Here’s an expectation for you: this post is going to be dope! Wait no, never-mind, that’s too high of a bar – I’ll never live up to it. This post will be totally shitty – don’t expect much. Meh, too low – I’m selling myself short (I’m much taller than that). Where should I set the bar? Your point is that the bar shouldn’t be set anywhere – it should be totally unknown. If art is experienced with absolutely no preconceptions does that really give us the best ‘unfiltered’ experience? Perhaps, but the experience will always be tainted by all of the other subtexts in your own life. You can never run away from context – someone’s recommendation is just another piece of context within a myriad of other factors that may or may not help you enjoy a piece of art. Recommendations are, however, useful for helping us guide us through the torrent of possible movies, music and other subjective experiences. There just isn’t enough time in the world and it’s probably worthwhile to not waste it on things we’ll certainly dislike.

But is a specific bar useful? No, it probably isn’t. What we need is to move on from our classical conception of ‘defined levels’ of art appreciation and criticism, towards more of a quantum mechanical perspective: we need to embrace the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in our art recommendations. Heisenberg’s principle says that there is a fundamental limit to how precisely we can know certain physical properties. Like with these types of constants, our language for art should resemble a probability density: it should help us understand how that person feels about the art in general, while still leaving the possibility for other (potentially less likely) interpretations. Art ‘critics’ should instead be art ‘contextualizers’: they should provide us with interesting and useful background information, while also giving an idea of who may enjoy it. Totally one-sided opinionated pieces may be entertaining to read, but they should be marked as that: entertainment.

The probability slanted language can apply to emotional states, humour appreciation, and perceived quality of the art itself. The scale is less important, but the notion of (the lack of) precision is essential. Sure, this would make certain decisions more complicated, but it will be worthwhile in the long run. In the words of Bertrand Russell, ‘one has, in practical life, to act on probabilities…I would encourage people to act with vigour without complete certainty.’

This is of course, my recommendation. Certainty level: 50%.

Does art require a specific vocabulary? Yes and no. To me, Rachit, precise, descriptive language may help me appreciate pieces of art, but it rarely, if ever, makes me love something I would otherwise be indifferent to.

Western society seems to value art ‘critics’ who can poignantly analyze a piece of literature, music or film. People like Roget Ebert or the critics of Pitchfork, are often artists in and of themselves in the way they can summarize and pick apart dense, layered films and music. Using the right words to describe art, is an art in-and-of-itself. Meta aside: Is using the right words to describe the words used to describe art, an art? If so, we’re goddamn Picassos.

Back to critics: the word critic is pejorative and rightly or wrongly, often adds a bit a haughty perception of these types of endeavours (think of the scene from Birdman where Michael Keaton rips into the New York Times critic). I think this type of categorization is unwarranted – deep down inside we want honest, no-holds-bar opinions from other people. Was American Idol ever the same without the tactless, blunt Simon Cowell?

Great art is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder, but broad brush strokes are often good enough to help people appreciate or stay away from certain pieces. Art ‘language’ helps us communicate and swim through the incredibly vast ocean of music, film and aesthetic pieces. I think the respect and admiration of the art ‘critic’ has waned, primarily because of the wealth of various opinions that is now easily available to the general public. For movies, instead of following the recommendations of one writer, many people now use aggregate websites like Metacritic, and Rotten Tomatoes. To me, these services work well for filtering out movies that almost nobody likes – yet are often not very useful for finding things you would like.

That is where the subjectivity of art is obvious. No matter the medium, the joy we derive from experiencing something artistic is contextual. It depends on our life, our personality and our tastes. When I hear recommendations, the words themselves matter very little. It’s the person who’s saying them that is important to me. Can I empathize with them? Do they like the same things I do?

Take Seinfeld for example. What words would you use to recommend it to me? It’s about people in New York. It’s a show about, in its description of itself, ’nothing’. You could tell me its funny, but funny is contextual – just like ’touching’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘moving’. Communicating broad ideas is certainly important – but when it comes to art, the only convincing way of recommending something is to say ‘just trust me, have I ever recommended something you didn’t like?’

~V

Well, Rachit it’s been a while. We took a long break, but now we’re back. We should say that we weren’t completely ignoring our NFC duties – we started some fiction writing that we hope to publish some time. But for now, back to our regular scheduled quibbling over philosophical minutiae.

For our next topic, let’s talk about “art.” What does it mean to us? What role does it have in our society? In the spirit of high school valedictorian speeches, I wanted to start this topic by trying to define what Art is. Wikipedia has this wonderfully specific definition: “art is a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities.” So basically, art is anything, it’s in the eye of the beholder. That’s not a very fruitful definition so let’s try Merriam-Webster’s: “[art is] something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings.” That’s more specific, but there are words like ‘imagination’, ‘skill’, ‘beautiful’ and ‘important’ – all concepts that are just as vague. I want to ask you, how is ‘art’ connected to other parts of human culture? It’s hard to imagine that other animals have analogous concepts. I could imagine a pack of Iguana’s playing a primitive version of soccer, but somehow it’s much more difficult to imagine them appreciating a sunset. What is it about Art, with a capital A, that makes it so human?

I think there are two insightful comparisons here. First, art and sports. Much like sports stars, exceptional musicians and artists can be paid incredible sums of money. There are athletes and artists who appeal to the masses, and those that only appeal to experts in the field, those that can understand the subtleties of what it really means to be an artist or athlete. Unlike sport, art, however has no clearly defined rules – it has almost no rules. But what it does have is a pervasive culture of meritocracy. We want to believe that a piece of art speaks for itself and it is unaffected by the reputation or societal standing of the artist. We have ‘art galleries’ that are like mini olympics – showcasing art of amateur artists and exposing them to the masses.

The second comparison is of art and science – or more objective ‘knowledge.’ Largely, art is about personal moments: subjective experience. Science is exactly the opposite – it’s about reproducible, as objective as possible, facts. You’ll probably know where this is going – the ‘b’ word, balance. Of course society needs both. We need art to feed our ‘souls’ and science to feed our ‘minds’. But can we say anything more here? Do certain cultures place more value on one or the other? How does that affect their economic and societal progress? Is it dangerous to place more emphasis on one side of this equation – valuing objective ‘facts’ over subjective emotions?

Lots to discuss, and I’m glad we’re back at it. I hope the new year brings more insights and never-from-concentrate ideas (with lots of pulpy goodness).

Yours in wonder,
V