pouët.net

Can you name some of those pretentious people now?

uh mememememe name me name me!!!

wade: In other words, you paint naked girls.

please no a* word :(

sounds like wade has no imagination. (or at least has no interest in using it)

We don't make art. We rather drink beer...

Well, as I’m sure any illustrator/graphic artist will tell you, painting without reference usually comes at the expense of quality. I openly admit, it’s an ego thing, and as a demoscener I’m more concerned with impressing people with my skill for graphics than trying to convey meaning. Of course, I’m as capable as anyone else of translating my thoughts into a painting, but it would be a very rough and abstract translation at best. So the result would not be something I could feel proud of, especially knowing that almost everyone would be capable of doing the same thing equally well, if not better.

But that’s just me. I’m not a very talented artist and my interest in graphics doesn’t extend beyond the demoscene.

Besides, a lot of art can convey a meaning, but that meaning can often leave people thinking “so what?”, which is basically my reaction to most art I see. I know lots of people will think that is a very uncultured attitude to take, but I have so much more respect for someone who dedicates his/her time to developing a technique and an eye for detail, and who takes pride in his/her own talent, than some primadonna flicking paint on the floor when he feels depressed (or short of cash).

Now you've got me started. :)

The last reference was to Jackson Pollock btw. He said that "Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement", which is the complete opposite of my philosophy on art. I believe there is a lot more depth of thought in the technique, the practice and the dedication, than people give credit.

I mean, you don't look at the Sistine Chapel and think "that's a clever statement", you look at it and the thing that hits you is how much time and dedication must have gone into the actual painting process. This is something that very few people can comprehend, let alone achieve.

Demos themselves are just a medium. (Or rather, multi-medium.) That's not art.

However, the *content* of demos is another matter, and varies greatly.

Some people express themselves by painting a nice picture, others do it with computer art. For me demos are definitly an art form. And an artform which you can share with others much more easy than with a painting in a gallery :)

It sounds like your idea just sums up to "The technique is the statement"

I'm not getting exactly why somebody who loves craft for craft's sake would diss those who choosed to use craft as a mean instead of an end.

It is fun how realism got more or less abandonned when photography appeared. It was almost a liberating event for painters. Knowing that the problem of optical realism was solved, they proceeded to claim a new space as their own. I think it shows that painting wasn't much about the craft itself, as it if was, they would have just quit painting altogether. So technique never really was the end / end result.

The way i see it, craft making is picturing humans as individual machines and individual machines only.

I'd like to think (and i'm pretty sure ;) that even "us sceners" have sometimes different views of man + life.

if demos are art depends heavily.

all is full of art. it's all around you.

I try to become famous and start doing Hollywood movies with every demo I release :)

Wade: It seems as if we have a completely different view of art. You know, I have a copy of a drawing in my room (that cost me quite some money) and it is about 75% a fade from black to white, 20% a desert and just a single small person seen from backwards (The image is called "Le prince du desert", by Matteo).

I could have got pictures that are much more work to draw for the same money or even less. But I love that picture, and I am not getting tired of watching it. But I never thought about how hard it was to do, but I only think about the content. And that´s what I call art. And that´s what I love in paintings.

In demos I look more on the technical side, but I´d also love to see demos with more content in any way.

To cut it short, there are not only different views of the demo scene, but also of art in general.

My god, an intelligent thread on the pouet bbs ? :)

I must admit Wade's point is valid. Dedication & Technique are proof : proofs of one's willing to achieve something, give a message, express feelings.
Whatever the message, the 'work' process in art is important. Talking 'work', i mean all the preliminary process that lead to the creation of one piece, it being a reflexion, hard sketch work or years passed to master a painting technique.

But art wears many forms, art is not definite, art is subjective, art is art.

And to answer the thread, yes, i try to inject some art definition in demos( the few i made ), or any kind of material i produce.

Well, I’m glad I’m not alone on this one. :)

But yes, I do think that the process of creating art is what determines its value. If we disregard the technique and talent involved in making art and admire only the end result, then we may as well allow art to be mass produced by machines. I prefer to think of artists as unique and skilled individuals who create art as a means of expressing the fact that they have a gift.

I find it offensive that these gifted and hard-working individuals are obscured by untalented upstarts who make art on a whim, just for the sake of making art, with minimal consideration or dedication. What gives these people the right to claim wealth and recognition when there are millions of school children and even chimpanzees painting the same kind of thing?

One thing I’ve noticed about such minimal artists is that they spend less than 5% of their time actually making something, and the remaining 95% trying to convince other people that it’s art.

