Author Topic: Is fredding a form of art?  (Read 21578 times)

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Offline The E

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
And that subjective approach is only good for one thing: Answering the question "Do I like this?". Answering the question "Is X Art?" requires a different approach.
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Offline Lorric

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
And that subjective approach is only good for one thing: Answering the question "Do I like this?". Answering the question "Is X Art?" requires a different approach.
You know, this got me thinking. Yes, my approach can't determine whether something is art or not. But in my way of thinking, I don't think such a thing can really be done. You can decide if you personally think it's art or not. You can ask someone if they personally think something's art or not. You can measure whether lots of people think something is art or not by asking lots of people. You can determine a piece's value by seeing what price it fetches, but that value is only to the person who bought it.

But deciding for the whole World whether something is art or not, imposing the view on people who don't think it is, I don't like that.

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
Now, I wonder if there's a point in discussing this today. Notice that the only things we all can definitely agree to be valuable art are old. Almost none were created when I was alive, and most are much older. At the time of their creation, a lot of them were decried as "mockery of art" and such. So perhaps we should leave that subject to our grandchildren. From what I've seen, valuable art generally gets remembered, the rest doesn't. This isn't very subjective, since something getting a place in collective memory "just sort of happens". While this is an incredibly conservative criterion, it might be the only way to definitely answer such a question considering how subjective the subject is. Such an answer would still be pretty subjective, but there's no more objective answer than that.

If you ask me, FS (and FRED, by extension) has a good chance of passing the test of time. It already stood up for an amazingly long for a video game, and TC could help keep the awareness up. It's already quite well known in space sim circles, and when video games become a more widely respected medium, it has a good chance of being included into the canon of digital classics, complete with original copies selling for huge sums of money.

Otherwise, we can conclude that FREDing is a form of art, because it fits a dry and rather broad dictionary definition. But as I mentioned, this answer is rather trivial and doesn't really tell you everything.

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
I'm pretty sure

"Last night he took his girlfriend out to show her some garbage."

expresses pretty accurately what exactly happened.

Only to someone who already knows that they went to an art gallery to look at ****ty art, otherwise it could just as easily mean he took her into the garden and showed her the rubbish. If you are trying to redefine a word to something more confusing, less intuitive and with less meaning than the original word, you are wrong, plain and simple.
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Offline MatthTheGeek

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
Only to someone who already knows that they went to an art gallery to look at ****ty art, otherwise it could just as easily mean he took her into the garden and showed her the rubbish.
I don't see any fundamental difference here. A pile of garbage is a pile of garbage.

If you are trying to redefine a word to something more confusing, less intuitive and with less meaning than the original word, you are wrong, plain and simple.
Says who? You're the one trying to call a pile of garbage "art", which is definitely more confusing, less intuitive and with less meaning than the original word, which means that you are wrong, plain and simple.
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Offline karajorma

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
No. I'm saying that's already the accepted definition which you are trying to change. The E has already proved that with the Wikipedia entry.

I don't see any fundamental difference here. A pile of garbage is a pile of garbage.

If you honestly can't see the difference between "He took her to an art museum and showed her some modern art which I think is garbage" and "He took her to show her an actual pile of garbage" there isn't much point in continuing this conversation.
« Last Edit: December 22, 2013, 02:43:55 am by karajorma »
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Offline Dragon

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
Err... Maybe "He took her to an art museum to show her an actual pile of garbage?". :) That seems the most fitting. Afterall, not matter how do you try to glorify it, this thing is, at it's most basic level, a pile of garbage. Now, someone could have tried to attach a meaning to that pile, but that's irrelevant if there's nothing in it that gets the point across. It surely does stimulate senses, but does it influence any beliefs or ideas? Well, it doesn't, I don't think I know anyone who would have any sort of meaningful experience looking at this. It would only make me go "who put that thing here?" and not give it a second thought. That means it doesn't really fit the Wikipedia definition of art. It might've been intended to be art by it's creator, but I think it falls a bit short. It doesn't even offend or challenge anything, it just sits there being gross.

 

Offline swashmebuckle

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
And that subjective approach is only good for one thing: Answering the question "Do I like this?". Answering the question "Is X Art?" requires a different approach.
You know, this got me thinking. Yes, my approach can't determine whether something is art or not. But in my way of thinking, I don't think such a thing can really be done. You can decide if you personally think it's art or not. You can ask someone if they personally think something's art or not. You can measure whether lots of people think something is art or not by asking lots of people. You can determine a piece's value by seeing what price it fetches, but that value is only to the person who bought it.

