What+is+Art?

Joseph A. Goguen
What Is Art?

What is art? What is beauty? How do they relate? Where does consciousness come in? What about truth? And can science help us with issues of this kind? Because such questions go to the very heart of current conflicts about Western value systems, they are unlikely to receive definitive answers. But they are still very much worth exploring — which is precisely the purpose of this collection of papers, with particular attention to the relationships between art and science.

I: What is Art? The very last essay of Paul Gauguin was on the importance of the question ‘What is art?’ A trip to the dictionary (noting also cousin words such as ‘artifact’, ‘artisan’, ‘artificial’ and ‘article’) may suggest that ‘art’ refers to something skilfully constructed by human artists. However, the artists themselves have been pushing the boundaries of any such definition, challenging our preconceptions, and leaving most philosophers, psychologists and critics well behind — to say nothing of the general public. Let us first consider ‘found art’, also called ‘readymade’ art, which challenges the role of the artist as the constructor of art. An especially famous example is Duchamp’s urinal, the submission of which to the 1917 New York Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists generated considerable controversy, resulting in its exclusion by the society’s board of directors. This object has a pleasingly smooth form, which follows its function in a most logical way. Presumably it was more the function that offended the bourgeois sensibilities of the board than the form itself, or the lightened role of the artist. Some other examples are Warhol’s Campbell soup cans, Damien Hirst’s dead animals floating in large tanks of formaldehyde (‘Mother and Child, Divided’, a dissected cow and her calf, winner of the 1995 Turner Prize — continuing the tradition of upsetting the bourgeoisie, but enlarging the role of the artist to include the comissioning of tanks), and the exhibition of various configurations of objects like rocks, trees, and ropes (many artists have followed this line, e.g., Barry Flanagan). Journal of Consciousness Studies, 7, No. 8–9, 2000, pp. 7–15 

Environmental art pushes the definitional boundaries by placing art outside the museum, in a (more) natural environment. Well known examples include earthworks, e.g., by Robert Smithson, and wrapped buildings by Christos. Conceptual art challenges the materiality of art, by using physical forms that may themselves be relatively prosaic or even boring, such as hand-lettered posterboards, perhaps to suggest a concept, or a reconceptualization of an existing situation. In addition, there are traditions, such as performance art and body art, that give new roles to the artist, e.g., as part of the artwork, and also challenge current ideas about the boundaries among various art forms, e.g., between theatre and visual art, or between music, literature and theatre; current performance traditions in rock music do the same (e.g., Beck). We might also consider high fashion, interactive video games, graffiti, antique furniture, websites, etc. It should not be forgotten that non-Western perspectives can be very different. For example, traditional societies do not distinguish between art and craft, and may not have designated specialists who regularly and exclusively perform such tasks. Moreover, art and craft are often fused with religion. 1 In Japan, the arrangement of rocks, plants and water has reached an extremely sophisticated level in the construction and maintenance (often over hundreds of years) of formal gardens; the traditions of arranging flowers (‘ikebana’) and of cultivating miniature trees (‘bonsai’) are also relevant, and today have a considerable popularity in the West. Another form of distancing between art and artist comes from the use of random operations. In literature, this was made famous by William S. Burroughs’ use of ‘cutups’ in his novels (Naked Lunch, etc.), following the use of a similar technique in art by Brian Gyson. John Cage also used chance operations in his musical compositions; he particularly favoured variants of the methods used in I Ching divinations. In such cases, the role of the artist becomes more like that of the critic: to evaluate and then select some results as superior to others. From all this, we should conclude that social context plays a key role in determining what art is, or even if it is. Clearly the Western tradition is evolving, to the point where anything can be presented as an art object, and where the role of the artist is subject to wide variation. In addition, evidence from other cultures shows that the very notion of art is culture-dependent, so that what appears in one tradition as an aid to meditation, or an indication of rulership, or an aid to drinking water, may appear in a museum case in another tradition.

III: Art and Science The method of science calls for precise repeatable measurements, and for an objectivity that excludes all subjective factors on the part of the experimenter. This is very different from the method of art — indeed, it is nearly the opposite. That artists directly engage their subjectivity in their work is one of the few assertions that is very widely held among the highly diverse plethora of contemporary artistic movements. Moreover, repetition (at the time of creation) is anathema to most artists, 7 <span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.9pt;">and this proclivity is much reinforced by the nature of the art market, which tends to value scarcity (other things being equal). Objective measurement also differs greatly from the creative aspect of art, though it may of course be used in the technical support of artistic production (e.g., mixing paint, tuning musical instruments, fitting together parts of a sculpture, using perspective). <span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.9pt;">These considerations imply that art and science must play significantly different kinds of role in any relationship that may be forged between them. One very simple theory is that art and science explore such completely disjoint domains in such completely different ways, that it is impossible for there to be any meaningful relationship between them. While this might be comforting to many, it is clearly false. For example, during the Renaissance advances in geometry fueled a corresponding advancement of perspective in painting. Advances in technology have obviously been essential enabling factors for many contemporary art forms, such as cinema, and electronic music. Many other examples could easily be given, some of which seem to involve rather complex interconnections between art and science (e.g., the video-based art of Nam Jun Paik, which appears to use the medium to criticize it). <span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.9pt;">A relationship that excites little controversy, because it seems to raise few deep philosophical questions, is the use of science to authenticate art, for example, <span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 7.9pt;">[7] <span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 8.9pt;">For example, Monet famously painted the same cathedral many times — but they are all different, often radically, e.g., in using a very different colour scheme (cf. Myin, 2000, p. 54). Anthony Freeman adds the following remark: ‘Paradoxically, the scientist reveals truth by coming up with consistently identical results, while the artist reveals truth by coming up with consistently different results.’ <span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.9pt;">

