Quote:
Originally Posted by MrWookie
Uh, I think goofy's example is pretty obviously art, or else you have to rule out as art a number of things widely considered art. It may be bad art, or simple art, or whatever, but there is lots of bad art out there that is still art.
I will concede it is facile "art".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shame Trolly !!!1!
Well, what is 'art'?
That's obviously a YMMV type of question. If you tell me whatever it is you feel is 'art', I'm sure I can make a case that (Levy) hacking is that.
Above, you are missing the point however. Let's say you feel noise can be 'art'. Well, are you willing to defend a pile of sheet music as 'art'? Or, is the 'art' in what that sheet music means (composition), and how it is used to make noise (performance)?
Or, cartoon images are commonly considered things that can be 'art'. This extends to cartoon movies. Shouldn't this also be extended to interactive cartoon movies? Do you feel adding hacking is a disqualifier for being 'art'?
There is a pretty well understood consensus about what is and isn't art, even if there is plenty of arguing on the edges and multiple overlapping uses of the word. Things like math and programming fall on the "no" side for most people in most circumstances. If somebody wants the word to apply to aspects of those fields I think the burden lies on them to make the case, with examples rather than hypotheticals, and those examples need to convince some significant portion of some preexisting arts community, whether it be creators, critics or patrons. Getting a bunch of code monkeys to all agree with each other about their own artistic talents isn't a winning argument.
What's more interesting to me is
why some fields so desperately want to use that word for themselves. I understand why janitors want to be called sanitation engineers. It makes a crappy job sound important. But society values programmers and software developers much higher than artists. These are people with important, in-demand skills that are paid very well. What the hell do they feel is lacking in their lives that they need to adopt the label of "artist" to improve their social lot? Being an artist sucks. They're always broke. Nobody respects them. Nobody takes their work seriously. Going to art school brings shame on your family.
What is the point of calling everybody an artist if they occasionally do something vaguely creative at work? ****ing Subway calls its minimum wage employees "sandwich artists". It almost seems like the goal is to use the word so widely that it no longer has useful meaning, making the generally crappy status of true artists even crappier.