unjustifiably denying anyone they did not include in their exhibit.

                Does this make sense and what other reasons are there for determining whether art is good or bad?    

Response to Christine

Other art forms that could be considered living and breathing are spoken poetry, comedians, anything with live people. I also wonder if film could be considered as such. It involves performances by people that viewers often say they could watch over and over again and still see something new. Artists are not actively participating in the sense that their performances are not live, but they are unique if people see different things or react differently on subsequent viewings. The role of the audience is as important as the artist when it comes to viewing art and if they find differences then those differences are real to them. The movie itself does not change but the experience changes. The reason this is especially true of film is because it is so complex and includes layers of art including lighting, acting, costuming, set design, musical scores and more. Other art forms could be the same if they have multiple or detailed aspects that people discover upon multiple viewings. People will always be more complicated then objects, but this does not mean that people will necessarily see everything worth seeing in an object on the first viewing. Recordings of people also have depths of expression, inflection and other aspects of their performance that is distinctly human even though the recording itself never changes.  

                Does performance art always have more depth than art using physical objects?

Response to Brycen

I do not think that performing art is better than other art simply because it has the ability to change. There is some pleasure in consistency and when an artist makes an object they can spend as much time and effort on its creation as they want. They can fix any flaws before it ever reaches an audience. In the case of music, they can add aspects in the studio that they may not even be capable of during a live performance. Performance art because of its unique qualities can never fix the mistakes made during a performance for the people who were in the audience that day. Once the mistake is made it is a part of the piece for that person. It is possible that these mistakes will add variety and interesting qualities to a piece, but it is just as possible that they will make it worse. People are unique so the same performance will never be seen twice but that only makes performance art better if it is seen multiple times verse seeing non-performance art multiple times. Most of the time people do not want to see the same performance piece repeatedly anyway. There is also a comforting familiarity to having the same work of art in one’s home or listening to the same c.d. one knows by heart. Performing arts may be the only type of art that can be completely unique, but uniqueness is not the only positive aspect a work of art can have. I do think Piper has a point that performance art is more unique and that art is often fetishized, but I do not think this makes performance art better, only different. I also think that people can enjoy art for the lyrics, colors or other qualities that do not serve to fetishize it and people can enjoy performance art because of its “mysterious” qualities where they do fetishize it. I think Piper would agree with this statement but it is still worth saying.

                Is some art only enjoyed because of fetishized qualities?

Feeling and Emotion

                It was briefly mentioned in either this class or another philosophy class that feelings and emotions are not the same thing even though we use them the same way. I was reading something recently that said that emotions are emotions involve a physiological reaction, a feeling and a cognitive state. The idea was that a physiological reaction to something like a car crash could be simulated in a laboratory. The same parts of the brain could be stimulated, but we would not say they were afraid. To be afraid they would need to have that reaction, know that they are in the dangerous situation of the car accident. Emotions differ based on knowledge of the circumstances. Feelings are described as accompanying emotions. We need feelings in order to have emotions. For example if a computer could recognize it was going to be in a car accident and flashed a light it would be physically reacting to a situation requiring some level of knowledge. It would not have the ability to experience fear though because it lacks feelings. The combination of the three would create emotions. If we go back to a theory of art requiring emotion would this mean people need to have cognition, feeling and physiological reaction in order for a work to be art? If someone looked at a work of art and said it looks kind of sad and they recognized it as art would it not be art because they did not have the physiological response to make it an emotion? Or would it be art because actually conveying an emotion is required and not just a feeling. If it truly conveyed that emotion then a physiological reaction such as increased heart rate would be present. Since emotions seem to require a certain level of cognition maybe art would give people a different emotion then other objects simply because they differentiate it on a cognitive level.

                Do you think the distinction between feeling and emotion makes sense and what would it mean to art?     

Response to Davion

If everyone had the same experience, biology, culture, etc. of course they would like the same art, but this could just as easily be every person feeling angry looking at the same work of art or sad looking at the work of art. Hume specifies a specific sentiment people would share, but I think even if people were all the same they would not be experiencing a distinct type of sentiment. They would all just experience the same emotions based on their now universal understanding of themselves and the world around them. I do not think Hume’s idea, even under ideal conditions, would necessarily be applicable to the real world. If everyone acted and thought the same we would not know if they were experiencing art without distracters or if they simply shared all the same distracters. I am inclined to think the latter is the case. If distracters are all the things that allow people to function as a human being, then removing them all is impossible and cannot be applied to the real world. If all people’s qualities somehow become the same, then they simply are distracted by all the same things. This would be possible if we were all pod people or existed in some other strange reality, but does not prove the point Hume was attempting to make.  

I know this is backtracking a little in the curriculum, but do you agree with my assessment?

Response to Andrea

                I do think that artists should have a very large say in what is art, but this is an empty statement until we can define what an artist is. It seems to me that art is defined by artists who are defined by their making art a lot of the time. It is really circular and does not explain anything about what art is. The problem I have with Dickie, and I’m sure many people do, is that anyone everyone is a member of the art world that wants to be and anyone who is a member can decide what art is. This would probably never happen, but say there was an object that every artist (whoever they are) decided was not art but someone who went to an art gallery one before saw it and decided it art. As long as that person felt they were in the artworld they could give it that status and it would be art. Dickie gives a definition that is too vague. What if someone saw a stick decided it was pretty, put it on their mantle piece and said I just made art. They are an artist then so their work is a piece of art because they said so. I think in giving everyone too much power, people who think they are artists get too much power.

