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+postid: 
+title: On art
+author: Lucian Mogoșanu
+date: August 1, 2013
+tags: cogitatio
+---
+
+The first thing I need to point out, and indeed I do, like a fish needs water,
+is that art is purely a personal thing. There is no single definition of art,
+more like billions of them, and people believing otherwise are nothing but
+close-minded fascists. It's not only that artistic values vary from one culture
+another, but between two given individuals, even if they suckled from the same
+breast.
+
+That being said, what follows is my view of art; mine and mine only, and I find
+no pleasure whatsoever in knowing that others may or may not share it.
+
+The word "art" comes from the latin "ars", which means "skill", or "craft", and
+is closely related to "arma", which refers to joining, fitting together etc. So
+the roots of art lie in making tools, or using tools to make other (useful)
+objects and such similar activities. Contrary to popular belief, for a long
+while, art involved not only aesthetics, but also practical aspects: a good
+carriage was "a fine piece of art" not only because it looked good, but also
+because it served its purpose well and because it was the result of weeks,
+maybe months of hard work.
+
+In time, the meaning of the term shifted to what is nowadays known as "fine
+art", that is, works that are highly polished and refined by the hands and
+minds of the greatest masters of a particular field. Art is therefore not
+simply craft, but also the best there is.
+
+A second shift led to the view that art is not only the best, but it is also
+that which transmits emotions. This definition is hardly quantifiable, since
+subjective experience can, as I previously mentioned, vary greatly from one
+person to another, and thus art becomes purely a matter of taste and
+preference. So what is, in my opinion, art? It is two things.
+
+Firstly, it's a product of mind, hands and whatever else it is that created it.
+Art itself doesn't involve the process of creation and it has nothing to do
+with the person that created it. Trying to find the meaning of a piece of art
+in its creator is nothing more than egomania and mindless adulation.  Surely,
+creators deserve praise and criticism for their art, but in the end it's the
+livened piece, not its author, who speaks. Furthermore, once it's created, the
+piece becomes completely separated from the creator, becoming subject to its
+consumers' scrutiny.
+
+This also implies that aspects related to the process of creation, for example
+the tools used, are completely irrelevant from the point of view of art, since
+consumers can in few cases judge the tools themselves. Besides, including
+creation into art would exclude non-humans from the artistic process, which is
+obviously wrong, since nature is one of the greatest artists in history.
+
+Secondly, art is that which leads to the "improvement" of mankind, whatever
+this so-called "improvement" might be. Electronic circuits, and computers in
+particular, are clearly art. The Internet is an incredible piece of art, not
+only due to the fact that it's bigger than what any single human could have
+ever achieved. These are simply "the best" and they convey the emotion of awe,
+which makes them fall into the standard definition of art. Engineering is an
+art and any attempt of the humanities to prove otherwise are not only
+misguided, but also malicious in nature.
+
+These two definitions are interesting due to the fact that they include
+computers as creators of art. It's absurd to try and find "personality" in a
+computer-generated work of art; it is also absurd to say that that which is
+generated by a computer is not art, even though it can compete in refinement,
+maybe even surpass the equivalent created by a human.
+
+However, my view does not and cannot integrate *some* concepts into the
+definition. For example, it doesn't allow for intellectual property. Since art
+only depends on the final product, then near-perfect copies have the potential
+to be as valuable as the original. Since art can be created by machines, art
+can be copied by machines. This, by the way, is something which upsets
+copyright holders, a thought which is a good starting point for another, which
+I may discuss at another time.