But deciding for the whole World whether something is art or not, imposing the view on people who don't think it is, I don't like that.
I don't think the imposition here is any greater than that involved in defining any other term (red, blue, banana, etc.), it's just that the concept of art is broader and more difficult to grasp, so there is a temptation to latch on to something close at hand, like the idea you are espousing that each individual should decide on their own what does and does not qualify for the word.

Unfortunately, that idea hinders rather than helps our ability to communicate clearly. If our definitions of art are to be subjective (so that art always means "art to me"), is everyone's individual definition then equally valid? I have this great speech where every noun is replaced with the word art because everything and nothing in the universe is a work of art because I just did mushrooms and my definition is just as good as yours because we're both artists, so good art with your art, art-art. Seriously though, are there any criteria you can impose on the word at all? Wouldn't imposing any basic standards on what the word means involve demanding the same sort of consensus that you are trying to reject? And if there aren't any defining criteria, does the word actually mean anything?

Given that the point of having words is to facilitate communication, I hope you can see how much more useful it is to adopt a broad (but equally clear to everyone) definition like the wikipedia one.

 

Offline MatthTheGeek

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
If you honestly can't see the difference between "He took her to an art museum and showed her some modern art which I think is garbage" and "He took her to show her an actual pile of garbage" there isn't much point in continuing this conversation.
So putting something in a museum magically makes it art? Good job there.
People are stupid, therefore anything popular is at best suspicious.

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666maslo666: Releasing a finished product is not a good thing! It is a modern fad.

SpardaSon21: it seems like you exist in a permanent state of half-joking misanthropy

Axem: when you put it like that, i sound like an insane person

bigchunk1: it's not retarded it's american!
bigchunk1: ...

batwota: steele's maneuvering for the coup de gras
MatthTheGeek: you mispelled grâce
Awaesaar: grace
batwota: oh right :P
Darius: ah!
Darius: yes, i like that
MatthTheGeek: the way you just spelled it it means fat
Awaesaar: +accent I forgot how to keyboard
MatthTheGeek: or grease
Darius: the killing fat!
Axem: jabba does the coup de gras
MatthTheGeek: XD
Axem: bring me solo and a cookie

 

Offline Lorric

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
And that subjective approach is only good for one thing: Answering the question "Do I like this?". Answering the question "Is X Art?" requires a different approach.
You know, this got me thinking. Yes, my approach can't determine whether something is art or not. But in my way of thinking, I don't think such a thing can really be done. You can decide if you personally think it's art or not. You can ask someone if they personally think something's art or not. You can measure whether lots of people think something is art or not by asking lots of people. You can determine a piece's value by seeing what price it fetches, but that value is only to the person who bought it.

But deciding for the whole World whether something is art or not, imposing the view on people who don't think it is, I don't like that.
I don't think the imposition here is any greater than that involved in defining any other term (red, blue, banana, etc.), it's just that the concept of art is broader and more difficult to grasp, so there is a temptation to latch on to something close at hand, like the idea you are espousing that each individual should decide on their own what does and does not qualify for the word.

Unfortunately, that idea hinders rather than helps our ability to communicate clearly. If our definitions of art are to be subjective (so that art always means "art to me"), is everyone's individual definition then equally valid? I have this great speech where every noun is replaced with the word art because everything and nothing in the universe is a work of art because I just did mushrooms and my definition is just as good as yours because we're both artists, so good art with your art, art-art. Seriously though, are there any criteria you can impose on the word at all? Wouldn't imposing any basic standards on what the word means involve demanding the same sort of consensus that you are trying to reject? And if there aren't any defining criteria, does the word actually mean anything?

Given that the point of having words is to facilitate communication, I hope you can see how much more useful it is to adopt a broad (but equally clear to everyone) definition like the wikipedia one.
The broad definition falls in line on it's own. There will be things of a subjective nature that many people view as qualifying, whether it be art, music or entertainment.

The wiki, and any other broad definition should be seen as a guide rather than an absolute imo. What fits that wiki description for me does not fit for others, and vice versa. Artist's **** being the perfect example. It's just empty garbage to me. And likely to most people. But not to the people paying the huge sums of money clearly.

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
So putting something in a museum magically makes it art? Good job there.
This. Something being or not being art does not depend on where it is located. Mona Lisa would be just as artistic if it hung in a shack in the middle of a desert. A gallery is simply a convenient place for accessing art.

