Photo shop debate

Argh - felt fly made an important point in his post and tried to add it to then end ... but due to cider intake i have messed up and don't know how to undo it

Sorryy!!

 

Is digital media really art? What do you think of it? Post modernist rubbish? Not truely art?

Answers on a postcard

 

I reckon it's art, I see art as any creative way of expressing yourself. Whether it's good are or not is a different matter, and depends what you're doing....

 

I suppose on one level it could be considered to be art.

but i think its very out of touch with the traditional concept of art.

surely for something to be art, it has to have physical presence and being?

not just on a computer screen or as a representation in the form of a print out...?

just a thought.

I think its far too easy to create art digitally,

it can be used as part of an artistic piece, however i dont think that digital media in the form of photoshop etc can be considered to be art.

 

Is the classical conception relevant though, since it doesn't factor in modern media forms? Whether something is easy or not shouldn't be a defining criteria of art. A few splats of colour on a piece of paper is easy to make, but people still call it art....

 

hmm yes, but i find it difficult to accept computer generated photoshopped art as a valuble art form, because it is so easy to make, it takes the value away from it,

because what i could create in photoshop so could a 1000 other people just as easily.

Whereas, what vincent van-gogh paints, i'd go as far to say that no one could come near to.

The mass availability of this media "artistic" form, devalues itself.

 

Maybe, or maybe that's elitism? Anyone could have written Harry Potter, but that doesn't take anything away from JK Rowling, because she did create it! Just because someone can do something, doesn't mean that their creative will is going to lead them to do it. Sometimes the most simple of things are the most beautiful. Your abstract work for example, it's a fairly simple formula, but it works, and no one else created it, your imagination did....

 

hmm, i suppose, but i cant agree that pure creation warrents to be called "art"

i dont think harry potter is art, whereas i do think that philip larkins poetry is art.

why? i hear you ask, well its simple, because art should fit criterion and i dont believe that a childrens novel is artistic, whereas i think poetry which discuss's serious themes and ideas is art.

if for example i make a sandwitch, can i claim that that is art? purely because i have created it? or when i get up in the morning, and leave a messy bed (as did tracy emins in her famous peice) i created that, but is it art? certainly not! neither of those are

art certainly is creation, but it isnt just creation it is something else as well...

As for simplicity, i see your point that art can be simple, and thinking about it i guess i agree, but i still feel uneasy accepting that computer generated images can or should be given the tag of art.

and certainly art should be elitist to some degree, if we classify anything and everything as art we are only degrading it as a whole

 

Not at all. Art IS anything and everything. If someone wants it to be art who are you to say its not? because to them it IS!

Your pieces of art, your abstract ones... and dandelions art...and my art... they are all simple forms in comparison to say Monnet's work. ...or are they just a different form?
Somepoepl say photography isnt art...becuase anyone can do it. .... anyone can pick up a pen and draw a spiral ... doesnt mean drawing isnt artistic.

Digital art isnt as easy as everyone thinks. It does take time and patience to learn to do it.... Shrek for example... i dont think the art team on shrek wouldbe happy to hear you say that digital art does not class as art after the amount of hours and time it took they to create their digital masterpiece.

As far as art like tracy Emmins bed goes.. that is also art. Its conceptual. It has a meaning, she chose you do it and she chose to make a statement by doing it.

Dadaist for example created the idea of "found objects" as art. ... Duchamp and his fountain was a revolution in the art world "THATS NOT ART ITS A URINAL!!" .... why is it not art? ...did it not create a reaction? ... did it not say something? ... was it not created? ...was it not chosen above any other thing in the world by someone who decided it was art to them? ......... so yes maybe the object in itself if left in the context of a toilet is not seen as art, but taken out of context and concidering the impact a piece has on people creates a coneptual art about it.

basically what i am saying is art is what ever anyone wants it to be. Yes someone could open up a picture in photoshop and a filter and be done with it in seconds. ...someone else could open up 6 images, layer them, highlight areas, remove areas, re colour, reshape, reposition, enhance and play around with untill to them it is perfect. this could take weeks or months or even years if so desired. If you were ti stick van gough infront of a computer i doubt he would know what to do with photoshop same as if you took a digital artist, or photographer and gave them oil paints, eazle and a landscape to paint would probably have no idea where to start.

