Everything is art with enough perspective

The world of art is a massive and flourishing place, full of incredible animators, overzealous rockstars, and mysterious poets. I have never considered myself an artist until recently. I have never been overly talented at painting, blessed with good drawing hands, or been particularly good at music. Although I do activities that can be considered arty such as Drama, Writing, and Photography, I never considered myself involved in such a world. But more and more these days, almost completely by accident I have found myself increasingly thrust into it. These hobbies that I mentioned before scratched a creative itch in my brain, but I still never did it for any reason other than my own enjoyment. But the more I involved myself in these activities, the more I delved into my own craft, the more my view of art has slowly started to shift from what it used to be. I used to think of things such as sculpting, watercolour, or crochet as your typical arty things, with modern art galleries and their abstract shapes and simple colours being a mystery to me. But now, everything is art to me. This might sound pretentious or overly optimistic, but this way of seeing things has completely changed my view of both the past and the present. I have found completely new ways at looking at things and appreciation for things that I never had in the past, and I absolutely love it.

Most people, I think. Have a very limited definition of art. When you say art, most people immediately go to the “greats” such as the Mona Lisa or Starry Night. But art has a much broader spectrum than some might realise. The Oxford Languages definition of art states that art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” Now at first read, this might seem to go against my argument of “everything is art”, but it's really the first part of that sentence that matters; “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination”. The reason I focus specifically on this part is that it can be applied to almost everything. That's the great thing about art, it has no boundaries or rules (at least, ones that you’re forced to adhere to). The only limit to what we call art is what we can dream up or create, that's why (in my opinion) pretty much everything can be considered art. If it has some sort of intent, emotion, thought, whatever, it’s art. 

So that means your limited edition chocolate bar wrapper, 1950’s brutalist architecture, or even $40 Warehouse bookshelf can be considered- to an extent, art. Because despite the majority of these having commercial incentives behind them, they also had a human behind them. Using their brain to design it, trying to figure out ways to make it more appealing, more functional. Expressing themselves in their own way, even if for some other reason other than solely creating art. Now obviously all art is not created equal, comparing- say an oil painting that someone has put blood, sweat, tears, and other bodily fluids into to something mass manufactured is hardly fair. But then again, why is that? Is it effort and time that makes art good? If so then that means something I put 100 hours into should be automatically considered “good art” no matter the actual outcome. But we all know that isn't necessarily true. So what is it that draws the line between what is art and what is not, and if that art can be considered good? If art is solely defined as “The expression of human creative skill and imagination” then my statement of “everything is art” is true. But if you ask someone if graffiti on a bathroom wall is art, I’m betting you could guess the answer. So is there a definitive answer to this then? Well, that's a tricky question, one that I’m probably underqualified to try and answer but will try and do so regardless.

See, the truth about art is it is completely, utterly, and wholly subjective. That's it, that's the answer. If you think something is good art, then it is. If you don't then it isn't. No one can tell you that your opinion is wrong or bad and they can't force you to change it. That's another great thing about art, the entire enjoyment or understanding is entirely derived from the person experiencing it. As my friend pointed out in her writing I read recently,

“Something doesn’t have to be good for it to be enjoyable. But then again, if it’s enjoyable, doesn’t that make it good?”

Most people these days are pretty opinionated and will often be more than happy to share their opinion on one thing or another when given the chance. We live in a world where we are constantly fed a plethora of reviews and opinions from both your average Joe and seasoned critics alike, and I think too often we take these words as gospel instead of forming our own opinions. Reviews are there to provide insights of someone from the industry on things they think the artist(s) did well, and not to replace your own. Just because some art is “bad” because it does not follow the traditional rules of its medium doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. That's where the phrase “so bad it's good” comes from. Something so hilariously or noteworthily bad that people get enjoyment out of it regardless- or even sometimes because of its flaws. If it appeals to your taste that's all that matters. This works the other way as well, if some art has glowing reviews all around and enough 10/10 stars to build its own galaxy, this doesn't mean everyone HAS to enjoy it. If the meaning is lost on you, or there's some aspects that just make it not enjoyable for you, then nobody can tell you you’re wrong.

