[rain]

Is it considered art if you use a photo for say, a face, but not copy it to look like the photo, i mean say make it expressionistic or somthing (but keep the face with the same expression and tilt etc.)...if you do this are you considered an artist??

Please let me know your thoughts. Thanks

[Dr. Bang]

you mean carrirature?

[adev]

art can be anything

[rain]

well not really a caricature, i mean still realistic but not copied, like changing it to make it look different, say with ink or a certain style of hatching or somthing

[Liser Studios]

it's considered art if you roll around in cow crap and jump on a canvas and then roll around on it for awhile.
so sure, why not.
although i think drawing it from memmory would be a lot harder... i don't think copying a picture is very hard.

[[Shizo]]

Thee is no hard definition of word 'art' as Liser sweetly pictured in his example hehe

Although it's true that from memory it's much harder to draw, and must get more credit than using such reference.

[HawkOne]

Actually there are many ways of describing art. How about this one from the Oxford dictionary :"art the production of something beautiful; or skill or ability in such work."

But then there is the profound question: "Beautiful for whom ?"

Beautiful for "normal people" ?
Beautiful for children ?
Beautiful for Charles Manson ?
Beautiful for other artists ?
Or beautiful for art critics ?

Have a look at these ...


Willelm De Kooning, Merritt Parkway


Willelm De Kooning, Bianco e nero


Willelm De Kooning, Untitled


I think it is really irritating to see this guy (David Gelernter, you know who he is don't you ?? ) stand in front of these blobs of paint, rubbing his chin, and looking very profound.

( ... ack no more UBB code allowed in this post ... I'm gonna continue below ... )

[ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: HawkOne ]

[HawkOne]

... continued from above ...

What is the difference between some of this stuff above, and the well known Rorschach Test used in psychology ???


"Of course Inkblots are just meaningless blobs of ink. Yet like clouds and rock formations, inkblots have stirred the Imagination for centuries. In recent years, serious attention has been given to the study of personality through inkblots. " They even have them in colors in one of the links below.(quote from University of Texas - Department of Psychology, link below )

You can read more about it by following these links if you can be bothered ... http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/rorschach.htm

and http://www.psy.utexas.edu/psy/inkblot-perception.html

If you'd like to test yourself, you can try the parody of this test here : http://www.texaschapbookpress.com/magellanslog41/inkblot/inkblotintro.htm

P.S
Baboons Can Think Abstractly, In The First Study To Show That A Non-Human, Non-Ape Animal Shares A Central Aspect Of Human Intelligence

(info from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/10/011015055219.htm )

[ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: HawkOne ]

[HawkOne]

Shit ... ( pun intended .. )

I almost forgot this masterpiece ...


Piero Manzoni's 'merda d'artista' , ninety tins of canned shit produced during the month of May in 1961. A conventional verging on cynical reading is, anything can be art as long as it bears the signature.

The master himself says this "In the month of May 1961, I produced and tinned 90 tins of 'artist's shit ' (30 grams each) naturaly preserved (made in Italy)."

Check out some more about this great artist and his exquisite masterpieces at this link
Piero Manzoni

[mza]

quote:

---

Originally posted by HawkOne:

But then there is the profound question: "Beautiful for whom ?"

Beautiful for "normal people" ?
Beautiful for children ?
Beautiful for other artists ?
Or beautiful for art critics

---

The answer is All of the above!

But,if it's only beautiful to the artist who created it, then no, I wouldn't label it art...it's called self-therapy.

[[Shizo]]

LOLOLOL!!! 90 cans of poo.. that's a LOT of poo right there!
I bet that dude, David Galentner (poo critic i assume) stood rubbing his chin thinking what it all meant.

It is art though.. cant deny that

[HawkOne]

Hehehe ... it is 2.7 Kilogrammes of art to be precise ... nicely preserved for future lovers of shit ...

I try to imagine the "production" process ... :/

Is it better art if you're constipated (???) because it would be harder to "push-push" and your face might go purple ... harder to make means better art right ??

Not to mention the "packing process" .. heheh .. that must have been really hard ... !!

My "Found Objects" lecturer in art school told us that some of the cans had corroded, and some of the "art" had seeped out into the display ... teheheh ... I bet the critics could really enjoy the finer points of art then ...

