You're repeating the same mistake. You don't need a definition of consciousness to know what it is.

You are conscious right now, yes? That - that - is consciousness. It's a state of you - and you're in it right now. And you knew you were conscious before reading Piaget, yes?

It's wrong too - consciousness is not a logical construct. That makes no sense at all.

Art is a cultural mirror. Unconsciously or consciously it reflects, absolutely the state of the culture it springs from. When the trains of New York City appeared covered in loud, garish graffiti they absolutely reflected the chaotic state of New York City at the time. If art appears meaningless, if there is a glut of work that seems shallow and predatory, then so too the culture it springs from. These things spring simultaneously from the tidal flow of culture, as it happens.

Art has always been about culture. It’s always owned by those with time and money to invest in it and always managed by an elite, though they’re unaware of it’s real cultural significance because they’re removed from the world they live in.

No matter how bad art gets it will always be true. It’s a spontaneous opening up of time. What gives it further significance is that the elite, of any epoch, with their money and their ignorance, freeze it in time, as they do with everything, in attempting to own whatever they set their eyes on. Then it gains another value altogether about another type of culture. So, again, it still remains about culture, explaining further ideas about who we are.

Well someone's doing a media degree, aren't they!

First, you're confusing what causes something with what it is 'about'. Art is not caused by culture, but by artists, but even if it were caused by culture, that would not make it 'about' culture.

Second, what the hell is a cultural mirror?

Art is not caused by culture, but by artists, — Bartricks

Of course. But they themselves and their ability to project reflect instantaneously their time, which can only be cultural. Post WWll art reflected the trauma of the war, the tearing apart of reality.

Edit: that’s probably WWl, I think.

Second, what the hell is a cultural mirror? — Bartricks

Art.

Why would you want to change the definition of art?

Past artists who changed the definition of art:

Van Gogh, Pollock, Lichtenstein, Postmodernism was imposed on art, performance, digital art, etc, etc

Definitions are created by owners, not artists.

Of course. But they themselves and their ability to project reflect instantaneously their time, which can only be cultural. Post WWll art reflected the trauma of the war, the tearing apart of reality. — Brett

Just false (and a bit gibberishy).

I still don't know what a cultural mirror is. And I don't know what this sentence means either "their ability to project instantaneously their time, which can only be cultural", but it did trigger my gibberish alarm.

What about a hermit - could he/she create art?

Definitions are created by owners, not artists. — Brett

And that's false too.

Second, what the hell is a cultural mirror? — Bartricks
Art. — Brett

So when you said "art is a cultural mirror" you meant 'art is art'. Well, I think we can all get on board with that.

I have not looked yet, but from your description of it being a computer program with the unintended byproduct being aesthetically pleasing, I would say it was originally not art, just aesthetically pleasing math, but that anything you create now with the program with the intent that it should be aesthetically pleasing would qualify as art. — Artemis

Thanks. But you should look.

And you are correct that I had no intention of creating art; what began to appear intrigued me, however. And being intrigued I experimented with different mathematical concepts and formulae. What then appeared seemed to me to be art, but it differed little from what inspired the process. So, non-art the first "accidental" time, but art afterwards?

Whether or not I consider it art is of little or no consequence. I have enjoyed experimenting and seeing what appears. I have several theorems that predict convergence of the procedure at many points in the plane, but the "art" comes up when I avoid implementing the theory.

↪Brett
Of course. But they themselves and their ability to project reflect instantaneously their time, which can only be cultural. Post WWll art reflected the trauma of the war, the tearing apart of reality.
— Brett

Just false (and a bit gibberishy). — Bartricks

I’m interested to hear why it’s false and “ a bit gibberishly”.

↪Brett
Definitions are created by owners, not artists.
— Brett

And that's false too. — Bartricks

And why is that false?

It's a bit gibberishy because this collection of words "ability to project reflect instantaneously their time, which can only be cultural" doesn't make sense to me. I have no idea what it means.
And some of what you said is false, because you went from what causes something, to what that thing is 'about', and these are not necessarily the same. For example, if I take a drug and it causes me to believe I am a god, then although the cause of my belief is a drug, my belief is not 'about' a drug - no, it is about me and my status as a god.
So you cannot validly conclude that art is 'about' X, even if every instance of art has X as a cause.

Because some people here are trying to formulate definitions of art, and I doubt they all own art.

And many artists are philosophically minded and have written things about art, including trying to define it (though don't ask me for names).

Oh, okay. I thought that was in reference to art movements and not art itself. My mistake.

And many artists are philosophically minded and have written things about art, including trying to define it (though don't ask me for names). — Bartricks

That’s not very sporting of you @Bartricks.

