Friendan wrote:
Each person feels different about it, but I think it's mostly due to an effect similar to confirmation bias/placebo. A person is told and taught to like it, but do they really, or are they just following what they are taught?
Aside from evolutionary reflexes (as in: smell of decay = avert, pain impulse = avoid), this is how all sorts of preferences work. I don't see anything bad with this. As long as its not our biology getting in our way, the most important factor will be our peers, or at a greater scope, our culture.
Definition of contemporary'Contemporary' has nothing to do with artistic genres, it merely sets the time-window a specific piece was created in. Everything within the last 30 years can be called contemporary. Or 10. Or 1. However you want to define it. Given that art has a background that stretches out over millennia, it makes sense to stretch the contemporary time-window a bit as well, make that 3 decades.
As Aurani said, contemporary art encompasses postmodernist art - and also everything else that was created within these 3 decades.
Definition of artSPOILER"Art" can be a very confusing term.
There is a whole philosophical dispute behind defining this one term. This particular dispute is so convoluted, that some philosophers even spent efforts to bring forth arguments as to why the word "art" has no need to be defined in the first place.
The problem is, that this cluster, consisting of whatever people categorize as art, simply lacks unity. And I don't mean that in a "things are a little inconsistent" - way. It's not that they are just inconsistent, there is a devastating and utter lack of consistency, that makes any sort of informative definition absolutely impossible.
It is so inconsistent, that if we were willing to define the cluster "art" by pinning down its elements on similarities, we'd have to go all the way down to "art exists". Or "art relies on a rational agent perceiving it" (and even that is arguable).
This has led me to the conclusion that art is best defined as "
that which is thought of as art."
Might seem a bit desperate to resort to a definition like this, but I don't see a better way as of now, since every more distinct definition will either be incomplete and/or biased.
Brian OA wrote:
So yeah, what do you know and think of contemporary art?
What people decide to throw in this giant controversial cluster,
definitely got a bit crazier over the yearsArt has exponentially more facets than it had 100 or 1000 years ago. Personally, I think that this is a great development, as it does justice to the variety of ways that people can end up to be. Human nature is rich. I want art to be rich too, since it is so often centered around what moves people.
Personal preferencesSPOILERPersonally, I like expressive pieces of art more than cold and apathetic ones. The artform that resonates most with me is music, which might or might not be why I play this game. KOAN Sound, first choice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lCH4gGillIAlso this:
http://www.facets.la/ I can't help it, I somehow find his art to be oddly calming. Maybe I just like nice colors and nice patterns.
As a result of my definition of "art", I am strictly against absolute good/bad-categories for any sort of art. How good or bad art is, is something that only the individual can decide for itself, it is not expandable. Generally, there is no good or bad art, it can only be good or bad for you personally. It's subjective.
There are many more things to be said, but I think this is enough for people to respond to already. As one last thought: Someone should move this thread to General Discussion. Don't think that it belongs in Off-Topic.
Edit: spelling, some formatting