Is it really art, or is it just a gimmick ?

P.S.
David Gelernter is a Professor of Computer Science at Yale University, and also an aspiring abstract expressionist artist. I saw him admire a DeKoonig piece in a documentary on Tech TV the other day. He became famous after he survived the Oklahoma bombing.

[zaar]

What is art? That’s a real tough one. Here’s my two cents:

I read a book once by Scott McCloud (it was about comics, don't remember the name of it). He had a theory about art that went something like: Humans are driven by two basic needs, survival and reproduction; they need to fulfil these needs. Everything else they do is art. For example one might produce/gather food to survive, and act nice to get to reproduce more. But Taping my fingers on the desk during class won’t get me one or the other, so therefore it is art. And if I remember correctly he also said that it’s not they way one does something that makes it art, but the reason for doing it. This definition might seem strange to some, but I think it is really broad, and I usually think of art this way. But I also divide art into to categories, art that I like and art that I don’t like. Though I guess most people do that… =D

[HawkOne]

[Shadow-X-]

To me, anything is art. Sure, fecal matter is in my opinion not the best media, but it's just the different percetions that we all have. I found my notebook from when I was in kindergarden (13 years ago), and it fascinates me the way children in general see the world. We got marked on anything and everything, just take a look at the mammoth I drew (or is it a boar? I dunno, cuz I know I am the year of the Boar in Chinese new years thing, so that's where I might have gotten the idea to draw it).

[smalbrain]

I think Marcel Duchamp made the statement that art is choice. The act of making a choice because of its subjectivity (and noone can argue that it isnt subjective) is considered art. Because he was an artist - he pointed at a urinal in 1917 and said it was art - they put the urinal in an art gallery. thats art! art is nothing and everything.

hey Shadow-X-, you wrote 'z' the wrong way!

no bien!

[ February 01, 2002: Message edited by: smalbrain ]

[HawkOne]

Pareidolia
Description
Pareidolia is a type of illusion involving the misidentification of a vague indefinite stimulus as a person or an object. Examples include seeing the man in the moon, Jesus in a tortilla, or a face on Mars. So strong is our innate pattern recognition skills that we easily find familiar patterns in meaningless images created by random and chaotic forces. This phenomenon can provide an alternative explanation for many apparently unusual events, such as UFO sightings, ghost pictures and even the eerie sounds found in songs played backwards. In a sense pareidolia is not a misrepresentation because there is no objectively valid interpretation. Once the interpretation is fixed in the mind it might be impossible to see something else. In a clinical environment psychologists encourage pareidolia to learn about their patients. e.g Rorschach Test.



Andy Warhol, Rorschach, 1984,
synthetic polymer paint on canvas,
90 x 70 in.
------------------------------------------



Part of a tree-root ... what do you see ?


A face in the clouds ??

A face on Mars ??

A face in the rock ??

But ... is it art ? ... even though it is even more obviously recognisable forms than many of the shapes claimed to be art ??? Or are we just so fascinated by our minds power to see shapes in abstract forms that we cannot realise that that is all that is really happening ???

Art cannot be made by accident, art requires skill and time. I know that is a bit more than 2 cents worth of opinion, but I have yet to hear a succesful argument against this theory.

Maybe you can prove it wrong ?

Proof requires arguments that can somehow be backed up, any statement is obviously worthless unless there is some form of coherent reasoning behind it.

Therefore a statement such as "anything is art" is really stretching it too far.

[Liser Studios]

sorry, but i'm gonna talk a little religion here.

some people get really annoyed by it. i just want to say what's on my mind about the "UFO sightings" and the face on mars; i was reading about all of this just last night. I don't usually read up about stuff like this, i just sometimes get this urge to read about the paranormal, and possible explanations of it.

