Well this is fun, it is deliberately provocative but maybe not dumb. The title itself is something a literalist engineer (myself) would reject, but is about the development of thought that is reflective, self referential. That’s an interesting train of thought.
There's a lot of archaeological evidence that art + toys were made before tools by a good amount of time IIRC. It makes sense to me as humans were always social creative creatures and the ideas that we didn't want to express ourselves 300,000 years ago seems kinda silly.
Thought-provoking article. When the cave painters were at work, they most probably didn’t see themselves as “artists” and of course not scientists, philosophers. That was an age where all those things were together at once, living in a religious state, I think. Little by little, they separated (to sometimes unhappy results). Brings to mind the old myth where humans were both male and female originally, but gods, fearing their power, separated them, leading us to look for our half. Same with art and science, I think.
So while Picasso is perhaps right to say “We have invented nothing “ as quoted in the article when he means art is as old as humans, the realization that something is art, is perhaps invented afterwards.
I also reject the two kinds of art thesis that’s proposed here:
“It follows that there must also be two kinds of art – similarly different and yet, somehow, complementary. The first is what I call artifice: art conceived so as to confirm, reinforce and extend the empire of facts in which we ordinarily live. … Examples come readily to mind: propaganda, pornography and advertising; sentimental, moralistic or didactic art”
Many current artists would lump, say, paintings by Old Masters into this category. Facing the statue of David past month in Florence, it was eye opening how much such a classic statue of a human can move people!
I happen to be re-reading Deleuze right now (and knew Bergson at some point), and I'm not really sure what the author adds to the equation. I.e. art is the pure desire-machine, schizophrenic and completely deterritorialized, whereas pornography is the desire-machine territorialized by determinate conditions of e.g. OnlyFans. If anyone else knows Deleuze I'd be curious; him and Guattari is not exactly a vibe hang. Long-winded way of saying it seems like a lazy dichotomy.
My data point is I got to stare at Wheatfield with Crows and The Death of Marat within 24 hours and I was walking around Brussels a drooling mess, only capable of leaving decoy cheap sunglasses for pickpockets
"All art is, in the end, adoration" J.Campbell. (quoting by memory), essentially art and humanity are one in those times, no one invented the other.
In more recent times things are changed, life and art are on different path, but still in reinessance times people received education bot in liberal arts and in scientific (by the times) matters. Art and science still talks under the surface.
I've been reading Wengrow and Graeber's "The Dawn of Everything", and one of the main points they've made so far is that once modern humans became recognizable as such, we were doing all the human-type things we do now: thinking about our place in the world, debating different ways to live and their pros and cons, and so forth.
We tend to think of prehistoric humans as being stupid cavemen, but I suspect we'd find them to basically the same as us, just with a different context and level of knowledge about some things - but also far greater understanding of other things.
Author's argument is that when early humans painted, they weren't expressing an interiority they already had; they were engaging the creative process of reality directly.
I disagree in the sense that reality includes the intangibles which machines cannot (today) reach, which is why any LLM-generated art is, for the most part, not art. It's images, it can be aesthetic or narrative or whatever – but I think it's fine to gatekeep art as an inherently human thing.
“The basic realism of science, then, rests upon the following claim: the Universe is such that facts can be plainly stated within it, even though the facts themselves need not be plain.”
What facts can plainly be stated within this universe? Can facts exist outside the common language within which they are expressed?
One of my craziest ideas is that language created minds and not the other way around. One view of history is that humans evolved brains sufficient to host language, invented language, and then our brains grew around language.
My crazy idea is basically the thesis of this article except swap out "art" and swap in "language". In my view, art is just one form of expression. That is, language predates life.
Although, language is a bit provocative, and I probably mean something closer to semiotics.
One of the most compelling takes on Lascaux is that it isn't art. It's not about idealization, worship, beauty, or being human. It was made by hunters to get closer to their prey. They wanted to become the deer and the buffalo to know them better, so they could ultimately become better hunters of them. Herzog made that point in "Cave of Forgotten Dreams".
Haven't read any of their articles in maybe almost a decade (in aggregate they seem so whimsical with fantastical titles) but am bored enough so far today at the 9to5 to where it is an exceedingly great option.
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[ 0.31 ms ] story [ 9.3 ms ] threadSo I looked at the author and found: Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice https://www.reclaimingart.com/reclaiming-art-in-the-age-of-a...
Not sure if I agree but interesting nonetheless.
So while Picasso is perhaps right to say “We have invented nothing “ as quoted in the article when he means art is as old as humans, the realization that something is art, is perhaps invented afterwards.
I also reject the two kinds of art thesis that’s proposed here:
“It follows that there must also be two kinds of art – similarly different and yet, somehow, complementary. The first is what I call artifice: art conceived so as to confirm, reinforce and extend the empire of facts in which we ordinarily live. … Examples come readily to mind: propaganda, pornography and advertising; sentimental, moralistic or didactic art”
Many current artists would lump, say, paintings by Old Masters into this category. Facing the statue of David past month in Florence, it was eye opening how much such a classic statue of a human can move people!
My data point is I got to stare at Wheatfield with Crows and The Death of Marat within 24 hours and I was walking around Brussels a drooling mess, only capable of leaving decoy cheap sunglasses for pickpockets
In more recent times things are changed, life and art are on different path, but still in reinessance times people received education bot in liberal arts and in scientific (by the times) matters. Art and science still talks under the surface.
We tend to think of prehistoric humans as being stupid cavemen, but I suspect we'd find them to basically the same as us, just with a different context and level of knowledge about some things - but also far greater understanding of other things.
I disagree in the sense that reality includes the intangibles which machines cannot (today) reach, which is why any LLM-generated art is, for the most part, not art. It's images, it can be aesthetic or narrative or whatever – but I think it's fine to gatekeep art as an inherently human thing.
I guess they have never heard of the bowerbird: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/eptuty/b...
What facts can plainly be stated within this universe? Can facts exist outside the common language within which they are expressed?
My crazy idea is basically the thesis of this article except swap out "art" and swap in "language". In my view, art is just one form of expression. That is, language predates life.
Although, language is a bit provocative, and I probably mean something closer to semiotics.
Haven't read any of their articles in maybe almost a decade (in aggregate they seem so whimsical with fantastical titles) but am bored enough so far today at the 9to5 to where it is an exceedingly great option.