tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7206373238418288113.post4731403391715771085..comments2023-08-19T10:04:08.922+01:00Comments on Thought • Art • Representation: Obscurantism and AccessibilityJim Hamlynhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16488331333061422244noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7206373238418288113.post-56416929278943177142014-12-23T08:01:27.264+00:002014-12-23T08:01:27.264+00:00That's like being asked to compare Swiss chees...That's like being asked to compare Swiss cheese with tennis. You might say that obscurantism is sometimes the result of differing cultural expectations but other than that the assignment seems rather obscure in itself.Jim Hamlynhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16488331333061422244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7206373238418288113.post-49162315192210593352014-12-23T04:47:22.517+00:002014-12-23T04:47:22.517+00:00I am supposed to write a 1000-word article on '...I am supposed to write a 1000-word article on 'Conflict of cultural identity vs Obscurantism in Arts'. Can you please give me an idea where to start/how to go about the assignment? Please and thanks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7206373238418288113.post-7133393283005670222012-09-10T11:23:28.348+01:002012-09-10T11:23:28.348+01:00Having read several posts on this excellent site i...Having read several posts on this excellent site it's obvious to me that the last commenter has missed the point almost entirely. There is no "assertion" of "either you get it or you don't" to be found anywhere in this post and, even if there were, I wonder if the last commenter has ever heard of Schrodinger's cat Heisenberg's uncertainty principle?<br /><br />Great post by the way.Alinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7206373238418288113.post-50628385730068863112012-09-08T18:02:50.552+01:002012-09-08T18:02:50.552+01:00Comparing art to physics is absurd. Having studi...Comparing art to physics is absurd. Having studied higher mathematics and physics, I know that either you can solve the problem or equation or you cannot. Simple.<br />This clarity of "either you get it or you don't" we see in the physical sciences is the exact polar opposite from what we see in art and the various pseudo-sciences.<br /><br />Artists would like for us to believe it is the same -- as this author tries to assert -- that "either you get it or you don't", but nothing could be further from the truth.<br /><br />This is not to say that all art should be accessible to all people without any education or effort at all. However, there are many, many mediocre, even lousy, artists producing sludge that is meaningless to anyone but themselves, who would love for us to believe that the reason we don't appreciate their creations is because we are just too ignorant or dumb to get it.<br /><br />Artists ultimately should produce art for themselves. If it happens to reasonate with others, all well and good. If not, let's not pretend there is some absolute standard of 'good art' by which it can be measured. Art and its appreciation is a SUBJECTIVE thing, period. Some art does require more depth or knowledge to appreciate, but that does not change the basic nature of what art IS.<br /><br />gaius gracchusnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7206373238418288113.post-72846703686047260732012-04-05T12:53:59.663+01:002012-04-05T12:53:59.663+01:00Thanks for your thoughtful comments Ross.
I think...Thanks for your thoughtful comments Ross.<br /><br />I think a lot of this comes down to the idea, that I mentioned at the beginning, that art should somehow be accessible to all. Perhaps we need to tear ourselves away from this idea and replace it with the notion that art is <b>available</b> to all ie: in the same way that many other experiences are available to everyone. Strictly speaking, art isn’t accessible to all. If it were, there wouldn’t be an issue. I think the problems arise when people take the inaccessibility of art as some kind of purposeful, ignorant or high-minded exclusivity when in fact it’s simply the result of an involved process that takes time and engagement to appreciate fully.<br /> We don’t berate mountains for being hard to climb – not seriously anyway. And whilst they might be ‘available’ to all, they certainly aren’t accessible to all. <br /><br />The other aspect of this is that whilst art might be available to all – and far more so than mountains – many people find that they have too little time or energy to devote to engage seriously with art. And that’s okay. We each have to make choices in life about how to direct our energies , especially when it comes to demanding pastimes. But we can’t go adding steps to every mountain just to make sure that people don’t feel excluded - though we might on one or two just to encourage the wary.<br /><br />I totally agree with you too about how art education in schools focuses almost entirely upon the aesthetic and the technical. It might be argued that this is exactly where the real dumbing down is happening and the effects are profound: <a href="http://thoughtsonartandteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/threshold-of-meaning-hermeneutic.html" rel="nofollow">http://thoughtsonartandteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/threshold-of-meaning-hermeneutic.html</a>Jim Hamlynhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16488331333061422244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7206373238418288113.post-82059535984059825222012-04-05T01:03:17.320+01:002012-04-05T01:03:17.320+01:00I think there's something about the art world ...I think there's something about the art world that excludes outsiders, often without realising. I am certainly against the idea of dumbing down, but there are surely far greater steps that can be taken to improve access to higher-level art works and to improve the transparency of the art world as a whole.<br /><br />I think a major step would be acknowledging that the "ordinary person on the street" is not necessarily the sort of Philistine idiot who needs work to be dumbed down, as is often assumed. I know several friends of mine have real difficulty dealing with conceptually-based artworks, despite being highly educated, well read, etc. <br /><br />One area that struck me as a possible explanation was in "the ordinary person's" education into art. For example, until I started studying at an art school, all of my education in art had been in purely aesthetic and technical terms, and I assume a similar story would be true of many of the general population.Ross Finniehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08006393957854546236noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7206373238418288113.post-63762832933840687082012-03-30T21:55:13.619+01:002012-03-30T21:55:13.619+01:00For all the social workers and accountants that wa...For all the social workers and accountants that want to switch careers: http://stephenlaw.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/why-degree-in-philosophy-may-be-better.html<br /><br />Mind you, the engineers come out pretty poorly on analytical writing and verbal skills.<br /><br />But as you know, once you start to inspect the detail and sources it soon becomes clear that most of these things are works of fiction - artists must be way lower!Jim Hamlynhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16488331333061422244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7206373238418288113.post-22941471015761364422012-03-30T16:00:53.498+01:002012-03-30T16:00:53.498+01:00But if the average fine artist is just slightly be...But if the average fine artist is just slightly below average intelligence (http://anepigone.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/average-iq-by-occupation-estimated-from.html), why would they need to dumb their work down?<br /><br />;-)Seanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00262336471783722214noreply@blogger.com