Sunday, September 7, 2008

mat becker

I believe there are a couple requirements for something to be considered art.

1. It must have intent. I do not believe that the shattered glass bottle is an example of art. It may be pretty to look at, but without reason it is meaningless. I guess an example of this could be, I don't know, the ocean. Would you consider it art? No, but that doesn't make it any less remarkable. Put maybe if someone took a picture of the ocean, than that could be art, because there was a purpose behind it. This is why science can't be considered art. Things from nature may be able to form amazing designs, but unless someone "frames" it, then it just "is". It has to be an expression of the mind (even if executed by means of elephant or machine).

2. I personally think it should have to be enjoyed, either because of beauty and skill or by emotional means. If there isn't a single person getting something out of it, than it is useless. Not to say that humans define what is useful or not, but, come on, we're the ones judging it here.

4 comments:

Quinn said...

"This is why science can't be considered art."

While there are objective facts behind science, I strongly oppose the idea that science is and is only this set of facts. Science is a human endeavor; the biggest breakthroughs are conceptual rather than strictly factual. That is, Einstein's theory of relativity is just plain better science than a bunch of data written down in a table, and it will continue to be better science even if the data stand correct forever and if Einstein's theories are discredited in 100 years or so. Doing good science means having the audacity to think what no one has thought before.

So is the theory of relativity a work of art? Well, I don't know, and I'd actually be tempted to say it's not. But I don't think the possibility can be dismissed out of hand. I'd be interested in hearing others' opinions. Also: does pure mathematics constitute art? This is a different question, since mathematics is a symbolic representation of thought, rather than necessarily a representation of the physical world (of course the physical world has a hand in shaping our thoughts). My own biased opinion (as a math concentrator) is that mathematics, being more metaphorical than science, is closer to art.

Q

brownfoundations said...

Could the viewer be the person who frames the art? If a person looks at the ocean and is blown away by its beauty and sees profound symbolism in it, is it art then? I guess what I'm saying is that art to me is as much a way of perceiving as it is a way of creating.

Another way of thinking about it: what, or who, gives something meaning?

-Dave Hanyok

brownfoundations said...

First of all, I believe that "data written down on a table" is a bit vague. I'm sorry, but I just don't see how not using the scientific process is better than using it. The whole purpose is to have a testable hypothesis. Einstein may have discovered an amazing thing, but that doesn't disprove the application of science. Also, I think the true greatness of mathematics is the fact that it supersedes human thought. 1 + 1 = 2 exists whether or not we do. Basically I'm saying that science is used to find the rules to the world.

Also, to the second post, I think art must have an artist. I think the whole idea of "art" has been skewed to mean the same thing as "beauty" or "inspiration", and I think that art needs to be seen as a creation, and I believe any official definition will agree that art is created by a mind to inspire.

Quinn said...

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." --Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

This is the idea I was really trying to emphasize. That big discoveries in science and mathematics are leaps of creative thinking. I'd like to consider Andrew Wiles' celebrated proof of Fermat's Theorem (that there exists no quadruple of positive integers a, b, c, and n, with n>2 such that a^n+b^n=c^n). Now I'm not qualified to read it myself, but according the NOVA Science Special, Wiles used all kinds of new geometry and other branches of mathematics you wouldn't expect to have anything to do with integers. Wiles' brilliance was in seeing how these disparate pieces could be put together to get what he wanted.

I acknowledge that of course there are more constraints of "objectivity" in science and mathematics than in visual art, but I firmly believe that creative human thought is the primary ingredient in distinguishing the deep from the shallow.

Q