[An4ximandros]

Here's another question, are humans themselves art then?

[General Battuta]

Maybe, like, Chiwetel Ejiofor. Or my girlfriend.

My personal feeling is that you would have to present a person somehow for it to be arty - add some element of intentionality to the context.

[SypheDMar]

Recursion!

What about found art?

[swashmebuckle]

I don't find his definition particularly killer, but I like that Scott McCloud at least takes a shot at it:

Here’s what I actually said way back in 1993:

“Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn’t grow out of either of our species’ two basic instincts: survival and reproduction.”

…followed by pages of explanations of how I don’t see art as an either/or proposition, but a component of human behavior that exists to varying degrees in nearly everything we do.

[Phantom Hoover]

so a poem you write to chat someone up isn't actually art then

[swashmebuckle]

…followed by pages of explanations of how I don’t see art as an either/or proposition, but a component of human behavior that exists to varying degrees in nearly everything we do.

Going by this definition, it would be fair to say that a love poem could very well contain much art, but it would probably be impossible to say how much of the work "grew out of" your desire to mate. I don't find it to be a super convincing definition, but I like that it's a lot shorter and more to the point than ones like wikipedia's, which involve paragraphs of chipping away and seem to me to be mostly concerned with bringing the reader up to speed on the history of art criticism.

[FIZ]

Axem!  FRED me like one of your French girls.