what art is

Communication happens in a lot of ways.
Art is communication that is aware that it is communicating. It is thought made physical (and by that I mean thought made bigger), on purpose.

Art can be about the accidental, but one must set out to do that.


Communication that is not art is automatic. Reaction. What a mirror does, what a satellite does. Art is active, like what the sun does, what a fountain does. The line is not hard. and we could explore the line (as it was fashionable to do for a while there, maybe still is), but there are clear cases of Not Art, and clear cases of Art. When you call customer service, what is going on on the other side of the line is Not Art. When I tell you my dreams in the morning, that might be art. When I try to re-create my dreams, that is Art.

The line between fine art and practical art is blurry too, but all of it is art.
We can set out to draw a line around a kind of communication that we like very much and call it Art, and exclude lots of other things, and call them Not Art, but we should try to recognize that any such line is arbitrary. That does not mean the distinction is not arbitrary.

One thing I am missing here (there is probably much more) is that part of the art is in the viewing. Photographs are art seen in the world. The viewer decides to come to something as art, or not as art, and that alone can make all the difference.


One thing is for sure. Kubrick makes Art.
But his art is not for the morning.

Ah well.

Goodnight.