@davidvj
Photographs never have and never will look like nature.
Divide to conquer old issue. We are a part of nature, thus we are nature too. World would be so much better if we could collectively embrace this. Now, there are plenty ways of going about it; from semiotics route to the meta-medium
This was absolute creativity.
my spine is trembles, am I coming?
Thanks for creating this thread and all the pips contributing, loads of gudstuffff
@anon41087856
In photography, no matter what we are doing, we are always bounded by the technics. Optics, chemistry, now electronics and bits.
True. We should embrace limitations, they’re our friends; that’s why gods in buddhism do not get enlightened
Once that settled, we create inside these bounds. But what is creation ? Being 100% original ? 80% ? At least 50% ? Or simply making something ? Is it even possible to be 100% original when we live in a civilization where we are, one way or another, exposed to visual communication, thus, under influence ? And, that is assuming there is a metric to originality.
That reminds me of good old W. Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility
So now, what is “absolute creativity” ? The whole creation concept is a religious one. Only God creates (as long as you believe).
I think we need to desacrate the whole creativity thing. I don’t think there is such thing as “absolute creativity” out of the Bible. There are guys making stuff. And that is enough in itself.
This is interesting, lots of food for thought also reminds me of Jimmie Durham’s fantastic A Certain Lack of Coherence: Writings on Art and Cultural Politics . In which Durham, amongst an ocean of historic and personal conections, stories, facts, poems, etc. states that “creativity” is something for god only. IMHO every single person born (anywhere) in North America should read this book, also all artists and widowed parrots. I had the priviledge to have Jimmie as tutor… oh boy was that fun
I think we need to stop seeing sacred things, trying to make things grand, finding big purposes or deep meanings when there is no need to and no evidence there are some. Take the work, enjoy, shut up. Don’t make up stories on how it’s deeply meaningful, absolutely personal and so on. They are most likely going to be fake.
That’s so radically opposed to what I think that we are probably shaking hands behind the counter
During the Renaissance, artists thought they were only carving the latent masterpiece that was already contained in the medium, because only God could have done such great work. (I’m not a believer, but bear with me). So art would be something external, a sort of quest to carve something that was in the matter.
That’s a solid base to start and enrich from
Now, everything is about me, I and myself. So art has to be profoundly personal and deeply meaningful. And it’s kind of ridiculous to look for so much spirituality in art now, while our societies are mostly secular and religions have lost much ground.
Whenever I go to an exhibition, there are always the same twats that try to use complicated words to describe how they feel looking at that painting, and it’s always to show how much culture and awareness they have (always more than the others), so at the end it’s show-off and pointless.
Now - and despite sprinkled with some “truth (aroma)” - this is a bit too much… and the acidity levels are alarming
@patdavid
Isn’t finding big purposes or larger meanings the same goals as science and philosophy? Humans have always sought an understanding or meaning in things. For longer than modern science they’ve used art as a way to do that (and still do).
{…}
I’d say any art is intimately associated with being meaningful in some way to the admirer. Even if that meaning is simply that they enjoy looking at it. It’s still meaning.
Out of curiosity, why do you go to exhibitions? You must derive something from visiting and viewing these artworks. Something beyond the purely objective ability to robotically note that a thing exists…
I understand rebelling against pretentiousness from some people. But for every pretentious person there’s likely many more people that derive joy or pleasure and are quietly enjoying art.
Don’t denigrate or demean their experience if you can’t empathize with them. Maybe see first if there’s something more interesting going on that might be cool to take part in!
just superb
@anon41087856
Science is about figuring out how things are connected in the material world
And there are other non-exclusive ways, some of them (i.e. shamanism ) not only ancient but only now started to be “understood”, respected and plenty times openly admire by scientist… which find themselves struggling to keep a rational indexing / balance when the complexity reaches “absurd” levels. Same goes for a lot of “substances”, medicine really in the deepest meaning of the word, getting OT though.
Humans have always sought an understanding or meaning in things.
And this is what I call human arrogance. As if things had to have meaning. As if things could not happen just because they happen. As if randomness was no option. Wait… that would mean humans are not that special after all, or choosen, or better than livestock. Oooops !
On one side I believe that the most extended disease nowadays is the absolutism of human race as cosmic belly-button. BUT being explainable and rational, being intuitive, or being in any other form, we DO HAVE a need for “understanding” that grows exponentially in all ten directions ( ) as “knowledge” accumulates.
Out of curiosity, why do you go to exhibitions?
I like it when people show me my things in a way I didn’t thought. Or show me things I didn’t notice. Or maybe just surprise me. I go out of curiousity.
