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Focus Group Art
KillBot writes "What's the most pleasing image to casual art viewers? Two deer and a hippopotamus in a mountain lake on a partly cloudy day with people relaxing near the shore. According to a survey of 1,001 adults by two Russian artists, they like wild animals, water, ordinary people having fun and the color blue. And this made me laugh, the most unwanted painting shows randomly scattered, overlapping triangles and rectangles in shades of gold, orange, peach and tea. Nando Times is carrying the full story. "
They also did a CD based on similar criteria to the paintings -- surveys as to what people liked and disliked in music. It's a damn hilarious release... indescribable really. It should be somewhere on their website.
adr
See the paintings here.
Play and design text adventures online.
The most wanted paintings look like some sort of landscape generator gone bad. Water in background. Mountains behind water (same angle on many of them). And the blaringly obvious 'large object on left coming in at 45 degree angle to ground'. And what painting would be complete without 'tree near right'.
Insert assorted mammals, and you have a winner!
I saw something on TV (sorry can't remember where, probably VH1 or MTV ;-) about two Russian "scientists" who did a big survey to produce the "most preferred" and "least preferred" music. Well, the TV show people took both tapes into a local club and first played the "desirable" tape. (It was kinda schmoozy pop style music). The crowd danced and grooved and seemed to like it. Then they put on the horrible disonant annoying (gongs, opera, etc.) tape...and the (somewhat drunk) crowd looked puzzled for a moment and then started dancing and grooving to that, with the same glazed drunken looks as before. Quite funny.
The russian guys were all excited about having produced "democratic" music. gag me with a tuning fork, their "ideal" music pretty much sucked.
"I want peace on earth and good will toward men." "We're the U.S. government. We don't do that sort of thing!!"
I'd have to disagree... artists might be out of touch with the kind of pretty pictures that people want on their walls, but that's not really the purpose of Art with a capital A... Art should challenge viewers, produce a reaction - if it also happens to be pretty enough to enjoy on a wall, so much the better, but that is not its primary purpose, I'd say...
And this exhibit tells you exactly why this is true: left to his/her own tastes, the mythical Average Person chooses remarkably similar things, as dictated by some atavistic primate brain's comfort level. This is exactly what Art should seek to challenge!
Unfortunately, this makes Art an elite pursuit, but its always been true that things like high art and pure science are luxuries available only after basic needs are met: people painted in caves only after they'd finished hunting that antelope.
Then again, I'm a scientist/engineer - so what do I know about art?
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
I think that there are different, contradictory points that you can draw from this. The 'most wanted' paintings are pretty bad, IMHO, but I thought that the least wanted ones were much more interesting.
/peter
The point is that there are a lot of artists who are seriously out of touch
That is most emphatically NOT the point. You are missing several layers of irony.
A similar survey held in the Netherlands several years ago showed that the Netherlands is one of the few places where the casual viewer preferred an abstract style. The 'avarage favourite' painting made for the Dutch was an abstract piece with cheerful colours and friendly round shapes.
The painting the casual viewer in the Netherlands would HATE most was also made: a horrible (awful! terrible!) landscape, painted in a messy style, and containing a fruitbowl and a portrait of Bill Clinton. Apparently contemporary celebrities, landscapes, still-lifes and a messy painting style were what the Dutch dislike most.
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What about Dali with his weird distorted objects? What about some indoor scene? What about a sunset?
There isn't much detail on how this "study" was done, but it appears to me to not have been particularly well done--unless there are details I'm not aware of.
ufdraco
People's reactions to art, which can be quite strong, are nevertheless conditioned by a number of factors they are probably not aware of. Anyone interested in the way taste is constructed might want to read Distinction by French anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu (Eng trans edition in print).
