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?