nedjer
Adventurer
So what if I use lasers to make the poo invisible and sell the act of making it invisible plus the realisation of this miraculous performance in the form of the stealth poo - are you buying or not?
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Is D&D Art?
- Thread starter Ahnehnois
- Start date
So what if I use lasers to make the poo invisible and sell the act of making it invisible plus the realisation of this miraculous performance in the form of the stealth poo - are you buying or not?
The world changed when I read the wiki article and remembered the art style known as Found Object. this in turn altered my subsequent statements. Unlike most the stereotypical internet arguers, I actually change my mind when i learn something. I'm sneaky that way.
Basically, that meant that technically, if I find it and decide to use it as an art piece (or as a component of an art piece), it is a valid art style.
As a result, I don't need to lie about the piece to call it art. It is art when I decide it has artistic value and present it as a work of art.
this in turn changes (and more closely matches what i suspect is reality), the need to lie about art's orgin. because my dog painting (or the panda painting) can count as art, there's no need to lie.
Thus, lying is only needed to misrepresent in order to generate a false value. namely forgeries or taking credit for someone else's work.
Anyway, the experts who define art already accept that animal generated art is art because I as an artist "presented" it as such. So it has nothing to do with you accepting it. it's a done deal by the fact that it is Found Object, or as google shows, people like this stuff: http://www.google.com/search?q=art+...-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1
Thats what solidified my stance on animal or non-man made art.
To put this in faux legal terms. if I can show in the World Court of Art that it was already counted as art somewhere, it gets to be counted as art.
it appears some dude basically presented a urinal as a Found Object piece of art. I mean like went somewhere and got one and put it in the art show. the bar is pretty low.
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Hussar
Legend
The problem with trying to define art, is a lot like trying to define genre - it's defined by its centers, not by its edges. We can all agree that the Mona Lisa is art. Even if we cannot exactly articulate why, we still pretty much agree. That's the center. But, on the edges, there's a lot of stuff that might be art or it might not be, and that probably depends more on the observer than the observed.
I usually use the example of trying to define "forest". At what point is a group of trees a forest? I don't know, and, by and large, no one else does either. But, we all know a forest when we're being attacked by overly amorous badgers.
On a side note though about making maps. And designing adventures in general. Is that playing D&D though? If I paint a mini, am I playing D&D? A painted mini certainly can be a work of art, I think most people would agree. But, is painting minis part of playing the game of D&D? In the same way, is drawing a map part of playing the game? Where does "playing the game" stop? Does it mean that the DM is an artist but the players generally aren't since they aren't typically creating but rather reacting?
I don't have any answers here, I'm just tossing this out to see what people think.
howandwhy99
Adventurer
"Art is Dead" - Rodin
"D&D is Dead" - Some newly minted edition grognard
"Games are Dead" - me
"Am I Dead?" - Neo
"D&D is Dead" - Some newly minted edition grognard
"Games are Dead" - me
"Am I Dead?" - Neo
The debate has been raging since the concept of art arose in the human mind. All I can say is that others have tried to define art. I've provided at least one site with a large and fairly inclusive explanation. Feel free to read the wiki link and apply its delineations to the question posited.
But, like I said, I'm not trying to define art.
Intent to create art.
Nope.
If you form the conscious thought, "I wish to create some art," in whatever form, and then take steps to create something based on that thought, I'd give your product the benefit of the doubt. It may not be great or good, but I'll grant you "art" status.
Well, its a crappy way of saying it, but D&D is a game, not something that is intrinsically artistic- see previous examples of alter ego or beer & pretzels players for whom playing a PC is no different than moving the Scottie to Park Place. Or to put it differently: there are many activities that are pretty much universally recognized as being art forms, and D&D isn't one of them. To create art via the medium of playing D&D requires something more than simply playing the game.
At its basest level, that something more is the intent to create art, coupled with acting upon that intent.
Mark Kostabi- whose stuff I pretty much don't care for- provides an interesting example of this.
Like Warhol did before him, starting in the late 1980s, MK established and maintained a studio in which art students did pieces in his style. There were even specialists in doing his signature.
Unlike Warhol, however, when he put these pieces on the market, he would openly insult prospective buyers. As in, to their faces. Calling them idiots for buying things he didn't paint with a signature he didn't sign... And those canvasses sold for tens of thousands of dollars.
Arguably, the Mark Kostabi art was not in the canvas, but in the performance MK gave at the point of sale. The work done in his style was merely the sign that the performance had occurred...like a 10'x10' ticket to a World Series game.
Odhanan
Adventurer
Can't vote. It's not a yes/no thing. Asking whether a manual to play a role playing game is art is like asking if the toolkit to build a chair is art. It can be if the designer of said toolkit conceived it as a work of art, a toolkit that would be assembled in such a way as to say something about some topic or another to its users by way of the aesthetics it uses, what message it conveys, the way it goes about helping the artisan to build his own chair, and so on. It also could become art in the way people who use it look at it and understand it.
So for some people D&D will be a work of art, and for others it'll never be.
That said, D&D, the manual, remains the toolkit to build the chair. It is not the chair itself, i.e. the campaign as you play it at your game table. A chair may be a work of art too, or not at all, depending on the artistic value you poured into the campaign, and how people who play or read about it understand it later on.
So for some people D&D will be a work of art, and for others it'll never be.
That said, D&D, the manual, remains the toolkit to build the chair. It is not the chair itself, i.e. the campaign as you play it at your game table. A chair may be a work of art too, or not at all, depending on the artistic value you poured into the campaign, and how people who play or read about it understand it later on.
prosfilaes
Adventurer
That was not the question that was asked, and to me it's a decidedly different question. Mechanics to me are not art, but the fiction is. I want to say that Golarion is art, but perhaps that's too nebulous to be art. The books describing Golarion are art to me, just like the novels set in that world.
Agreed. Which is why I find it so puzzling that Dannyalcatraz can insist that art is undefinable and that D&D definitely isn't art.
Then I don't think you can logically declare something to fall outside your undefinable concept.
What "forms" constitute such concious thoughts that don't involve me using the actual word "art"?
How do I determine if a given activity is "intrinsically artistic"?
So, must an activity be universally recognized as an artform to be considered art?
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