Class, status, and educational background play a strong role in conditioning what we like and don't like in our art. Bourdieu's results are similar to the artists': The majority of the populace, being middle class and of average education, likes pictures of animals, water, sunsets, children, people relaxing, etc. A group with higher education prefers more abstract images. Above all, each group hates what the other likes. According to Bourdieu, the elites shun what is associated with inferior taste, while the lower- and middle- classes hate what would be prohibited from them anyway. (Remember that enjoying art is never simply a neutral aesthetic experience: there is a whole language of appreciation that must be learned and which can therefore be controlled and restricted.)
To make a point, I have simplified Bourdieu's presentation. His data, on French subjects, cover a wide range of very finely-subdivided social groups. Furthermore, I believe we must leave some room for personal beliefs that are not entirely conditioned by cultural forces. Overall, though, one must agree that social and cultural factors over which a subject may have little or no control condition his or her ``appreciation'' of art to a significant extent.
"Their project is also a thinly veiled commentary on polling and what some might call the tyranny of the majority"
I'm a little unsure as to what they mean by this. What other standard do you hold art to? Should we hang whatever art the minority would have us hang in our galleries? Or should it be "even", one half representational, one half abstract? This would strike me as tyranny of the minority--the notion that those few psuedo-intellectual artists have a better idea of what should be consumed than the majority is a bit disturbing. There is nothing stopping those rare few artists from displaying their own work on their own dollar.
This is not to say that I believe that the whim of the majority should be the only voice, but it is an important one. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons for ignoring the majority. For example, some art is undoubtably an acquired taste, which takes time for significant portions of the public to come around. On the other hand, even if you assume that a particular painting has intrinsic merit, should it be on the dollar of the majority which will never come around to enjoying it....
These guys weren't out to do a serious statistical survey and derive deep meaning from the results.
They're artists. And their art, in this case, is a statement about everything BUT (good) art.
I think they make an excellent point on the hazard of buying into groupthink. They're poking fun at most of society, rather like adults poke fun at teenagers who express their unique individualism by all dressing the same.
But most of all, they're having fun. Yanking some chains. Er, in which case, I suppose, you're supposed to be taking it all so seriously.
Just remember to laugh at yourself as you do so.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Any serious artist already knows it's a hit or miss type of thing - you do it because it's fun, not because you're trying to make money. The former is feasible, the latter will drive you insane if you try too hard. Here's another way of looking at it - if even 1 in a 100 people like your work in the US, you have a market of 2.5 million people.
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The People's Choice Music project is described at http://www.diacenter.org/km/musiccd.html. I bought the CD, and wow, the most undesired song is really undesirable! It's funny for the first few minutes, with the alternating cowboy-solo, soprano, and children's choruses going on about holidays ("Veteran's Day! What's there to say? Do all your shopping at Wal-Mart!") and special interest groups ("Sugar! Beef! Bananas! Pork bellies!"). But one facet of unpopular songs is length, and I could only stand it for about 5 of its 25 minutes.
From the site's description: "The most unwanted music is over 25 minutes long, veers wildly between loud and quiet sections, between fast and slow tempos, and features timbres of extremely high and low pitch, with each dichotomy presented in abrupt transition. The most unwanted orchestra was determined to be large, and features the accordion and bagpipe (which tie at 13% as the most unwanted instrument), banjo, flute, tuba, harp, organ, synthesizer (the only instrument that appears in both the most wanted and most unwanted ensembles). An operatic soprano raps and sings atonal music, advertising jingles, political slogans, and "elevator" music, and a children's choir sings jingles and holiday songs. The most unwanted subjects for lyrics are cowboys and holidays, and the most unwanted listening circumstances are involuntary exposure to commericals and elevator music. Therefore, it can be shown that if there is no covariance--someone who dislikes bagpipes is as likely to hate elevator music as someone who despises the organ, for example--fewer than 200 individuals of the world's total population would enjoy this piece."
I agree, the slashdot cheerleading squad is a problem. I have never stated that Linux is a superior operating system for the masses. Nor do I advocate GPL (et. al) projects [community led] as a suitable method to meet consumer demand--it has only had limited success at satiating geek desire, nevermind the masses.
