Understanding Art for Geeks

HeadMounted found a great little flickr collection of art for geeks where helpful designers have provided you with useful hints to help you better comprehend the confusing art world. Or not. Some of them are very clever.

Comments

peanut butter jelly time

[192939495969798999]

A tremendous amount of work clearly went into it, so credit must be given to the creator for the effort. However, for me it's reminiscent of PBJT, in that for me it's kinda funny for 2-3 times, and then I'm all, "eh, cool i guess" and on to the next site.

Art is subjective

[techpawn]

Even if it's segregated "art for geeks" it may not really be art. Of course, some critics may say that it was never art to begin with. Art is not simply something that someone made that you like to look at/listen to/read/etc. Part of it is the creative process that made the art that makes that art worth taking in and thinking about.
To someone in the art world, Giger may be seen as a genius but to someone like your average slashdot reader a mother board or the latest Linix kernel may be more of a piece of art than something Giger could ever produce.

Then again, IANAA and M.C. Escher is my favorite M.C...

Re:Art is subjective

[smittyoneeach]

Some of the images draw delightfully crass connections.
The instantly recongnizable image of "The Thinker", with an annoying, screw-you, bugs-in-my-code hourglass icon in the upper-left corner is quite well done.

Re:Art is subjective

[Hatta]

Further, understanding art for geeks isn't necessarily going to help a geek understand art in general. I happen to hate fiction. It just seems to be an utter waste of time, and I'm especially confused by those who spend time arguing about the meaning of a work of literature. It's all made up anyway! If the author really wanted to communicate a point he'd write an essay.

Yet I love Lewis Carrol. The Alice stories are wonderful examples of art for geeks. Perhaps what I like is that everything can be taken at face value. The geeky jokes and math allusions are right there to be appreciated, no deep digging is needed. It's just a lot more fun than any work of great literature I've read.

In the same way, appreciating art for geeks, say Escher or Magritte isn't really going to help someone appreciate the Mona Lisa. An Escher or Magritte usually has a fairly obvious gag. The Mona Lisa is just a painting of some chick, I just don't see the big deal.

Disappointed

[foo fighter]

I'm a little disappointed. Yeah, I got a few chuckles out of it.

But I was hoping for more of something like "This work is important because it was the first use of x" where x is a technique that is then explained in mathematical detail. Or "this looks good because of the use of negative space which happens to be expressable as the function y".

Re:Disappointed

[raisin]

For that sort of thing, try the book "Visualizations: The Nature Book of Art and Science" by Martin Kemp. It's a collection of short articles by Kemp written for the journal Nature, discussing art and how it relates to science.

Some say 'lame', but as a former Studio Art major-

[capnkr]

I think that the creator of this series has done an *excellent* job, in a very funny and original way, of explaining why these particular works are regarded so highly in the art community (not by everyone, of course, but in general).

Kudos to the author of the series!

appreciation of art is similar to literature ..

[wakim1618]

Several friends of mine teach art history at a large university and in my conversations with them, I came to appreciate that the study and appreciation of art is similar to that of the study of literature or film. For example, throughout history, there are innovations in story telling, eg Shakespear introduced the device of a character speaking aloud to himself exploring his own inner thoughts and conflicts or eg Griffith's camera work in Birth of a Nation and shooting in 'natural' not studio settings. At another level, looking at works of art as a reflection of social structure and myths and understanding how innovations in aesthetics and story telling accompanies social changes and transformations. For example, prior to the Renaissance, much of art was iconography (the representation of icons of religion and pivotal moments in the story of Christianity) whence the Renaisannce introduced the human subject into art. More recently, cubism and modernism movements in art and architecture reflects the rise of industrial society and the capture of the imagination of the cultural elites by marxist ideologies. Hence the change in materials in housing and furniture and crafts from arnate woods to then modern materials such as glass, concrete and steel and the mass production of quality housing and furniture.

Another strand of the study revolves about the construction of a social canon (the 'great' works of genius and orginality) and how it reflects the social shifts in power. One way of understanding this is the common complaint amongst film afficiandos that the academy awards are a popularity contest and that, over and above the wonderful movies, Speilberg has been a brand and is a socio-economic construction.

In short, the appreciation of art is much more than aesthetics and more than meets the eye. In fact, it engages the intellect and a deep appreciation involves a broad understanding of the social historical context.

Quick guide

[antifoidulus]

ln -s /dev/random Jackson.Pollock

Some of my favorite artists

[troyboy]

Here are some of my favorite artists, with works that other slashdotters might enjoy:

1. Brian Dettmer : Dettmer reshapes and reforms older media like old textbooks, technical manuals, cassette tapes, and dictionaries, to make really fascinating derivative works. My favorites are his carved books, many of which are viewable here.

2. Jason Salavon : Salavon uses software to make art out of preexisting information, with some diverse and surprising work. His work is all displayed on his website.

3. Ai Kijima : Kijima recycles original bed sheets, table cloths, kimonos, and other fabrics to make colorful quilted collages, many of which use pop culture icons. Her work is viewable on her website.

Enjoy.