 

i get what your saying fleassy, but shrek i cant say is art, its a kids film in essence, films can be art yes, but i dont think shrek is, and i dont think anything and everything can be "art" i think thats just illusion. i mean a lamppost isnt art, neither is a burp, neither is a door. there all objects, we could take them and put them in the context of "art" but how does that happen?

thats the question i want answers to, if art is creation and something else then what is it, because i cant except that a door in its normal sense is art, but when we take art and put it in a gallery for instance, what changes? how does a door become art, simply by putting it in a gallery? i'd say that it doesnt become art, we merely assume its art because its in an art gallery.

so what is art, how can we make "art" what is it?

i cannot except that anything and everything is art, i think that just simply isnt true

as for your art, my art, dandies art, whoever elses, i agree there all art, and different forms of comparison, but as with the above question what makes them art, rather than simply paint and ink on paper

 

Through my education in art, i have come to an understand of what art is to a lot of people. Art is something that "means", "states" something. Art is created through a thought process. We are taught as art students, everything and anything we do must have a reason for being done. A logical explination for why an artist has chosen to create a piece of art. For example, if we went to paint a piece a still life we personally have put together, we can't just grab a door out of a skip and paint on it. It may like funky, it may look way out there and interesting, but unless we have a valid explination for why we used it, it is meaningless. We are taught that whatever we do in art has to be answered for, thats how we are taught to think and understand things. Everything is done/used for a reason. Conseptual art IS done for a reason, the concept behind the piece. Tracy Emins, made that messy bed for a reason.

I think perhapes what Spyder is arguing is, when you create something without prupose, like perhapes photoshop is used (not always but a lot of them time) then it devalue those pieces created with a purpose. You can cleverly say, well it was born with no purpose it is up to others to reveal its hidden purpose. So, Tracy Emins created with intent. But someone concieved to be a conseptual artist may not have really set out to express something but created in the hopes something would come out of it. Well, if what comes out of it makes sense, then hell i won't argue. But if what comes out of it doesn't really seem to have a reason then, well anyone can do it? If anyone can do it, its not really so specail any more. Is i think what he is trying to say.

It's great that people always try and i like to incourage people to be artistic, but the motives for someone doing a one off and someone taking it full on serious are different. In that sense i think it can be quite devaluing if you spend your life creating, putting your blood sweat and tears into something and another person comes on bands up something together and calls it art. If you look at it like that, can you then begin to understand why people can be sceptical of what is or isn't art?

 

thats totally not what im argueing.

if conceptual art means that we put meaning to a messy bed, or a door, or even a burp then it means that practically anything is and can be art, me throwing a messy sweet wrapper to the floor i can say has social meaning about the environment and various other things, when infact all im doing is littering, making up some reasons for its purpose, and saying "hell! thats conceptual art!" i dont except that!. i dont think just because you can make up a reason for something to be art, and say its conceptual, that doesnt make it art. thats just lame to be honest, and devalues real art, which has been strived to be made, designed, and considered.

 

Grr... don't you see all i do is doodle so my stuff is no better?

Look, what i am trying to show you is this is how a lot of people work. This is how people are taught and this is why people become disallusioned to the point of art, this is why i need to talk these things through because being taught like this has completely flipped my understanding of art. It's made me think about what i do as someone who creates art, it makes me want to make more of what i do.. give it a purpose a reason, watch it on its journey into being so much more than it is now.

What is being suggested is, art is a journey and so is like.

Art on its own is a constant growth, but if you only do a one of thing yeah its nice but true art -- to mee -- (let me stress this) my opinion... not perhapes to you.. is a constant change and cycle and improvement and movement and journey and for those of us who change and make this journey those whom jump on the wagen for a while, while they are making something artistic they aren't devoted to it.

I guess its like loving someone and people are firends with them, their friends they come and go but when your devoted to that persons and want to be with them as much as you can and you want to get to know them and understand them. Develop them, sppend time with them. Embrace them and enjoy them!

And to my being an artist means being devoted, truely devoted to art in any form.

But then life is a journey in its self and you must embrace anthing that comes to across your path, and you must try everything to know what your truely gifted at so i shant stop a single soul from being creative because they may well find something they can be devoted to!

 

Who says that art has to have meaning? Can art not just be art because it's striking or beautiful? Does it need to be trying to 'say' something in order to inspire a reaction?

That's assuming an awful lot. Actually, I really doubt there was much of a reason behind it at all, unless you count her desire to make money.

Yeah, I mean god forbid that art should no longer be special or that it should be available to anyone. Doesn't it strike you that there's a certain degree of intellectual snobbery here, the interests of which lie in maintaining art as an activity of an elite, removed from the masses?

