P3D Re: What is not Art?

["Oleg Vorobyoff" <olegv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I know this thread should be left to die.  But there is one important
thing, I believe, that has not been explicitly said.  That is that art
is a process, not an isolated thing.  The process involves primarily 1)
an artist, 2) an art object or performance, and 3) an audience.
Additionally art involves a set of conventions, a history, feedback
mechanisms including criticism, audience education, display and
performance venues, and so on.  So it really does not make sense to
point to a particular element in the process, even the art object
itself, and say that it is or is not art (like I actually did in a
previous post).  However, I don’t think it makes sense to give up and
say that art is undefinable, or say that everything is art.  I think
that the process can be fairly concisely described, and that description
is the definition.  The most difficult aspect of the description is that
key steps in the process are mental, and we cannot look directly into
peoples’ minds (at least not yet).

Now to describe the process.  The process ideally starts in a specific
mental state in the artist, then with the aid of an art object
culminates in a comparable mental state in a member of the audience.
The mental state that art attempts to induce is neither intellectual nor
emotional but somewhere in between.  It is sort of a trance - like
dreaming in that some linkages between the mental and the bodily are
suppressed.  It can range from what you feel when absorbed in a novel or
a movie up to an intense quasi-religious state.  Like I said, describing
mental workings is difficult, but I hope I’ve narrowed this one down
sufficiently.  One thing art should not be is ugly.  That is because
recoil is emotional and/or bodily, thus a symptom that the process has
missed its mark.

So if we must stick to the subject line, the interesting question is not
what is not art, but what is not an art process.  I’m still not sure,
for example, whether 3D has the subtlety to be a productive art medium.
Mathematics or puzzles, however absorbing, would not ordinarily be art
processes, being mostly intellectual.  Sports would not ordinarily be
art processes, being mostly bodily on the part of the players and
emotional on the part of the spectators.  The act of creating an art
work, on the other hand, is an art process, one in which the artist and
audience are, for the moment, one and the same.  An interesting question
regarding a specific art work would be how close the actual audience
response comes to the artist’s target response.

I hope I did not get this too tangled up.  It seems clear to me, but
words are not my strong suit.

Oleg Vorobyoff