Kolya on 27/4/2006 at 13:58
I just came back from a reading about theory of lyric poetry. The view that my prof offered as the modern view on poetry was so revolting imo, that I caught him after the lecture and discussed the matter with him.
Anyway, here's what he had said in a quickness:
Authentic feeling and authentic execution are to be separated. It's as false to hold a poem in in high regard because we learn on some other channel that it expressed the author's true feelings, as it is to think lower of a poem which we thought was an appropiate expression of a feeling, when we learn that it wasn't authentic. (The author made it up.)
He went on to say that this holds true for all art and that we had no way to prove if some "background information" was any more "true" than the poem had been, since we cannot prove any information we get of the outside world at all.
So all we are left with and can scientifically deal with is the question, wether a piece of art (poem) was appropiately executed to express the feeling it was supposed to.
As I said, personally I didn't like this at all. It looks to me (and that's what I told him) as if someone used a logical/mathematical approach on the field of poetry. As in: Any logical statement is logical apart from it's source.
But it seems like a view from the ivory tower of scientifics down on poetry because the impact a poem/songtext (which is the same as we agreed), is intrinsically tied to the authenticity of the maker of the art, as can be proven any day.
Why are people disgusted when they learn that Michael Jackson sleeps with small kids? Why do boygroups members claim to have no girlfriend? Why do musicians make any videos at all if not to show that they mean what they say and stand for it?
He said that certainly people make this mistake any day but it doesn't make it any better. People should be sceptical about any information they get because none of it can be proven.
And the last thing he said on the stairs already was this: I don't want to think like that my whole life of course.
Me: You'd get very unhappy.
Him: (thinking) Yeah, I suppose.
OrbWeaver on 27/4/2006 at 14:10
I would define art as "good" if it is successful in communicating a particular emotion or idea to its intended audience. I cannot see any justification for devaluing a piece of art simply because the artist was not actually experiencing the emotion at the time he created it (although if the art was *that* good it would probably have induced the emotion in the artist himself, as well as the audience).
The best example I can immediately think of is the Cradle level from Thief 3, which very successfully invokes feelings of fear from its players. Should this level be considered "bad art" because the level designer might not have been shitting himself when constructing the level in the editing toolset?
I may be misunderstanding your point of course - perhaps you are referring specifically to poetry rather than any and all forms of art.
Kolya on 27/4/2006 at 14:18
No, I meant all forms of art really.
And about that thief level (which I don't know): There can't be any argument about this, because no one never felt any fear. And the level designers were probably recalling things that had made them fear before.
Say, if the level had been made by a computer (who doesn't know fear) and you knew this, wouldn't it limit the way you felt about it?
Naartjie on 27/4/2006 at 14:18
Thief 3's principal aim is as entertainment, though. That level is designed to make you feel fear. While the boundaries between entertainment and art are very blurry indeed, The Cradle is foremost the former, and secondarily the latter.
Kolya on 27/4/2006 at 14:21
That too. You generally don't expect this level of authenticity from a computer game.
woodsiegirl on 27/4/2006 at 14:27
Cradle? CRADLE? Eek! That was so freaky it felt like a different game :eek:
OrbWeaver on 27/4/2006 at 14:34
The distinction between art and entertainment is not only blurry, but entirely artificial - based mainly on whether money is involved or not. It seems very elitist to consider art created for money to be in some fundamentally different category to "authentic" art created by artists in the pits of despair, ectasy or some other emotional state.
Of course, it may so happen that art created for money is ON AVERAGE lower quality than the latter type (because it has to be done to spec and on-time by paid professionals, rather than completely freely), but this is a separate issue.
Kolya on 27/4/2006 at 15:44
I had just made another distinction between art and entertainment: You generally don't expect this level of authenticity from entertainment. What about that?
The question is, can it neither be expected from art to be authentic?
OrbWeaver on 27/4/2006 at 16:05
Quote Posted by Kolya
I had just made another distinction between art and entertainment: You generally don't expect this level of authenticity from entertainment. What about that?
The question is, can it neither be expected from art to be authentic?
If you define "authentic" as "representing actual feelings experienced by the artist", then no, I would not expect this level of authenticity from entertainment (i.e. commercial art).
However, I don't see that the presence of such authenticity is important, or that art which lacks this particular form of authenticity is inferior to that which doesn't, if the experience of the audience is the same.
Kolya on 27/4/2006 at 16:36
And that is where I disagree. For me this is important and it seems I'm not alone, because as I pointed out, a lot of people are frequently disappointed about missing authenticity. When they find out it wasn't real, their experience changes significantly and the audience gives the art a lower value.
Now one could deny that the "finding out" (eg via newspaper, TV, etc.) was any more real than the actual piece of art was. That's what my prof did.
But I think I have an answer for that by now:
Our premise: The appropiate execution of art can only be measured by the impact a piece of art has on the audience.
Now if that experience is affected by some outside information, it doesn't matter shit if this other information is provable fact! Heck it might be another piece of art! Because a newspaper article "revealing" the art-author was lying could be seen as a pice of art too. Whatever. The question wether one piece of information is more authentic than the other shouldn't even arise.
The impact is still changed.
So it's just wether you can single out any piece of art from it's context. And we all know you can't.