However, Windows would be a lot better for the average consumer if MS did not enjoy its monopoly power. That is to say, that while Windows might currently be the best option for Joe Schmoe, operating system and application quality has not improved significantly in years. If MS's monopoly position were to be knocked down, the consumer would benefit greatly as competition comes about (nothing to do with Linux neccessarily).
Those are what came out of the polling. I read a more in depth article that was published in the Globe and Mail (Canada's National Newspaper, tm), a few months ago, around when the Canadian one was unveiled. They listed most of the questions. People were polled on their favourite colour, style, whether they liked animals or this or that, if they liked animals which one they preferred. It was very in-depth polling. What you see on that page are the RESULTS of that polling, what people liked and didn't like. The Canadian one, not shown on that site, favoured blue and green equally, and encompassed some mountains, a lake, a forest, and some deer. And for the record, the Danes favoured some semi-abstract blocky guy. That was blue.
- Freehold, well read Canadian. Well, Canadian anyway.
What, no Weiner Dog Art? No velvet Elvis? Not even Dogs Playing Poker? Sheesh--these people may know art, but they don't know what they like.
Is here. Vernon Reid plays guitar on the most wanted song. Didn't he used to be with a group called Living Color? Pretty demented pseudo-shredder, if I recall. ;)
I did not proclaim myself to be a "competent art critic"; nor did I say anyone else is capable making the determination. This is precisely my point, that NO ONE can say absolutely what is and is not art. However, we can know the majority opinion. It is not too unreasonable to demand art work shown in galleries does not offend almost everyones' taste. It is ludicrous equate the Cultural Revolution (et. al) to a desire to only spend public funds on art which pleases more than .005% of the population. Particularly when that unappreciated art form so volatile as not to withstand even a decade, witness fecal paintings, and other abstract nonsense. It is not a right to foist this "art" on others; you may, on the other hand, do whatever you wish on your own dollar, as is your Constitutional right.
To reiterate, at some point you must concede that a minority should not be given carte blanche on the public's back. It comes down to proportion and taste. I would never argue that 51% (55, 70, 80, etc) should be able to shut down other forms of public forms of expression when they can be done at REASONABLE cost. Below certain point, you must concede, that the minority should give way to the majority. Particularly when we have 10k minute minorites all fighting for funding--none of which can come to any consensus--which has the effect of crowding out more timeless and widely appreciated works. We live in a world of finite resources, as such some sacrifices must be made--not everyone can have their way all the time.
For the record, I'm about to graduate with a 4.0 from one of the top universities in the country. I'm most likely going to pursue a graduate degree, though not in the liberal arts. Because I made my career choice of my own volition, I do not have any motivation to "put them down a peg".
ALL the way through. >:) :)
I think this qualifies me to really enjoy the sick humor of this horrible piece of music
And now, in honor of this, I'd like to point out that P.D.Q. Bach predated the musical portion of this experimentation, having composed the 'Sinfonia Concertante' for orchestra, bagpipes, Left-handed Sewer Flute, Double-reed slide music stand, balalaika, ocarina and lute :)
"The problems of balancing such a varied set of instruments are, as you might imagine, enormous, and they are problems that P.D.Q. _entirely_ failed to solve... when the bagpipes are playing you can't hear anything else... whereas the lute is such a soft instrument that even if another instrument is on the stage with it, you can't hear it (whether the other instrument is playing or not). But the lute looks nice... and we think that, the visual effect, is shortchanged in the modern concertgoing experience... it's a very nice lute... and we hope you enjoy it... think of it while you're listening to the bagpipes.
-Peter Schickele, impresario
I'd also recommend to anyone to read Scott McCloud's outstanding book, "Understanding Comics." This book examines comics with an amazing insight, and touches on everything from philosophy to history, both of comics and of people in general. Two thumbs up! :)