[-empyre-] For whom is art "made"?

[B. Bogart]

Hello G.H.

G.H. Hovagimyan wrote:
> Actually making art has a couple of components. One is an internal urge
> or curiosity that causes a person to become an artist. This means that a
> person seeks out and feels comfortable in the creative process of their
> art.  In other words an artist makes art for themselves.  If you ask
> about an external reason; an artists make art for their patron.  Art has
> nothing to do with the general public. It's not entertainment. It is not
> the artists' task to relate to the general public nor to seek any
> influence on them. 

I absolutely agree that there has to be a personal and internal drive
for someone to choose to be an artist, interesting I think that is also
what makes scientists choose to be scientists.

For me art is for understanding (rather than communication as I
mentioned in my last post). More specifically its a field of exploration
of and understanding of what meaning is.

But to say that it has nothing to do with the general public is a
problem, I think we're stuck in a institution vs personal vs public
(trichotomy?). That does not mean that I think its the job of the artist
to relate to the public, but that the issue is more complex than that.

> Art is more like aesthetic research
> but it is not done in an, "ivory tower."  I would have to say that art
> making is field research.  

Is research done for the institution? The researcher? or the general
public? I think we're absolutly in a crisis a knowledge here. Half the
public does not (think they) understand Art just as much as they don't
think they understand technology or science. I don't know why this is
(education must have a lot to do with it).

Does research have any value if its not distributed and made public?
Should it only benefit academics, or should it benefit all?

I think your bang on with the art-as-research comment (especially
considering my current struggle as an artist doing a MSc degree in a
technologically oriented research institution). In my case I've come
because I've thought of art as research for some time. My research is
intended to be a bridge between technology and Art, as an account of a
particular artistic project that uses technology (ai). The audience is
primarily meant to be artists curious about the research / technology /
science (another trichotomy), and the scientists interested in art and
creativity in the realm of scientific and engineering principals.

My artistic-research is as much to do about crossing boundaries, from
academic, AI and engineering spheres to the public. I think research and
education can't be so easily separated. That an artist has a lot of
potential for bridging these intellectual communities, through both
research and aesthetics.

I'll end this message with a small section from a paper I wrote in my
2nd year of University about what drives me to be an artist:

Here I am, face to face with the sublime, completely in awe of the truth
before me. What is there to say? Once one is looking right into the face
of the sublime what is the purpose in saying anything? What can a
statement hold that has value with this before you? What is the meaning
of Art in this context? It is the drive to understand. Art in this
context is a way of understanding, a way of playing with those signs
that make up our reality. Art is playing with ideas, making mistakes,
creating processes, learning and becoming. I have realized I want to
make art that lives. To make art that has an existence, a meaning,
beyond me -- ­the creator. To create work that continues to evolve and
is connected to the play of signs from other systems of knowledge. For
the piece to live it has to have meaning, a place beyond the intentions
of the artist, it is not just a manifestation of ideas but a living
entity. It cannot be summed up or reduced to a “concept”. It is
something so attached to those systems around it that it would be
impossible to exist without them.

B. Bogart