A few thoughts forming in response to Hume

Reflections on: David Hume’s: Of the Standard of Taste

First thoughts on the sophistication of taste and experts:

Are not what we consider experts only those who have learned the proper vocabulary to apply to the variety of sensations?

“In order to appreciate wine, it's essential to understand the characteristics different grapes offer and how those characteristics should be expressed in wines.” –James Laube, Wine Spectator 1996

For one to properly determine if something, in this case wine, is good, we need an understanding outside of our pure experience of if we are to make an accurate analysis. We need an understanding of the fundamental properties, and as stated here how they “should” be expressed. The person that has learned to be an expert has learned how to use the right signifier to point to his sensation. The person has learned also, what it is that they should point to.

Could one, determining the elements are functioning as they should, and still not like the wine, even if objectively they can know that it is a good glass of wine?

The discussion of aesthetic is presented here first in relation to culinary sensation. We are immediately dealing with a problem of signifiers.

Praise an blame in aesthetics, maybe these are overstatements? This seems to put the realms of aesthetics into a realm capable of mania. Perhaps this is a breach on where healthy convictions should lie, when it comes to such things as art, albeit a fine wine, or a visual masterpiece. Is a work of art worthy of such extremes as praise or blame? I am inclined to say no. The question then comes to mind of art as propaganda, art for commercial purposes, religious art. Is that which is praised or blamed, the art itself or the message behind the art, or the convictions of the artists? It is true that art seems capable of producing mania in people. If it can produce mania, could it cure, or subside symptoms of mania?

to be continued...

A vague question can only expect a vague answer

Ferrigno-

A (beginning) definition of Art

It is important to determine if specific things could be defined as art, than to determine if a general term “art” is thing which can defined.

Anything has the potential to become an art object.

Nothing is art on it’s own.

An action is required for something to become art.

Art is a closed definition with infinite possibilities.

Things may resemble art without being art.

Things can be attempts at art without being art.

What is art for one may not be art for another.

One may find mimetic art to be art by the appreciation of the artists intimate concern to details of the perceived world, or through the empathy with the pained labor that such acts of rendering take. Also, one may have emotive experiences based on their own subjective experience that another does not share. The combination of associations of subject matter and the methodology of the subject matter will result in different potential emotive/ psychological affects of the viewer. One can see Richard Estes, Guggenheim, a coldly yet intimately rendered painting of what could be thought to some a high temple of art. This could be read as a commentary on the art world system. For me, the image triggers memories of my pilgrimage to New York, and spending time at this building.  Scale, materiality, all play a role into what kind of an experience a work will illicit in the viewer. In this manner one can be moved by the artist intimate attention to detail and care taken in the process of communicating an image. The image painted in photo realistic manner, perhaps opens up to me, my own experience more, than having this image been painted in an expressionist manner, where my experience of the subject matter would be filtered through the artist subjectivity first.

The manner is which information is transmitted, the creative interpretation of source to output has the potential to lessen or strengthen an artistic read.

The term art is a generality, just like the word game is a generality.

To define a thing as art, one should consider the use of a prefix for clarity.

Instead of, “is it art?” Does it have potential to be considered as one or a combination of the following?

A. Visual Art

      -Digital image

      -Material trace

B. Conceptual Art

C. Performance Art

      -Music

      -Dance

      -Ephemeral event or happening

This may or may not include an artifact.

Not all artifacts are art. All artifacts have the potential to be art.

Art may be spontaneous. Spontaneity is not art on its own.

Computer/Glitch art and animal should maintain their boundaries as a separate category for the sake of conversation; reside within the prefix.

It is likely that life and things designed by life, technology from humans and extracted from the natural world; that both things of nature and things of man have a spontaneous emergent feature to make objects that resemble art.

Geometry resembles art. Geometry in various forms seems to be inarguably an emergent feature of human production.

Art may be used for an Emotional of Intellectual end, or a combination thereof. Depending on the degree of implementation and the success of the read of the viewer, the work has potential to be held in a higher status.

Art can be inclusive or exclusive.

Form, content, and context should all be considered when trying to determine if something is art.

           

An Attempt to define what is a game:

 An interactive activity with others, self, or technology, involves repetitive actions and rules. The type of game determines the amount and type rules. Games may be played for competition, skill building, or pleasure.

Art may be played as a game. Games can be played as art. Games that are not played as art, are not art.

Art can be a critique. Critique alone is not art.