i don't think the UFO sightings are just misinterpretations of something.
I myself have seen demons up close and personal and once had a UFO sighting. THe demon wasn't abstract like an ink blotch, it was detailed.
the UFO was flying over the trees in my backyard, I was out in my backyard playing around, turned around and saw it flying over the trees. The thing is, this isn't a dot that was 500 miles away. My yard is one half to 1 acre, which is quite small. I saw the thing from less than 50 yards away.
the thing that bugs me is, i always saw these demons and i knew they were demons, but i never got to see angels, or if i have, they weren't so that i knew they were angels, so they might have been far away,unable to be seen,...etc.
the average child never sees things like that, so why the heck did i see and hear these things so much? SATAN MUST REALLY WANT ME, BABY! lol
but yeah, the reason i believe UFO's are demons, not aliens or misconceptions is...
the bible prophecized that israel would lose it's country, and after approximately 1,000 years (i think that's how long?) it would get it's country back. Soon after there would be strange sightings in the sky, and the antichrist would come on his "metal chariot" and Israel would believe he's the messiah.
well israel lost their country in 1,000 AD, i believe. The jews were scattered all over the world, but after WW2 Israel becomes a nation. Then we start seeing all these UFO sightings from back in the 50's and up, even UFO crashes have been said to occur.
So, it's said that Satan wants to have the world believe that these aliens have been helping us along the whole way, and that old texts like the bible (christianity isnt the only thing that has UFO sightings in the far past... Indians did, Egyptians did,Pagans did,...etc.) were just documentations of their encounters with us, and their here to unite the world, so to speak.
I mean, think about it... after WW2 we had the United Nations, we have all these liberals who want us to be a world of one people... since when, before the 1900's, did anyone want the world to be all united? We didn't...
but yeah, the antichrist is supposed to come here with his superior people and is going to be helping out the people of the earth. but he's going to break a treaty and cause a bunch of war...

hmm, i've rambled on long enough... lol.

all that summed up: UFO sightings aren't just people misseeing things.

[ February 03, 2002: Message edited by: Liser Studios ]

[Liser Studios]

oh, btw...
the face on cydonia.
i'm sure you've heard a lot about how it seems that Mars was once much like Earth, it has atmosphere, water (they just found water on it recently, actually), and civilizations? Well, it's said in the bible that Lucifer had a place in the Heavens (Mars or even what's now the grea belt) but that his place was destroyed after betraying God.
There's evidence of a civilization on Mars, but obviously there isn't one there now.
And there isn't just a face on Mars, there's also some temples, or that cone shaped thing that you see to the faces right (our left)
well, there's also one off screen here that was photographed. And just by chance, they happen to line up in a perfect triangle, yet those are the only large structures around. Seems a little weird.
i mean, what are the chances of there being a humans face that's part of a triangle of structures on the planet that's right next to us? I think the chance of that happening on it's own is non existant, just the triangular set up a long wouldn't occur in nature, let alone the face on mars.

[HawkOne]

Ummm ... no offense, but forgive me for not taking your word on all that.

As far as I'm concerned, all religion is bullshit, useful for controlling "the masses" who would prefer to think that there is something more to life, spirits, souls, an afterlife and all that crap. Its essence, don't steal, don't screw your neighbours wife and all that stuff is just good ol' common sense.

I agree with Carl Sagan, he said that it is very unlikely that we are alone in this universe, since there are so many possible worlds out there among billions of stars(suns) in billions of galxies.

But until they come knocking on my door, or start broadcasting their presence somehow, I'm not gonna take a few vague sightings as overwhealming evidence.

Sure, I find fantasy, trolls, aliens and all that as fun as most people here probably do, but I prefer to draw a pretty clear line between fantasy and reality.

I guess those who feel like saying anything in this thread have done so already, so it is not such a disaster that we crashed out off topic ...

[Liser Studios]

i understand that you don't believe me, and i can understand why you don't take religion seriously...
but i am totally honest when i tell you i've seen and heard demons and saw a UFO. i swear upon my life that they all happened, and although no one ever saw what i saw, people did hear what i heard, so i know i wasn't hearing things. and when i saw the things, they weren't blotches of colors, they were detailed and within me... heck, i was within a foot of the demon i saw.
but really, why would i lie about something like that on here? I'm not getting any money from it, no attention, my name isn't being broadcasted across the nation; i'm just talkin to someone privately about something that happened to me.

i view everything like this...
you could have a paintbrush sitting on top of a canvas, but no matter how long you wait, the Mona Lisa will never be painted on there.
But if you put a painter in front of it, then there will be a painting.
I just think it's much more possible for someone to paint it, than for the wind randomly blow in the right directions, thus causing the paintbrush to move around, and by chance paint the mona lisa.
I do agree that churches do do stuff to "control the masses" as you put it; especially the catholic church... but that's a different story

oh, btw, i agree with hawkone, there has to be some skill and effort to create art. it can't just occur by accident or whatever.