A good example of this is the artwork “Comedian” by Maurizio Cattelan. Now, you might not know what this art is solely by its name and artist, but I bet I can jog your memory with three simple words. Duct, Tape, Banana. This art piece (which was essentially a Banana duct taped to a wall) wreaked havoc on news desks around the world in 2019 simply for the fact that it was A: being considered art in the first place and B: sold for 120 thousand dollars. To be honest, I don't blame them. But I don't necessarily agree with them either. While a simple banana and duct tape itself doesn't seem like art, it's the intent behind it that makes it so. The purpose of the piece is to be a commentary on modern art itself and how people interpret it. So by the definition of “The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination”, it is art. Cattelan set out to give his impression on what he thought of modern art, and his art piece of a Banana duct taped to a wall. And who am I to deny him that? Now, on the topic of it being purchased for $120k? That's another story. But if the collectors who bought it really felt it was worth that much to them, then the value of art is truly in the eye of the beholder.

Now we’ve established at this point that pretty much anything with human thought or idea behind it can be considered art, even if it doesn't necessarily seem like traditional art. But what about something that looks like traditional art but doesn't have any human thought behind it? Yep, we’ve reached that topic: Ai art. This is an interesting subject, as due to how recent it has appeared, there are lots of different conflicting opinions on it. But generally, you'll see two different camps floating around: One that thinks Ai art is “The next internet” and will eventually replace all traditional artists, and the other that feels that Ai art is stealing real artists' work via training data and want to impose regulations around its use. I used to be on the far extreme of the second group, I absolutely despised Ai art and thought nothing that it generated could be considered “real art”. Full stop. But as time has gone on I’ve realised the lines between Ai art and Human-made art are less black and white and more shades of grey. To clarify what I mean, when art is solely generated from an Ai model such as Midjourney or Adobe Firefly, I believe that by itself isn't art. Even though the Ai model can’t generate anything without a prompt, that amount of Human interaction alone isn't enough to classify it as art. It's akin to asking your friend to draw you something and then calling their product your own art. The model isn't putting any imagination or emotion into the piece it's creating either, it's simply trying to check as many user-defined boxes as possible, as efficiently as possible. So although the product that the model might end up with looks like an incredible masterpiece, it's really only the result of a machine learning algorithm and catalog of scraped internet artwork. So by the definition of art I’ve been using, it doesn't fit that criteria due to it lacking that critical human component. But despite all this, Ai can be used to create art if used in the correct way.

Ai as a tool, not as a replacement. That is the way it should be used. Because despite all the controversy Ai has garnered for essentially trying to replace human artistry as a whole, I’ll be damned if it hasn't been a good wingman. Now I know I just spent the entire last paragraph bashing Ai, but that's when it's used to create artwork on its own. When used to aid in art, Ai can help do things that would typically take hours or even be impossible to do by a single human. For example, I often use Photoshops Ai removal software to make my photos look a lot cleaner by removing things like construction tape or road signs. Hell, I even use Chatgpt some

times in these very articles to reword sentences I don't like, give general feedback or help me past writer's block when I’ve run out of ideas. There have also been awesome examples of game developers using Ai to create basic textures such as bricks in order to speed up their workflow. Or in the recent Dune movie where an AI program was developed to automatically color the characters eyes blue instead of having to manually rotoscope for the entire film. Ai can be used as an incredible tool in the course of creating art, but not everything generated by it can necessarily be considered art. This is why I believe there needs to be regulation imposed on the commercial aspect of Ai art. If left unchecked it could easily kill the art industry as a whole, why commission an artist to make an advertisement when you can simply type a paragraph in Midjourney and be done in a couple of minutes? But that's a topic for another day.

In the end, art is truly whatever you make it. At the risk of sounding cringe, part of the joy of being human is that we have free thought, and the world is whatever we make of it. So enjoy the art you want to, and hate the art you don't. Because like I said before, art is entirely subjective, and the best kind of art is the type you enjoy the most.

Until next time

Luke