                It would make sense to try and define what an artist is. In Dickie’s view they would be people who use artifacts to confer status. A couple of options come to mind. Artists could be individuals that create of find artifacts in order to convey emotions. This would require the additional element of emotion to art though and it could be possible to have emotion in art. They could be people who create artifacts using some degree of creativity. This seems to eliminate simply finding something like a stick and putting on display, but if it was displayed at an angle or something it could be called creative. Then that definition is meaningless unless there is a firm definition of what creativity means. Artists could be people who create or find artifacts in order to please viewers, but this seems to imply that art has to be done with an audience in mind. If artist is such a vague term that anyone who wants to be is an artist, then artist becomes a meaningless description and it does not matter how much power they have compared to others.

                What makes somebody qualify as an artist? Can anyone be one that wants to be?

Danto

Danto finds that art history and theory are important determinates on whether an object is art. An object can even be art solely because of theory and history as the two images of bifurcated rectangles showed. They were exactly the same and yet with different reference points one could be considered art and not the other. He also uses the example of a bed with paint streaks that is considered art. One problem I think this theory has is in determining which theories are valid. If all art theories are valid then something that Tolstoy considered art, like a painting that conveys sadness, is not art to Bell who finds it is not a peculiar emotion if it is sadness, so a work can be art and not art at the same time. In order for art to be determined by theory there must be agreement on what theory to use and even among experts that would have to be very contentious. Besides if art is determined by theories and theories are determined by the art that exists then nothing seems to be solved by looking towards theories as the determiners of art. Most of the theories we have read seem to be trying to find commonalities among all art that will allow something objective to emerge, so they are using art to make their theories. Art cannot be determined by theory if theory is determined by art because the argument becomes circular. An interesting problem with many of these art theories is that they are based on the art of their time. People seem to try to fit the art that evolves into their time under a new theory of art which becomes outdated during the next evolution in art. It would be intriguing to see someone anticipate directions in which art might go within their theory rather than limiting it to what is already known. This would be very difficult to do but might result in a theory that better stands the test of time.

How does or should Danto deal with conflicting, legitimate art theories?   

Response to Brycen

            I do not think we can conclude that art is defined by when it is being done. Although people tend to understand when art is being done, this is based on recognizing our own conceptualizations of art. In order to recognize when something is being done we have to know we are referring to. If we asked someone who did not already have a concept of art to recognize it by when it was being done then they would simply be confused and never figure it out. Even in the way you phrased the question a concept is required, “If something is art when it is doing something, than haven’t we defined art right there?” The it is required in order for something to be done and we do not have a clear understanding of what that it is. Without a definition of art separate from it is art when we recognize it as art then anyone could judge what is art and anyone could make anything art. The rock on display becomes art and I do not think art is really so open. If anything is art when used as such then art has no distinguishing features and loses its value. If anything is art at any time that anyone says so, then viewing art becomes as simple as going outside and saying I like this discarded soda bottle I will display it in my home as art. Also, as we said in class we would consider a painting to be a painting even if it were used as a blanket. Someone who saw another person using a painting as a blanket is likely to say “what a silly use for a painting.” This means that people do recognize art even when it is not being used as such. If a painting used as a blanket is still a painting, then defining art based on use does not make sense. Too many counterexamples would be readily accessible.

                Do you think art needs to have restrictions placed on it or do all restrictions serve at some point as arbitrary limitations on people’s creativity? Is requiring creativity itself a limitation on art?

Response to Alex's Theory

Alex’s post was very helpful in increasing my understanding of the theory he has been putting forth which I think has some quite positive qualities. It seems to leave art relatively open as there is no overarching definition and instead art is defined as the whole made up of variant parts. Each part consists of a spectrum of further parts in an effort to break down categories of art into their varying members. So art is somewhat defined as all instances of visual art, writing and music. I believe the largest circle, which is unlabeled is art, but a subcategory is called art. Since he says this category plus music can be combined in such instances as animation I believe he means visual art and is not categorizing art as a part of art. If this is true then writing is probably a sub-genre of visual art. Also could, for example, perfume creation be considered art? If it can then that would have to be a separate sub category of art because it is neither visual nor auditory like music. Spoken poetry would also be a separate category if music is the title of the subgenre because it is auditory, but not music.

 The breakdown of music into a color spectrum is interesting and could mean one of two things in my mind. Either each shade of blue, to use his example, is an equally good shade of music and simply differentiates the two or each shade of blue delineates a quality distinction of art. I am inclined to think that he is going in the second direction because he marks two example genres. One is classical and one is electronica. They are marked on almost exactly opposite ends of the spectrum. Since classical is the more respected of the two genres of music I am guessing that the darker end of the spectrum is the music that would be judged better. Also the way the diagram is designed it looks like animation is outside the circle of art which I think, since it a combination of two parts deemed art, is not intentional. I think that animation can exist without music but not without visual art so maybe animation should be a circle drawn almost like a Venn diagram but with no part singularly in music only with the overlap. (I apologize if that is unclear. I do not know how to draw diagrams on the computer.)     

If I am confused on any aspects of the theory please feel free to correct me.

Can art be defined as the sum of its parts? If so how do we recognize when something should be considered a part?