Few things annoy me like the obfuscatory intellectual baggage art has accumulated over time. At bottom, art is predicated on a way of attending to reality which everyone is capable of: it's a simple* matter of intentional perceptual framing. It's bio-psycho-sociological in nature and has always been a thoroughly participatory phenomenon. As such, both human societies and human perceptual systems are the infrastructure/apparatus for the apprehension and creation of art. Humans, embodied organisms embedded in a conext, make art based off of their interactions with the world as they see it and these either resonate with other humans or they do not. This resonance, or lack thereof, has downstream effects. This is what art "is" functionally.
Matters become more complex when one begins to weigh the effects of financial, academic, and wider socio-cultural influences modulating the reception and resonance of any piece of art (which I might add is not static, but recursive and hermeneutic), but economic valuations and high-brow criticisms are not particularly fruitful additions to artistic experience itself, to say the least. The worst aspect of all this is that people begin to think of art as an arcane territory, navigable only by an anointed curatorial class and not an innate faculty residing in themselves. We in the West needn't have such a neurotic relationship with our own art-ifacts, but our collective cognitive style and incentive structures tend to make it so. A cultural shift towards the re-cognition of the predominance of context could perhap offset this, but as I say, this is against the trend and neural grain of Western society, especially in an increasingly-polarized America.
i agree with you and i hope this post didnt come off as trying to convolute how art is “experienced,” its meant to be the opposite of that and clear up some artificial restrictions one might have when thinking about art
I only looked up the words quiddity and perdurable for my friend who’s with me rn. *I* totally knew them already…for sure.:.i’m not dumb if you thinking that…i’m not….
"human brains are designed to think differently when presented with things that are popular"
I assume this applies equally to hating things because they're popular as to liking them for that reason? The contrarian impulse is still noticing the herd mind and taking cues from it, its just in the opposite direction.
When trying to be open minded, this is the direction I have to apply my efforts.
if the popular take is to hate it because its popular yes. popular doesnt imply a majority just enough people to trigger whatever instinct in our brain activates to appeal to the herd
idk i think comedian(the banana) is good art when you consider the person who bought it for millions is a crypto nft guy, and the piece is essentially an nft
If I may bloviate a bit:
Few things annoy me like the obfuscatory intellectual baggage art has accumulated over time. At bottom, art is predicated on a way of attending to reality which everyone is capable of: it's a simple* matter of intentional perceptual framing. It's bio-psycho-sociological in nature and has always been a thoroughly participatory phenomenon. As such, both human societies and human perceptual systems are the infrastructure/apparatus for the apprehension and creation of art. Humans, embodied organisms embedded in a conext, make art based off of their interactions with the world as they see it and these either resonate with other humans or they do not. This resonance, or lack thereof, has downstream effects. This is what art "is" functionally.
Matters become more complex when one begins to weigh the effects of financial, academic, and wider socio-cultural influences modulating the reception and resonance of any piece of art (which I might add is not static, but recursive and hermeneutic), but economic valuations and high-brow criticisms are not particularly fruitful additions to artistic experience itself, to say the least. The worst aspect of all this is that people begin to think of art as an arcane territory, navigable only by an anointed curatorial class and not an innate faculty residing in themselves. We in the West needn't have such a neurotic relationship with our own art-ifacts, but our collective cognitive style and incentive structures tend to make it so. A cultural shift towards the re-cognition of the predominance of context could perhap offset this, but as I say, this is against the trend and neural grain of Western society, especially in an increasingly-polarized America.
*in an intuitive sense
i agree with you and i hope this post didnt come off as trying to convolute how art is “experienced,” its meant to be the opposite of that and clear up some artificial restrictions one might have when thinking about art
Nah, your intention was quite clear and I felt prompted to reply from a place of agreement.
I only looked up the words quiddity and perdurable for my friend who’s with me rn. *I* totally knew them already…for sure.:.i’m not dumb if you thinking that…i’m not….
"human brains are designed to think differently when presented with things that are popular"
I assume this applies equally to hating things because they're popular as to liking them for that reason? The contrarian impulse is still noticing the herd mind and taking cues from it, its just in the opposite direction.
When trying to be open minded, this is the direction I have to apply my efforts.
its not the direction of the opinion that matters its the mass of it
if the popular take is to hate it because its popular yes. popular doesnt imply a majority just enough people to trigger whatever instinct in our brain activates to appeal to the herd
idk i think comedian(the banana) is good art when you consider the person who bought it for millions is a crypto nft guy, and the piece is essentially an nft