It basically comes down to image; the notion of sophistication, culture and intellectual superiority that is attached to approved art. It also seems to encourage groupthink, whereby people are afraid to come straight out and say “this is rubbish!” because they’re afraid to admit that they don’t see what other “more intellectual and refined” people claim to see.

Chock: I actually think Le Prince du desert is quite a well produced painting. I have seen a lot better, but the colours and composition show thought and talent. But my guess is that if some unknown artist copied this picture and offered it to you at the same price, you wouldn’t accept it, even if it looked exactly the same. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t have the Matteo “brand name” attached to it, or maybe it’s because there is less skill and thought involved in the process of copying than there is in the original. In which case, the craft does define art’s value.

As a technically impressed person, I am into Wade's opinion too. Sometimes however, I love few productions without many effects but meaning, these ones though are carefully designed and not looking like they are made just to make someone believe that they are a special kind of art, just because they are minimalistic or diferrent. But that's subjective anyways, because even behind the most wannabe-art looking demo there must be a motive (I remembered now the meaning that 'The little things' has tried to pass :). And you can always make a demo which blends both effort (good code, effects, colors, gfx, music or design) and a concept.

As for the demoscene... I guess, it's what that Finnish book 'We Are' once said,. a postmodern art tribe. Meaning, if I catched up the meaning well, that everyone comes alone and shares his own art to the scene, as he/she defines it. Everyone has a diferrent point of view and his own world of creativity to show, so demoscene blends up everything. Technicall stuff, coders shit, minimalistic arty trendy bogus, sucking demotrends, it's a free world ;)

The only thing that counts for me when it comes to art is whether I like the result. Whether it was done in 1000 hours or 5 minutes or done by a penguin. What I see in the picture counts for me.

And I don´t care about what others say or what is modern. And I even haven´t heard of Matteo before I bought that picture. I just saw it, and immediately knew that I want to have it. What I see in that picture is hope and freedom. But well, that´s just me.

Wade for fuck's sake can you name:

- those untalented people
- those talented and hardworking people whose fame has been stolen
(I bet they are also freedom loving god fearing while you're at it)
- those people who are affraid to say that it's rubbish because they would somehow lose face

It just all sounds to me like populist propaganda until you name your windmills. ("Look at those elitist people, they like crap, at least us, the hardworking people we are not decadent like them and still see the value of work and sweat")

I claim that you are just unable to see the work that doesn't show itself clearly in a "technical" manner. It seems a lot harder to me to torture your own mind to find a way to truly and honestly express yourself, than to simply reproduce the effect of optics, or to perfectly picture reality.

Technique is the domain of technology.. it's something to be discussed between engineers and scientists.

And in my mind a painting should stand on its own.. I don't need to know if it was done by a rich guy, or a poor one. I don't need to know if the guys had no hands and painted it holding the brush between his teeth. I see no use in dismissing a work because its admirers would be "posturing", or if its creator was a "naturally gifted" person.

As a side note, you should maybe read the "society of spectacle" by guy debord .. all available here: http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/4 if you want to refine your notion of "image"

Ok here are a few charlatans off the top of my head:

Damien Hirst
Agnes Martin
Tracey Emin
Jackson Pollock

Actually Jackson Pollock was a very talented and original painter, but he received more recognition for tipping paint on the floor than he ever got for his calculated art. In fact, he even allowed critics to redefine and rename some of later his work, which shows that he was more interested in indulging his critics than making a personal statement with his art. I guess he sold out.

As for those unrecognised artists, I’m referring to the likes of street artists, graffiti artists, people who spend their retirement years painting landscapes, freelance illustrators etc: the sort of people whose name we’ll never know and who will never see their work in an art gallery because their work doesn't have that "je ne sais quoi" the critics look for.

Your third point…well, I guess that includes all the critics who nominated Tracey Emin’s bed for the Turner prize, and the people who admired it, just because it was exhibited in an art gallery. Or all the people who stare in awe at Agnes Martin’s exhibitions yet take their own wallpaper at home for granted.

It just seems a really absurd way of judging things. If this way of thinking was applied to other activities such as sport, it wouldn’t matter who won, you’d just award the team/athlete you like the most. Or even in day-to-day life, it’s like an interviewer choosing someone for a job based on their looks rather than what they are capable of and how hard they work. I like to think of respect as something we earn with hard work and dedication, not just a random selection based on personal preference.

I think we just have to accept we have different personal tastes in art. My fear is that if art is within reach of everybody (and let’s face it, anybody can tip paint on the floor) then the people who have an exceptional gift will no longer have a reason to use it.

wtf

How about like... doing demos for fun... like everyone else does it?

gargaj speaks wisely.

ps: i didn't mean that. i just wanted to say that there are many notions of art. i have some discussions with cer about that from time to time.