And that’s super healthy
presets = aesthetics
aesthetics ≠ meaning
hence presets ≠ meaning
thus presets ≠ (non)creativity
Sorry even if in the end it happens to align “right”, this kind of reduccionism is serving the master it criticices and its black or white approach does not take into account the context; and everything exists within a context whcih “helps” defining the it (thing). I recommend you to go and watch Lars Von Trier’s last film… The House That Jack Built , it’s of strong content, but I also think you can take it, je je
@s7habo
This is how social imprinting works. There’s a reason we’re trying to “emulate” things - they’re appealing to us individually. Just the selection of what we are trying to emulate is a sign that something has entered our individual “internal” world and we are trying to deal with it.
I’ve been observing and thinking about this matter quite a bit and I keep finding that the current situation’s biggest “problem” at least aesthetically speaking is that the model is global and absolutely instantaneous ( networks). the homogenization is just overwhelming and less variety means poorer languages.
i. e. if I show this video to the old seamen in town, do you think I can explain why this person has 12 million followers and is filthy rich, do you think they’ll grasp the “values" in this video?? … yet I’m pretty sure some of their grandchildren know (have access) and maybe even follow him/her/both/none/all-and-of-the-before
@patdavid
My child sometimes brings me drawings she’s has done to show me. Not out of pretentiousness or arrogance but because she likes it and wants to share it with me. She believes I might like it too. She may tell me why she likes it (whatever the case may be).
This is the same seed for many artists and people who love and get excited by art. They enjoy sharing something they made, or like, with others. They enjoy talking about why they like it with others.
That’s a wonderful approach, from the personal to the general, je je. The need to share… is something so profoundly human… even before all this network craze, we were (read learnt and improved) that way. Dunno where I heard of it first but it is said an artist is just someone with an immense necessity of expressing himself/herself… and in order for that to happen you need to master a language ( a code) to then unlearn it (tweaking it your own way). Picasso, that misogynistic bold genius, reflected about this:
All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
same but shorter It takes a long time to become young
only creating at a very personal level.
I also think creation is always a very intimate and personal thing. I don’t want it to not be!
+1
Now, in my view, we can take the word “creation” and put whatever we want there
only shiting at a very personal level
only making love at a very personal level
only replying to this thread at a very personal level
Just messing with ya. A good old friend of mine (buried now) used to say, probably taken from some transcen-dental record: intimacy with oneself is meditation, intimacy with the world is enlightenment
@ggbutcher
Photography has a particular constraint in the requirement to yank all creative expression through the knothole of the lens. To me, the photographic medium is simply a collection of the ways this is done to produce a rendering. That’s how I think of film and digital, just two different mechanisms. In either, the rendering is “the thing”, the communicative connection between the artist and an audience.
Seems like a good and healthy approach
When I look at my creative domain in that regard, my main audience is my family, who have expectations very much not rooted in words like ‘gamut’ and ‘tristimulus’. So, my main concern with respect to audience is to make images compelling enough for my daughter to include in her annual calendar. Her need is mainly to have her children and maybe some of the rest of us in the frame, and that their depictions are recognizable. A low bar, no doubt. I do know she appreciates some attention to composition, so that’s where I revel. Otherwise, it’s documentation.
I’ll like to comment on that. In my opinion, this is a missed opportunity her Butcher. Why is a “low bar”?, because you decide it so and why have you decided so? because you’re comparing, splitting. Have you ever tried to do that calendar as if it was for the people / a group / an audience you admire the most, without waiting for the reward/applause? There’s plenty beauty in a potato… we just need to go without eating for some days and then we’ll talk 'bout beauty, je je. P’arriba jefe!!!
@afre
In art class, I was drawing a puffin using pastels {…}
Visualizing it… I had to stop a tear to drop into the keyboard :puffin:tough-love
In my mind, creativity is taking what you have and making it something, and that takes both constraints and decisions.
constraints and decisions
Absofuckinlutelly
@ChicagoCameraslinger
Before I go into my take, I just want to admit straight up that I did not read every single reply to this thread in entirety and I’m not here to argue the semantics of what one word doesn’t mean or even care to comment on the math equations that this devolved to. I’m coming at this as an artist who supports other artists.
This is why we need more female coleagues!!! Honest (bleak even) and giving context. Isaac (below) also took this mature approach
One of my favorite blogs only shares orange tinted photos…
@anon41087856
We can sit here and argue about the definition of creativity or aesthetic until the cows come home, but there is always going to be that one person who takes everything said and does the exact opposite, and still has people who will support them and their vision.
I really hate this kind of hyperbolic relativism. “Everybody can be right at the same time, so let’s agree to disagree and stop arguing”.
Do not hate brother, it produces too much heat… but I do agree it doesn’t help
But you Americans have an ontological problem with arguing, as if it was some declaration of war, and a deep fear of looking judgmental, as if it was enough to send you to hell. It’s merely sport for the brain.
America is very big … then …
@ChicagoCameraslinger
Creativity with no matter or no medium is only ideas.
