Modern Composition John Cage

I suppose what is meant is this: If an attribute (in this case being art) applies universally to everything, it loses any way to define itself and thus its own identity. It has no opposites anymore (like nature, for example), so it becomes something that is form- and meaningless. Calling something art would be as meaningless as calling an specific animal organic, so the term art, in a sense, dissolves into nothing.

Just like if everyone was super intelligent, then no one would be.
Because everyone is, it would therefore be the norm, and so everyone would be of average intelligence.

So if everything is art, then nothing is art. Because as Gardener said:

...it loses any way to define itself and thus its own identity.

Well thats what I think anyways...but then I am a strange person.

Originally Posted by Gardener

I suppose what is meant is this: If an attribute (in this case being art) applies universally to everything, it loses any way to define itself and thus its own identity. It has no opposites anymore (like nature, for example), so it becomes something that is form- and meaningless. Calling something art would be as meaningless as calling an specific animal organic, so the term art, in a sense, dissolves into nothing.

i think this comes from being entrapped in a logic of two - everything vs. nothing, art/nature. while it may help to define something it usually does nothing good to the thing you try to define. art is not an opposite of something, the same as nature. they are completely heterogenous domains of multiple. and every thing in these domains are as well composed of other multiples ad infinitum. to avoid everything/nothing opposition, one just needs to think art as an instance of infinity (infinite possibility of compositions) and difference. its works are disseminated. they can come out anywhere and out of nowhere - in a sense that there is no purely artistic situation - there is no place where you would certainly know - this is where art is born.
even the drive to define art is an result of desire to have , to create an opposition. ''if i know what is art, i will know what is not art.'' yet, if one thinks art as a child infinite and difference, there is no need to define art in any strict sense. what a definition may say about something, whose instances are being born there and here, without any necessity and any dualistic logic? of course you can go to definition through negation - ''art is not this, art is not that...'', but it doesn't bring truth to the one trying to define nor to the thing it tries to define.
it's not about definition.
it's about truth.
living truth.
the truth(s) of subject(s).
there never was nor will ever be any objectivity in and of art. it has nothing to do with encyclopedic (knowledge).
it's a unique number.

Keep in mind that I wasn't voicing my personal opinion, just trying to give a possible explanation of LDunn's point. I think there's a huge difference between "everything can become art" and "everything is art". I agree with the first, not with the latter.

You, pliorius, raised some good points. However, I see nothing wrong with trying to define art (even if you "fail"). "Art" is a word and part of language, which serves to communicate. (Don't read this wrongly! I said the word "art" is part of language and serves to communicate, not art itself!) The existence of the word "art" would be pointless without at least a vague idea of a definition. We don't have to define art, but in that case we don't need the word art either and better stopped using it at all. -If- we use the word "art" we might just as well try to define it (knowing that such a definition will be imperfect).

Otherwise we can just talk about a concept such as "Blebribog", say that it has no definition, no properties, and applies to everything. It won't really be of much use.

I now better understand what was meant by the everything/nothing thing, and I think I've come to a conclusion myself that art can be anything that is declared so - I think that makes sense to me

Originally Posted by Nirvana69

Performance art - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yeah, I'd call this performance art but not music necessarily. I think the simple fact that after all this time there is still debate over the merits of this piece validates the fact that it is art.

It's like asking if Andy Kaufman was a good comedian. The fact that you can still debate that means that he, and probably some others, is laughing his ass off somewhere. Obviously he was an amazing comedian given that fact.

Originally Posted by Gardener

Keep in mind that I wasn't voicing my personal opinion, just trying to give a possible explanation of LDunn's point. I think there's a huge difference between "everything can become art" and "everything is art". I agree with the first, not with the latter.

You, pliorius, raised some good points. However, I see nothing wrong with trying to define art (even if you "fail"). "Art" is a word and part of language, which serves to communicate. (Don't read this wrongly! I said the word "art" is part of language and serves to communicate, not art itself!) The existence of the word "art" would be pointless without at least a vague idea of a definition. We don't have to define art, but in that case we don't need the word art either and better stopped using it at all. -If- we use the word "art" we might just as well try to define it (knowing that such a definition will be imperfect).

Otherwise we can just talk about a concept such as "Blebribog", say that it has no definition, no properties, and applies to everything. It won't really be of much use.

i agree with the fact that ''art'' is a word we use to designate something. i agree that its use is intra-lingual and being so it must have relations to other words. i just wanted to point out that relations are not necessarily of the that/this, black/white type. and the sense of ''not perfect definition'' most probably means understanding. so, we might not have any definition of art (just opinions, thoughts and so on) and try to understand the idea (not the word) of art. i am all for living into the question ''what is art?'' or, more sincerely - "what comes to be art, what may become art?'", yet is doesn't mean i have a definition of art - just some sort of goal, an idea that moves my thoughts.
p.s of course we can talk about concepts of 'blebribog', but and only if they have (are shown to have) relations to other words or concept( ideas). inventing neologisms is not something wrong. it helps. we need new word for new things.

I think I understand what you mean and I agree.

My line of reasoning involved some large jumps that would require some justification. It could perhaps be seen as more of a thought experiment or sketch.

With regards to "everything is art" vs. "everything can be seen as art", I would hope this would be cleared up by my boundary of "art as expression". If something is created with the intent of expressing something, or produced in a way so that things may be expressed to others, it is art. Everything else that does not fall into this category could be argued not to be art. This is, possibly, a harsh, rather contrived boundary, but it does apply largely I would argue. Just like Tracey Emin's bed - your own un-made bed in the morning is not a piece of art, but hers is, because it was expressing a set of ideas to others through being placed in a certain context.

This idea presents an interesting problem for spiritual/religious people who believe in a creator of this world. I am not one of these people, but I imagine one could argue that if the world were created, it could have been made expressly for the purpose of communicating certain feelings/ideas to us, and would therefore be a piece of art. I would prefer to think of art as being a human construct*, but be that as it may, this does present an interesting line of thought.

If it seems that one can clear up the question of "what is art", albeit rather obtusely, with a bit of armchair thought, consider the more interesting question which I think this conversation has actually been about:

"What is good art?"

L.

*I suppose anything that is a human construct is indirectly a construct of God. I don't particularly enjoy thinking like this, however.

In my opinion good art is art that makes you think.

So 4,33 is bloody good art

Although that doesn't take into account the great deal of great music or visual art that doesn't really make you think, but is still definitely good art...

Bugger