 

So what? I only see that as a problem if you have to be accepted as an 'artist' in order to create such art. If we can all create such art, then I'd see that as a process that democratises creative expression. Which is a good thing.

 

The way i am being taught is suggestting it is an elite, and removed from the masses. They are all so snobby and to be quite honest i am not good enough for them. Not "cool" enough, not "different" enough... So no i'm not snobby, because i am not good enough in their eyes.. so really.. i'm arguing for something that actually puts me down because i aint good enough for them. Really, i'd like to believe otherwise.. but the way things are going in this damned art lessons thats what they suggest. This is what i mean about my opinion flipped upside down, i used to think everything can be art, la la.. brilliantr what i do is art. But i am being told it isn't by art teachers and i guess i shouldn't listen so hard, but its hard not to. I take things to personally, as did i take that snobby comment personally. As the last thing i am is snobby... i am just very romantic about art, i don't mean it snobbily at all.

- if art was so easy, then why is it so damn hard to get into doing art education, why is it so damn hard to get them to apprecaite stuff? why is it so hard to actually do something that gets any kind of interest. like i said... art education has been slowly ruining art for me for the last year and a half and now i am just lost -

I am so confused about anything to do with art right now, because i want to believe art can be anything.. but art education is so flipping stressful and such hard work. Can understand being passionate about something and people saying, "oh they are just doodles" and stupid me believes it because i am inclinded to think an art teacher and other art students i feel better than myself are right.

 

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[font=&quot]Me, I say art has to have meaning, if you want to say that art can be anything, and then surely anything from a dog poo to a sneeze can be art. Sure art can be art because it is striking or beautiful, but it has to be created, I don’t think for instance that a sunset is “art” we don’t live in a world of art, art is part of it, not the totality of it. Art that is striking or beautiful has been created to that extent and therefore is art, but I think you’ll find that art work that is striking and beautiful has been created for more than purely that reason, even if the main reason is purely aesthetic. [/font]

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[font=&quot]Of course art should be open to everyone, and it is, its not being argued that it shouldn’t be open to everyone, I just don’t think that the line that everything can be art, or is art is a correct one, I find love a very beautiful thing but I don’t think its “art” I can be expressed in art, but its not art itself, neither is a sunset or anything of that like.[/font]

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[font=&quot]As for intellectual snobbery, if that’s what you class looking for what art is philosophically, or even what art can be and defining the concept of art, then I think a lot of people are guilty of intellectual snobbery, but im not restricting what art is, or even stating that art should be only available to the elite, all that is happening is the conversation to define what art is or could be.][/font]

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[font=&quot]I agree but that isn’t what we are argueing here is it, we’re debating what art is, and I maintain that not everything is art[/font]

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[font=&quot]The world contains art, it isn’t the totality of art.[/font]

 

Sorry Dandy, didn't mean to say you were snobby, just the idea of art that you were describing, if you see what I mean.

 

I am not intending it to sound snobby, mearly failing to explain myself properly.


Okay, -written word aint my strong point-

Imagen, you have a grreeat hat? No one else has that hat its all yours and its the best in the world, but then everyone starts getting hats and suddenly your hat doesn't feel so great any more because everyone has one just the same or very similar.. right? - thats a seriously simple example..

I am simply trying to say, if access to art, to poetry is given to everyone and everyone can do it then can you see it can feel as if what you felt to be something specail isn't so specail after all. I guess thats how i feel a little bit, i liked to think i had a little bit of a gift yeah? I like to think i could do something a little bit specail, but if everyone can do it it isn't so specail any more - or sometimes it can feel this way. Hey - it doesn't mean in all seriousness that it is any less specail but it can feel as though it is. Particulally if your particularlly passionate about it and another person isn't so passionate about it. Its a very secret personal feeling i have. It's all part and parcel of art really - what i am beginning to reolise - the search for the new and unknown is incouraged by people who want to be different to those around them. I guess this is my conclusion, that perhapes the fact that lots more people can do it theres more of a challange to do something new.
Now see, if i look at it like that... makes things a lot more fun. I mean, who wants to be thinking ooh.. only i can do this this is easy.. when they can be thinking, hey! wait a second.. i need to do something different because i want to stand out. Ah i get it! I get it. Part of the journey art as a whole is making is, people get in one certain mind sets about art and it takes a few people to jump and make a change. Conseptual art is that new jump and it is a lot more accessible to a lot more people and that is why it is good.

Ah ha.. hmm. I think i am starting to come to a conclusion i feel comfortable with.