This is true. But instead of trashing people for what their creative idea is and stopping them from even reaching the pen and paper stage, maybe encourage people to talk about why they want to execute the idea they have. If you think it could be improved, maybe encourage them to consider alternate ideas instead of telling them that their ideas are wrong.
I could not agree more
That is discussion highjacking, the joker card, it’s annoying, it’s basically saying “I want to express my opinion but don’t wish to be contradicted”. So, I’m sorry, but stats are stats, and 90 % are more than a majority, so I’m going to generalize because I have no time to account for every anecdotal weirdo that doesn’t fit the description between Canada and Mexico. It’s not even generalizing, it’s finding links between people. Like it or not, you play that card far more than every other nationality I have to deal wit
@anon41087856
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This is my opinion and my opinion only but it would do you and probably all of us good if you turned that incredibly powerful critical eye of yours to your own actions; ‘cause you engaged in Bri’s “post” (nurturing from ur own reaction to it) for as long as you felt like it, just to then point the finger and call it witch!!! Bad boy
I figure (based on what I read, and read plenty and also on what you’ve achieved in such short time - dt modules ) you’re a brilliant man that has a lot of interesting and fresh ideas to bring to the exchange party… but your attitude of messiah of truth is soul hurting arrogant, despicable really… and that’s a pity… because undermines all the light you cast… but at least no-naked king hey?! My father, that was the most radical politic oriented activist (once he managed to put + 100.000 factory workers in strike - may 68) I ever known, used to say “Lo cortés no quita lo valiente” ~ courtesy detracts not from bravery
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@nosle
All art is using aesthetics to create meaning. All you are doing above is declaring your taste. Taste is equal to your description of pretentious man in gallery. Its an outward performance of identity. This is not a “bad” thing but its often boring unless the projected identity is interesting. Judging from your comments you are on one rung up on the ladder of understanding art. The rung where its easy to snear at the work of people just one rung “down”. Tasteful display of middle class values are amongst the least appreciated expressions in the art world. Art (proper) is defined by the art world in a process and it is rightly more interested in the over saturated landscapes than middle class beauty.
Hummm… // now, in a second reading, I’m confused with the paragraph, but my first reaction was to write the following => museums, galleries and the art world in general “taste” has a lot of hidden agenda ( and surely economic motivations)… a bit like politics… lets not forget aesthetics is a very powerful thing… of course there is truth and light but there is a lot of sub-serving manipulation; we just need to go through history and it’s all over the place, art, religion, politics… history itself, all hand in hand.
Pit stop => Andrey Rublev
This doesn’t invalidate a search for images that speak real.
that’s pristine food for the brain
@Isaac
why humans are human.
not much to look at: some sctratches on a piece of ochre.
I bet was a @joan_rake grandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrangranddgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrandgrand dad that did that with and ancient gmic script
the knowledge and cognitive ability to create and abstract representation of something one experienced or thought, and pass that on to others.
{…}
And numerous other creative decisions. In the end our specific choices will determine much of what our audience will see. We will derive some pleasure from sharing this with them, and it is enjoyable to witness what they make of the scene we crafted.
Yes, very important concept IMO, audience .
Will they feel the same as we did when we created it? Or will they come up with a new and interesting interpretations.
I believe both though never the “same”. Things will “grow” into a kind of strange ecosystem, in one hand there is the “relation” with the audience, with fellow artists (the community), which hold “our true values”; on the other hand, there’s the side from people that make a living out of it, and so interpretations will arise, niches will be created… most of the time out of the need for explanation, to pre-digest it into a rational ( with or without academic patine) discourse for the “masses”. What I mean is that I believe the explanation and other derivative discourses and more subjective theories may help give a context but the ability to “appreciate” (understand in its deepest form) art is within any and all individuals themselves… then there’s the tautologic side and all kind of byproducts for an elite… but that is far less interesting; for REF the latest Bansky scandal and how what was supposed to be a protest gest turned 180 and was not only not “criminalised” as the value of the damaged good increased exponentially… well, ironic ??, they went as far as inventing a new artistic term for it… sorry but that’s is the capitalistic organizm in its (each day less conceived) phagocyted bullshit, one that can integrate and digest, anything and everything… also shown are all powers interwoven in order to favour the elites… but I digress like a horny dog
Ultimately, it is this sharing of our creation that lets us get to the heart of the human experience. Yes, there is a lot of scientific knowledge involved in creation, even going way back to that scratched piece of ochre (one needed to know what ochre was, and what it’s physical properties were), but in the end, it is the experience of creating, sharing, and learning in return that marks us, not the technology, the medium, or the physicality of it.
As I wrote here at pixls before, sujfi say “not men, neither the tools but the work”. For so many reasons loved your post, thank you; I can tell you are a good and loving man… a bit like Lazzaro (but less stonny :P)
Cheers
PS
BTW Bansky has a superb well worth watching docu called Exit Through the Gift Shop that touches some of the discoussed points in this thread