Online research in philosophy

Hi, Camil....

Just a quick question at this point.  When you ask "why do we take for granted that a poem is an object of art"....do you mean to suggest that we automatically, invariably accept poetry as art, while, at the same time, withhold that designation from "computer games"?  I noticed the title of your post ("Old Art vs. New Art") and it led me to believe that somehow you were suggesting that the age of "a poem" (or the art form of poetry itself?) had some bearing on its tacit acceptance over more recently developed computer (video?) games as art. Please clarify for me the significance of the title of your post and its bearing on the discussion at hand.  Thanks!

Robin

Hi, Robin

Yes, that's exactly what I was pinpointing to. We are more inclined to label "art" a poem (old art) than computer games (new art, supposedly). The confrontation between "old" and "new" in art is thrown into question, on the one hand, by our historical-biased assessments - we are too caught (even nowadays, ironically) in historicity. Just because there are so many poets and poetry is accepted as institution, we rather focus on thinking of "poetry as art" than "computer games as art" (Andy Warhol's argument maybe). Despite all that, some speak of poetry being dead. Does not that sound queer?
    Additionally, perhaps the institution of "computer/ video games as art" is slightly undeveloped. We were not taught in school, the curriculum did not include "the art of video games" or something like that - instead, the teachers tend to ban them, rejecting them as a "waste of time". There's this "political" reason, but I think it's not the only one. 

Thank you too!
Camil

Hi Camil,
Interesting point. Is art Gricean then? Does the art-utterer U have to intend that there is an audience A that will come to have an attitude about some 'p' (perhaps a non-linguistic attitude if there are such) and that they will come to this attitude on the basis of recognising the intent of U to 'art-utter'. This would imply that an 'art-utterance-drag' is bound to apply to new forms of human communicative acts (like building a computer game). Moreover, to be ART with capital letters it would seem that the Gricean interaction must presume a more or less global cultural co-operative principle for a particular art form. That might take decades. When I was a boy people still talked of Picasso as 'not ART' as if this was a straightforward definitive statement. Nobody now would do that even if some might still say 'that's not what I call art'. 

There is also an interesting parallel issue in relation to art-utterance the absence of any A, at least in terms of other people (U may be his only A). Many artists paint or compose in the knowledge that there may well be no contemporary audience that will understand the art-utterance. Some will paint or compose in the belief that there may never be an audience that will be able to fully appreciate certain aspects (formal elements in late Beethoven?, image cross-reference in mid-period Arshile Gorky?). Paradoxically, these very aspects are often considered to be the pinnacle of art.

Jo E

Hi Jonathan,
I believe this Gricean observation is important, as it brings into focus the relation between artists and audience. Your objection is also reasonable: art is not to be reduced to this intentional setting (you emphasised the late Beethoven, I would add A. Schonberg's developing variation, and even experimental musicians like Mateusz Bednarz, for instance). Yet the global cultural co-operative principle you've mentioned is a convention inculcated by social institutions: you play by the rules, but the rules are already given, to extremely simplify the late Wittgenstein.

However, Grice's implicature does not prevent game programmers from falling into solipsism (that is, U may be his only A, as you pointed out). There are many experimental computer games programmed for the sake of programming (non-commercial...course). 

Coming back to Beethoven - the Gricean U-A relation is applicable when talking of "poetry and money", to give an example. One needs his/ her intention de-codified because s/he wants to convey the message without any distortion...but I doubt his intention is strictly to send the message. Beethoven forgot (I think that's the verb) about his intention, he didn't care as much about the audience...he already had an audience. :)   

Best,
Camil

Hi Catinca,

Thanks for this. I agree on your first statement, and I would like to ask "why?". Why does current literature tend to focus more on what makes an object an artwork rather than what makes an activity/category an artform? 

Before asking "What makes a poem an artwork?", I guess you have to decide whether poetry (the process by which a poem "comes into being") is an artform - to be consistent with your claim. If one decides that poetry is an artform (and most of us don't decide, just take it for granted that the activity of conceiving a poem is an artform), s/he surely can go on and see whether "Roses are red, violets are blue..." type of poem is an artwork (which I also doubt, although this type of poem is used in kindergartens for educational purposes, so it hasn't lost its value of artwork entirely). Even so, how can one separate types of poetry from types of poems? For instance, in this case, don't you think that "Roses are red..." type of poem is conditioned by a certain type of poetry (referring to a certain manner of writing, bearing a certain audience in your mind, using an adequate register of language, etc)? 

I agree that essential properties are used to distinguish artworks from not-artworks, especially when a poet has to claim s/he has written a poem, because without her/his claiming that, the artistic community would not accept it as artwork. The poet is convinced that s/he undertook to do poetry (in other words, s/he relied on an accepted artform), but the product of her/his artistic endeavour is not endorsed as artwork. What is her/his justification? Well, what was Walt Whitman's justification for his availing of free verse? Or Allen Ginsberg's, for his "Howl"? Were they appealing to essential properties, or did they just put their poems on a plate and let them unfold into a pleasant linguistic orgy? It's highly debatable. 

About "time and materials" (to quote a poet): yes, it takes time for something to materialize as artform. But what should innovative artists do? Just sit and wait for recognition? Of course not. A game programmer is, in my view, as much of an artist as a skilled poet. And if game-programming is not conceived of as artform, it's also because of how the authors are portrayed: nerds, geeks, freaks, weirdos or whatever stereotypes come to your mind. I'm no game programmer, but I can say it is "something" to devote your time to learning complicated programming languages and simulate high levels of complexity. Many people don't see it as artform, true, and the involvement of technology is devastating: had it not been for computers, would they have had the ability to program the games? It reduces the unpredictability somehow and makes this alleged artform a hybrid. It's not the case with traditional poetry: one just needed a mouth to speak it up, and...a good deal of imagination. Technology seems to confine the role of the artist (e.g. your reference to photography, mine to computer games).