Darth Rosenberg said:
Fallow said:
Some might consider the cultural and social value as the single measurement of how "good" art is.
Fair play to them, though I've never met anyone who's
actually that myopic.
No? Lars Vilks and Salman Rushdie both seem to consider their art purely by how provocative it is, and that is something I'm seeing a lot of in many other ("respectable") venues too. Mapplethorpe could probably be added to that group as well, and anything to do with bleeding seems to fit the model too. It's not a rare occurrence, nor does it appear (in my view) to be an uncommon measurement.
To you maybe. Some consider it to be old pictures of horses, and they are just as correct.
---which was in reply to me saying
Art reflects who and what we are; the past, the present, and the possible futures - it is a conduit for all these things. .
This is called sophistry. What you have said here is utterly meaningless and vapid. Art is no more capable of depicting
the possible futures than anything ever put to print or painting or built or destroyed or what have you, nor does it "reflect who we are" anymore than
anything we have ever created. My toilet paper says as much about who we are as the Mona Lisa, which means that it says "something" about us given the appropriate interpretation.
Yes, they are as subjectively correct as I am subjectively correct about preferring Joanna Newsom to [insert musical artist I don't like]. Pure taste and perception. But the totality of art throughout history? That is something else entirely. Why does 'art' exist? What does it achieve? Is it all just white noise? Does it have no broader relevance to existentialism through the ages?
The totality of art throughout history is not art, hence the different wordings. If that is what you wanted to discuss you should have said so. Ofcourse, that is even more ill-defined.
The creation reflects the creator, and ostensibly a creator creates to express, to understand themselves more, and to seek to understand the world and their place within it better. Even if there is no conscious intent in something, it reflects the creator and the era in which it was created. What can be discerned from that varies wildly, of course, but that's why art historians and critics exist (one could define art as a grand experiment in collective self-reflexivity).
Again with the sweeping generalizations. This comes off as you having 0 real life experience. You haven't a clue about why creators do
anything, and adding in the Kafkaesque "Even if there is no conscious intent in something" just so that any disagreement can be brushed off is ridiculous. Do you know what some of the greatest creators in our history wanted? Money. So they could get drunk, or eat, or buy prostitutes. A picture of some fancy king was not created to "understand" us better it was created for money and for connections, probably also so the creator could get drunk and buy prostitutes.
To get no further than 'art means different things to different people' is to surely be blind to all the connective elements that stretch back through the ages, that reveal art has served specific functions from then to now.
Yes, different things serve different purposes. Well done.
Culture and era refashions it, but there is a universality of human experience that allows you or I to intimately and profoundly connect to a poem, a play, a painting, or a building from another culture and another time. Art functions as a means to explore the human condition.
Yes, things change with time.
No, universality does not mean that. If
everyone could "intimately and profoundly" connect to these poems, plays, paintings, or buildings it would hold.
A pizza bagel functions as a means to explore the human condition, since it's all in the interpretation.
(btw, I use the term art to include high, low, middle, the whole lot. the new Star Wars film connects to the human experience just as a Terrence Malick film might - they simply approach universal themes and/or stories from wildly different angles, and escapism is clearly the greater bias of mainstream pop-culture. both are relative to each other, and their merit is 'equal' in the grand scheme of things as they service different needs)
High, low, middle, what? Does that include trees? They can be pretty artsy. Does it include a woman running a marathon without tampons? Does it include my finger clippings?
I'll try to clarify my usage: Google-flavoured synonyms are crucial, necessary, key, vital, indispensable, all-important, critical, etc. Art is not consciously necessary or vital to an individual - but it clearly is 'essential', as in of-the-essence, in human experience across thousands of years of history and culture. It is, quite demonstrably, a part of our species.
Only when you take the widest, most abstract definition of art available (you know, the one that makes the word pointless since it includes everything ever done ever). African tribes do not need Star Wars movies.
If by this you mean African tribes need to breathe and do stuff (which means art by the wide definition), then yes you are correct. If you mean African tribes need to write poetry, paint stuff, and go see the new Ghostbusters, then I would like to see a study on that.
Which was in response to me saying--- it exists out of a desire and willingness for diverse, inclusive expression and connection. Yes, and I reasonably and logically stand by the statement; a creator of art or culture that validates and justifies, say, persecution or some horrific social model is seeking to connect to like-minded souls in the world. That is their inclusive expression and connection. Birds of a feather flock together, would be a fairly blunt simplification of the idea. Very few creators create in or for a vacuum.
Again, this is a sweeping generalization regarding (broadly speaking) every creator thoughout history (which under the wide-defined 'art' means every human ever). You do not know the motivations of
anyone but yourself.
But that is exactly the opposite of what you just said. You are handing out awards because "the heart was in the right place". And yes, it is damaging when you positively acknowledge something bad simply because it agrees with your own personal ideals. That's called bias.
Er, no? I explicitly didn't say 'derp, give official-actual industry awards for progressive values regardless of any other criteria!!'.
I never said anything about official-actual industry awards...
Me sentimentally feeling a work has its heart in the right place is very different from me trying to objectively critique a given work. Life Is Strange is progressive as fuck... but I feel it's also quite poorly written and bizarrely staged (why are 18-year-old's behaving and thinking like 11-year-olds?). Granted, I've still not got passed the first episode yet (I have the season pass, though), but even with that first episode I 'praise' LiS for its depiction of female leads and of what it is not (i.e. yet another inertly bland and regressive straight male narrative), whilst wanting to smack all the writers over the head with a rolled up newspaper. See also: crappy engine, and iffy mechanics.
How is this not praise for box-ticking?
The beauty of seeing beyond the "Is this in accordance with my ideology or should I hate it" perspective is that I can appreciate a good story even if it does not resonate with my views personally. I don't measure a movie's diversity, and so I am instead free to judge and appreciate the contribution of that diversity (assuming it's good). Looking beyond the core components you might say. I don't like the box ticking awards and I find them insulting.
Which is exactly what I do, so snap.
But you just said you did the opposite with LiS?
Re dem pesky SJW's:
...so, er, the acronym just refers to parody and unhelpful hyperbole? That's pretty much what I've always felt.
Yes, that's pretty much it. It's essentially the equivalent of the political satire image of republicans, but for online activists.
Also, a person looking critically at culture can be disagreed with and proven to be on shaky ground with absolutely no need for meaningless, destructively divisive terminology. SJW = battle lines in a self-created/defined culture war, so it's really not helpful. Anyone who does somehow manage to actually fit those three criteria is surely effortless to ignore. If you want to get into horrid specifics of the insecure BS that's plagued gaming over the past couple of years, PM me, as I won't step foot in the 'other' board on this site.
I think you will find it in far more areas than gaming these days.