Do you think art serves a purpose in society and do you consider it to have meaning?
Even though my stuff is the equivalent of kindergarden finger painting,
Personally i think people such as leonardo da Vinci who was an artist amongst many things did great things in terms of art, even though art it is largely subjective, I do not consider the fashion industry to representative of art or for art to be looked at the same way as clothes are in the fashion industry…and tbh there is some good and some bad… but as a whole to me it’s an Avenue for expression, a representation of beauty and life as whole…however I would never pick it as primary venue to earn a living…because sometimes it’s like the fashion industry…
I think the fact that we as a species engage in art is what’s important. I’m no sociologist, but to my knowledge there’s no culture of humans that don’t have some concept of music, for example. Humans as a group are hardwired to interpret and bring structure to the world around them - do that creatively and we call it art. There are people that don’t engage in art, but I don’t think there are any cultures without it.
Art is like wet dreams for society. It’s a way to blow off steam, get some satisfaction without killing and eating your asshole neighbor. It lets us interpret our slice of the world and re-frame it in our own vision. If art wasn’t crucial to us as a species, we wouldn’t spend so much time arguing about it.
Music can sometimes work like that, but it can also be used to inspire the opposite reaction.
Humans have used music when going to war since pre-historic times. To inspire courage or “build up steam” before the slaughter. Tribal drumming, barbaric singing, taunting etc. If you go to a soccer match in Europe today, you can hear hooligans using it in much the same way - before the violence starts (and sometimes during the violence as well).
Not too long ago, western military forces still fielded musicians during battles, drummers, pipers, trumpeters etc. - sometimes literally playing music amid flying bullets.
The emergence of music reproduction technology, arguably made it worse.
Spectacular propaganda movies with dramatic musical soundtracks played an important role in swaying the German people into supporting the Nazi Party.
It’s interesting to me, that many of the composers, whose music was used (and abused) by the Nazis, actually resented it, - since they – generally speaking - considered their art/music to be above such petty uses.
Their protests were mostly ignored, of course, but to me there’s an important lesson in this:
That the composer of the music, who might very well see his music as pure art intended for peaceful listening, can lose control of his work, - and end up witnessing it being used to convince people to commit genocide.
I hate to say it, but I think art is going to be different things for different artists and different audiences. I do have an explanation for that though.
To me, art is about exploring “the human condition”, which is kind of a catch-all for everything that’s ever been done by people. Balafonman sees war and violence, and that’s definitely a big angle. One of my favorite songs in that regard is “Disposable Heroes” by Metallica. Not to mention all the great war movies and books that have been written, and one could argue some of the shooter games that have been made.
Artificer has called out trying to explore something better than the current human condition we’ve made for ourselves, a kind of utopian art where we look at people if people were better than they are, and I think a lot of sci-fi and fantasy plays to that desire.
To me, electronic music (at least the stuff I like) is about unity, it’s a shared experience crossing language, culture, and personal experiences, where the simplicity of the music doesn’t leave much to be interpreted and everyone takes a very similar experience away from it. It’s cultures growing together in a global society.
But that’s just a few things, there’s art about beauty, sickness, fear, politics, outstanding individuals, the list goes on and on. And if it takes some element of it’s subject, purifies and summarizes it for someone who’s never seen or experienced that subject, and makes them understand to some degree how that feels for someone who has, then that’s what I think art should be doing. It’s art when the audience can take some understanding from the art that they could not before experiencing it, whatever subject that may be about.
I think I picked a poor choice to explain my position. I don’t think art has anything to do with positivity or a better world or any of that. It’s simply a reflection of what’s happening. People make art to point at a thing they see, or want to see in the world. It contextualizes the events around us through the lens of being human.
Art never killed anyone. Art doesn’t do anything but explain and systematize and inspire. It inspires people to do better. It inspires people to kill. It inspires people to comment on its existence and relevance. Art doesn’t function outside of context, and outside of context, people will contextualize it through their own experiences. Art is how we as a species explain the world to ourselves and other people. It’s functions as an explanation and reflection of the things we can’t quantify entirely in hard numbers.
I didn’t mean to imply that inspiring negatitivty is the main purpose of music, only that it can be, - and that the original intention of the composer/producer isn’t always a deciding factor in this.
Personally I hope that my music will be able to inspire people to be excellent to each other, but I also acknowledge that, as soon as I “let it out into the world”, its use is essentially beyond my control.
Even though it is many other things to different cultures and possibly even the human race as a whole, on a strictly personal level I see it as essentially fingerpainting. It’s the equivalent of a child playing around in a sandbox; it’s just pure garbage most of the time, but so much fun to partake in.
People who work hard and skip out on the “play” part each day are something I will never fully understand.
As some have said and intimated to me: Art comes about through intention, imagination, emotion, and craft - the last largely enabling and measuring success.
I agree on every post here.
To me art is just another field of jobs. It produces things that are sold or function as a personal enjoyment. Like those large things to bake bread.
The purpose is different for everyone, as White noise stated good. You can use those things to bake bread for masses or secretly burn bodies because they are large enough, or not use them at all.
Art can be a capturation of personal existence in wider time frame. Has a historic value.
Mentioning Da Vinci, in those times art was elitist. It was used to expand power by religious paintings in churches from christianity which had lots of money. Super wealthy people like kings ordered them to show off their power, wealth. In 18th century they were ordered by wealthy families in cities for example, art was more affordable. Nowdays some of it is practically zero value. There is so much of it.
Greek sculptures, religion also.
So art can be also a form of religion.
What is religion? Made up thing to gain faith for living, to explain the existence simply(or not simply), to socialise, to unite people in belief and will.
It definitly had different functions throughout history, different forms of art. I believe it is/was mostly used as a religion of some sort.
That can be also a philosophical question…
Art is a externalisation of beliefs.
internalisation of questions.
Art is a simple definition of unlimited possibilities.
I wish we had a similar thread from the old forum where this guy no one knew came out of the wood work to argue that anything that was to be considered art couldn’t be fun. It had to be dead serious.