<span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.9pt;">through chemical analysis and carbon dating of pigment, canvas, and other material. The use of the fractal dimension computations of Taylor, Micolich and Jonas (this volume) to authenticate or date the drip paintings of Jackson Pollock also has this character. Such applications should not be confused with the much more controversial reduction of art to science, e.g., via measurements of viewers’ physiological responses to art. While such reductive approaches have difficulty taking account of factors like culture and the role of the artist (Ione, this volume, page ...), they are potentially applicable to non-representational art, as noted by Ramachandran (this volume). Moreover, there is little doubt that artists and art lovers can learn some valuable things from scientific studies of perception, as well as from related subjects such as the neurophysiology and cognitive psychology of vision; e.g., psycho-acoustics is a well developed area of musicology that has been applied many ways in music. <span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.9pt;">Conversely, some might wish to reduce science to art, by emphasizing the creative side of scientific research, and then claiming that this differs little from painting or musical composition. While such a claim seems valid as far as it goes, it fails to impart much insight, and it also leaves out a great deal that seems important, such as the mathematical character of most scientific theories, and the repeatability requirement for scientific experiments that was discussed above. <span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.9pt;">Both art and science are part of culture and, as such, both their nature and their relationships are bound to be complex, and to change over time and location. It therefore seems naive to expect to find any simple (or even complex) description that reflects the timeless essence of their relationship. As for the future, it would seem wise to expect the unexpected, given how rapidly art, science, and technology are all evolving at present. For example, how will the internet relate to art, as it progressively matures and permeates society? Some things seem relatively clear: we will surely see much more of digital media, and of the digital manipulation of art forms; and probably we will see radical new integrations of media when network bandwidth becomes sufficiently great. But will this make much difference? We will see new kinds of art, but will we see new kinds of aesthetics? Probably we will see new theories of art as well, but will they be any better than the old ones?

<span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.9pt;">IV: Conclusions
<span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.9pt;">This essay has explored some the most popular definitions and theories of art and beauty. We seem forced to conclude that it is difficult, or even impossible, to define art and beauty, or to adequately classify the complex relationships between art and science. Since we don’t know precisely what art is or what role it plays in our lives — and the huge variety of positions that have appeared in JCSsuggest that we also don’t know precisely what consciousness is or what role it plays — there would not seem to be a very solid basis for considering the relationship between art and consciousness. Moreover, it is clear that nearly all of whatever brain activity it is that corresponds to aesthetic experience is unconscious, and it is even doubtful that the ideal viewer of a great artwork should be conscious, <span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 9.9pt;">

<span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.9pt;">because one (often claimed) effect of great art is to merge subject and object in an ecstatic epiphany that transcends individual consciousness; see Goguen (1999) for some related discussion. Finally, I have repeatedly argued that scientists and philosophers interested in art should take an inclusive view of what art is, rather than focusing just on painting and perhaps sculpture, and that they should also try to find ways to take account of the role of the artist, the cultural context, and the artistic sophistication of the viewer, if they aspire to a truly adequate theory. <span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.9pt;">Conclusions like those of the previous paragraph will be disappointing to many philosophers, and to the purveyors of grand theories of any kind. But perhaps such conclusions are refreshing in a way; perhaps clearing away the conceptual baggage of definitions and theories can help us to approach art in a fresh way, so that we can experience it more deeply and authentically, which is surely no bad thing. Also, these explorations, however tentative and mutually contradictory, are valuable in actualizing this conceptual clearing as a process, and the issues involved are deep, affording us an opportunity to reflect on what it means to be human. This is the value of asking the question ‘What is art?’. Finally, dramatic scientific advances like fMRI, and the continuing decline of dualistic theories of consciousness in favour of embodied theories, offer solid grounds for thinking that genuine progress can in fact be made in the scientific and philosophical understanding of art, as is also supported by the fine papers in this volume.

<span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 10.9pt;">References
<span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 8.9pt;">Aristotle (–330), Poetics, trans. S.H. Butcher, Dover, 1997. Goguen, J.A. (1999), ‘Editorial Introduction’, Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6 (6–7), pp. 5–14 <span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 8.9pt;">(Special Issue on Art and the Brain). Heidegger, M. (1960), ‘The origin of the work of art’, in Poetry, Language, Thought, trans. <span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 8.9pt;">A. Hofstadeter (London & New York: Harper & Row, 1975). Kant, I. (1790), Critique of Judgement, trans. J.C. Meredith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Kockelmans, J. (1985), Heidegger on Art and Art Works (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff). Plato (–360), The Republic, trans. D. Lee (Harmondsworth:Penguin Books, 1979). Ramachandran, V.S. and Hirstein, W. (1999), ‘The science of art’, Journal of Consciousness <span style="color: #221e1f; font-family: serif,'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 8.9pt;">Studies, 6 (6–7), pp. 15–51 (Special Issue on Art and the Brain). The full text is available on http://www.imprint.co.uk/rama