[xXxPZxXx]

Weird how this topic has evolved. Kind of a neat little evolution though.

I wouldn't doubt those things Liser because there are weird things that happen without any reason. Too many to not have some truth in them.

About the face on Mars though, I think you might be watching too much Jack Van Impe. (who I believe might actually be satan) Him and his wife have a late night sunday TV show on UPN. It is so full of right wing religious propaganda I just about puke. Me and friends watch it laughing hysterically. He quotes unrelated items out of the bible and then preaches how "the end is near" "it says this in Revelations and that corresponds with what Bin Laden said 3 weeks ago so that means Jesus is coming!! and Bin Laden IS SATAN!" That is exactly what it sounds like.

erhm too much religious talk here, but yeah so the face on mars isn't even there anymore. It hasn't been there for a while. The face was dirt hills with the perfect shadow at the right time. That is it.

ugh, what was the topic again =/ blehacha;d

art is fun that's what art is. Now go have fun

-PZ-

[Liser Studios]

we don't know if the face is still there... it hasn't been rephotographed. it was supposed to be, but the surveyor was "lost at the crucial moment"
yeah, a lot of those shows do seem like right wing extremism.
i do believe the "end times" are near though. The bible does say that Israel would lose their country, and after (i think) 1000 years they would get it back; and that generation (70 years? 80 years? 100 years?) will see the end times.
so yeah, i expect the "end times" to be any time between 2020-2050. Hopefully later, I'd like to work as a professional artist for awhile. No sense working my butt at it for years, and then lose it all because of that stupid anti-christ. Freak.

lol

yeah, there's a lot of religious talk here. i guess it's allright, as long as we don't start attacking eachother for our beliefs. Wether we like it or not, some people do have different views and you shouldn't look down on anyone or argue with them because of it. So we can just keep that in mind, i suppose. Or we can just stop talking about it, if everyone would rather do that?

[Shadow-X-]

You see, what exactly is religion? It's a gathering of people who have a single belief no? I am an atheist, which is basically without any religion (I am not against other beliefs or religions), but think of it, if religion is a bunch of people who think the same thing, wouldn't being an atheist be a religion too?

[Liser Studios]

atheism is the religion or belief of not believing in god.

being a christian, but not agreeing with one single church, would be.... nondenominational. I'm not sure what Agnostic is, but it's something like "freethought" where you believe what you believe...

[balistic]

If atheism is a religion, then abstainence is a sexual position.

Atheism is a lack of a belief in a deity. Rocks are atheist. Babies are atheist.

Just wanted to clarify that.

[Micket]

About atheism,

Alot of religions dont believe in Nirvana for example, but that doesnt make them one religion.

Atheist can believe whatever they want, as long as it doesnt got a God,
well maybe everyone already agreed about this but i wanna post a reply anyway =)

"if atheism is a religion then health is an illness"

[Ztiev]

Ok the topic totally strayed. But since it strayed to religeon, the Salt Lake City boy must ring in.

I live in the capitol of Mormonism. I forget the percentage, but practically everyone here is Mormon. There is a temple 3 blocks from my appartment, and for a 50 mile radius there is a church practically every othe block. It's downright rediculous here. And what I've learned is: people believe what they want to, and they will disregard any argument otherwise, explain away contrary facts, and even invent truths if they have to. Everybody here has a story about seeing angels, miracles, and God speaking to them. Now, I don't presume to know what they did or did not see. But I do doubt that God would spend all his time answering prayers in Utah. And some of them are downright silly. "I lost my car keys, and fell to my knees in prayer. Almost immediately, I felt the spirit, and there they were, in my pocket." Around here people attribute everything that happens to them as the will, and ultimate plan, of God. It's so common that people think something must be seriously wrong with you if you don't believe. I try not to make any judgements, but you gotta admit, it's a little kooky.

I don't mind much, because whatever else, the people here are en mass some of the greatest people in the world. In general, people here are kind, generous, intellegent, and talented. They lead clean lives, work hard to become better people, and help the people around them.

And isn't that the point? Live your life, be good to people, don't start any holy wars.

Thus sayeth Ztiev. So let it be written, so let it be done. Amen.