Likewise, a pile of garbage is a pile of garbage, no matter where it is. It applies to other things, too. An urinal remains, at it's essence, an urinal, even if it is in an art gallery, outside the bathroom. It's still a piece of bathroom furniture, nothing more. It can potentially be used to create art (just like your random bucket of paint could be used in creating a painting), but for that, more needs to be done than just exhibiting it. It's a very similar difference as between a stack of paint buckets and a painting. The former can hardly be called art (unless they're meaningfully arranged), while the other usually can (not always, but often). Even going by the broad definition from the Wiki, art needs some sort of meaning to be art.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
Like almost all is/isn't arguments, this question is predicated on a concept of entitivity that's very orthogonal to the way the human brain actually processes concepts.

 

Offline swashmebuckle

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
When you say entitativity are you talking about us (a group of people trying to hash out definitions) not being a distinct entity that needs to agree on that sort of thing or are you talking about our perceptions of concepts like art and whether they should be treated as pure entities? Keep in mind I took 1 psychology course in my life.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
The latter, I think - I'm trying to talk about the way we identify thing-ness. Trying to sort...anything...into a category by a set of hard algorithmic rules is a really difficult proposition. As an exercise, try to write a set of rules to identify a dog: it's pretty much impossible.

Extend that to something as huge and abstract as 'art' and I think you've, at the very least, got to start thinking about 'how much is this art' vs. 'is this or is this not art'. (It's art, though)

 

Offline Dragon

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
The latter, I think - I'm trying to talk about the way we identify thing-ness. Trying to sort...anything...into a category by a set of hard algorithmic rules is a really difficult proposition. As an exercise, try to write a set of rules to identify a dog: it's pretty much impossible.
A dog is a member of the Canidae family of the mammalian order Carnivora. A domesticated subspecies of the gray wolf.
That wan't so hard. :) My mother's a biologist (and an artist, BTW, though she does more conventional art than we're mostly discussing here :) ). For most things like that, scientists have worked hard, algorithmic classification a long time ago. When talking things like art, it does become a bit problematic, though, and that's why this discussion is dragging on for so long. :)

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
No, biologists will be the first to tell you that algorithmic rules don't work - many core biological concepts ('alive', 'species') are based more on consensus and prototypic similarity than clean algorithmic delineations. Your dog definition isn't implementable.

 

Offline Rheyah

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
Just on a pure science point, our reality is fundamentally underpinned by algorithmic rules.  It's just when things get more complicated that they can't be separated out :)

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
Exactly - since those fundamental rules are the only rules, trying to define higher-level concepts with the same knife-edge binaries often requires you to start reducing. It's a lot more useful to take the approach that the mind actually uses on the neural level: degrees of semantic association and similarity to prototypes.

There's a lot of art in FREDwork because even the structure of an individual SEXP permits intentionality and expression in achieving its attended effect. I don't think you'd ever confuse an Axem SEXP for, say, someone else's.

 

Offline SypheDMar

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
If you honestly can't see the difference between "He took her to an art museum and showed her some modern art which I think is garbage" and "He took her to show her an actual pile of garbage" there isn't much point in continuing this conversation.
So putting something in a museum magically makes it art? Good job there.
If something was intentionally made as an artwork and is shown in museums, then yes. That's what separates a three year-old coloring rectangles from Hans Hoffmann.

 

Offline swashmebuckle

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Re: Is fredding a form of art?
The latter, I think - I'm trying to talk about the way we identify thing-ness. Trying to sort...anything...into a category by a set of hard algorithmic rules is a really difficult proposition. As an exercise, try to write a set of rules to identify a dog: it's pretty much impossible.

Extend that to something as huge and abstract as 'art' and I think you've, at the very least, got to start thinking about 'how much is this art' vs. 'is this or is this not art'. (It's art, though)
Oh, well I definitely agree that good definitions of art-related concepts would describe processes and qualities that can manifest themselves to varying degrees rather than in an on/off sort of way.

I just have a lot of difficulty with the notion that attempting to define art in a less self-defeating way than "it's whatever YOU think it is" is a hopeless errand. That's probably in part because I've had a lot of useful learning experiences (you know, the subjective kind) in settings where commonly accepted definitions of broad concepts like this really helped clarify discussion and prevented a lot of potential confusion, but I also think that there are concrete reasons why it is a good idea to tackle the problem of defining our terms as accurately as possible. I acknowledge that different people learn in different ways, but I also think it's true that some ways of doing things just work better than others, period.

I also can't resist the urge to oppress Lorric with my externally imposed fascist definition regime. Sorry Lorric.