Okay then - Gauguin: "art is either plagiarism or revolution". False, of course, but the point is that now we know that Gauguin sought to define art and was an artist, your claim that it is owners, not artists, who define art is false.

Although to be fair, Gauguin did own some art. So perhaps you're right. Only you're obviously not. So there.

I was curious about post WWII art, so I searched. Here's an example of what came up (www.widewalls.ch):

"Art always responds in some way, and so the vantage points from which to observe it were polarized as well, which gave birth to a vast number of concurrent streams. Therefore, we can see the most obvious difference between the tendencies toward abstraction, suggested by the pro-democratic American high-culture, and the European post-war art, which fell under the slight influence of figuration and realism, propagated by the Soviet Union. And then, there was everything else in between: Pop Art, which employed aspects of mass culture (unlike Abstract Expressionism), Fluxus, as a Dada-derived anti-art nihilist movement, Art Brut or Outsider Art if you want, new realism in France, and all the other forms of realism, which emerged in Great Britain, Socialist Realism in the Russian Soviet Republic, etc. It seems that the post-war dunghill was a very fertile ground to start from, and lucky for us, some of the most ingenious artists were eager to make new history. Let’s see which of the paintings from this era of ambivalence and post-trauma could be the most pertinent ones, from today’s point of view, and take a quick survey of the most iconic artworks made in our recent history, in times of crisis which we cannot fully understand, but we could perhaps compare it to the crisis of our own."

Pivotal artists throughout history owned the definition of art.They took the definition of art away from the powers that be. It is why they are pivotal.

When they changed the definition of art they brought culture with them. Culture allowed itself to be changed. It was receptive to the new definition, and so it adopted it.

The definition of art can be changed literally.
We are artists, so why dont we?

It requires agreement. We need to be deeply convinced that our definition is valid.



'Art is an expression of human consciousness. And art work is information about an artists consciousness and subconsciousness'

i am convinced the above definition is valid for all of time. If you understand consciousness as I do then I think you will agree.

It cant happen immediately.It will take a long time to adjust to this. This is a challenge to your consciousness - as all new art is.

'Art is an expression of human consciousness. And art work is information about an artists consciousness and subconsciousness'

I ask respectfully that all those who agree with the above definition put it at the top of their post, and those who are casually viewing also please.

'Art is an expression of human consciousness. And art work is information about an artists consciousness and subconsciousness'

I'm no artist but it sounds good to me. Perhaps, . . . information from an artist's . . .

We differentiate first, then we search for the basis upon which we differentiated. And so we know what is art prior to having a definition. Thus thinking that the business of understanding is the business of formulating and then living by definitions is a profound mistake. — Bartricks

I don't think it's a one way street like that. We have a definition of a cat, and we've decided on the basis of what cats are on a definition of them, but we've also come to understand that perhaps things we'd want to otherwise classify as cats are not in fact cats. Like foxes seem feline, but are not.

So, non-art the first "accidental" time, but art afterwards? — jgill

Yes.

And I will look tomorrow when I'm home on a laptop :smile:

So, if I had thought,"I'm going to do art" the first time and did exactly the same procedure, that first image would have been art? This is a tad more complicated than putting a brush to canvas. In my case the "brush" has a "mind" of its own.

I didn't say it was true of all definitions, for some concepts we have created by creating a definition. But there is no philosophical debate to be had about those. Debates - such as 'what is art' arise when what we are dealing with is a concept that we have sought to define, rather than a concept that we have created by a definition.

insist on your art being on more than a mere physical level, and more than just an idea someone had. — unenlightened

How can it be more than those two things?

Okay then - Gauguin: "art is either plagiarism or revolution". — Bartricks

I don’t think that’s really a definition of anything. If you used that to explain art you’d have nothing. When artists talk about art they generally talk in an elusive manner. Not all of course. Picasso made many statement, but most of them are interesting more than explanatory. Francis Bacon did some long interviews about what he was doing. Once again very interesting but going nowhere in terms of defining ar, just his own process. Besides that many artists that we can name off the top of our head were extremely judgemental and dismissive of each other’s work.

In terms of movement definitions most of them have come from outside of the immediate art world, by that I mean the artists. It’s not as if artists actually called themselves Impressionists or Cubists. Those names were applied to them. Even though this has no direct relation to the definition of art itself it does give some idea of the ownership and consequent definition of art. My feeling is that those people are always catching up. So their definitions are usually constructed after the fact and received from others.

So when you said "art is a cultural mirror" you meant 'art is art'. Well, I think we can all get on board with that. — Bartricks

I’ll have another go at this.

Pivotal artists throughout history owned the definition of art.They took the definition of art away from the powers that be. It is why they are pivotal. — Pop

I think it might be closer to the truth that artists, major game players, smashed definitions but never owned them.