
There is no such thing as 'cheating' in art - drewvolpe
http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2014/04/cheating.html
======
pcmonk
For much art, the beauty is in the skillful use of a medium to say something
that one wouldn't have expected to be able to say in that medium. Art is all
about limitations. Photorealistic paintings are impressive because they aren't
photographs. A well-written poem may be beautiful because it conjures up vivid
images in the mind. In my opinion, text adventures can have a certain beauty
because they tell a story in simple words (for a great example, see Photopia).

Of course, good art uses the limitations to its advantage. Most paintings
aren't photorealistic because they're not trying to be photos -- they're
trying to say something through their limitations. A good book or a good text
adventure allows each reader to create their own images in their mind.

So, is there 'cheating' in art? Of course not. It's simply a change of medium.
If you want to cross photographs with painting, go right ahead. That's a new
medium, capable of saying new things. Don't pretend it's the old medium, and
don't try to compare it directly to works in the old medium. But also don't
dismiss it as 'cheating'. Take everything for what it is, not for how it
compares to what you were expecting.

~~~
lambda

      In my opinion, text adventures can have a certain beauty 
      because they tell a story in simple words (for a great 
      example, see Photopia).
    

I never managed to get the appeal of Photopia. It just grated on me. Never
could get the hang of Adam Cadre's style; always preferred Emily Short or
Andrew Plotkin.

~~~
pcmonk
When I discovered it, I hadn't done much interactive fiction for a while, and
for some reasons it really got to me. I had no idea what to expect going in,
and the experience of exploring it, even if it's essentially non-interactive,
was enlightening. I loved when it occurred to me to type "fly". It was
liberating. Like all good art, the experience it gave me is essentially
incommunicable.

------
wallflower
I talked with an artist at length in Portland, OR once and she said that her
job as an artist was to make the person who sees the art feel something.
That's my generalized definition now - art is something that makes you feel an
emotion.

As for "copying", even copies can be quite extraordinary.

[http://www.evoke.ie/photograph-of-an-old-guy-no-this-
picture...](http://www.evoke.ie/photograph-of-an-old-guy-no-this-picture-was-
drawn-by-a-schoolgirl-from-mayo-with-a-pencil/)

~~~
moron4hire
You've really touched on it here. People who say "art can't be defined" are
trying to limit the notion of art themselves, specifically cordon it off into
this romantic notion of the futility of the artist. Art is pure, the thought
process goes, and thus man is not worthy of it. It's an original sin mythos
all over again.

Art is easy because life is easy.

I've always gone by the idea that art is all just communication of some kind.
There is a speaker, an audience, an idea sent, and an idea received. The exact
idea received will never be exactly the same. It is always dependent on both
the speaker and the audience, and how much shared culture they have. Art is
fundamentally a fractal. It is the use of bits of culture to express new bits
of culture.

Even people who say, "It means nothing" are saying something. They're saying,
"your never-ending search for meaning in the world is inherently meaningless".
Because if the artist never wanted anyone to interpret their work, they would
never show it.

Art is not just for artists.

~~~
platz
Although "Art as communication" has some truth that some kind of communication
must happen, it seems to miss something, as there's lots of communication that
isn't art.

~~~
moron4hire
Isn't it?

~~~
platz
You would really refuse to even draw a line? Telephone directories, traffic
control signals, TCP/IP packets? If truly everything is art, then at that
point no one would care.

Similar to how Leibniz and other pantheists said God was everywhere, but this
meant God had a different denotation that what everyone else thought when they
heard the word 'God'.

Also, if I create a work that I immediately destroy and not tell anyone about,
or give a private performance no one sees, did art not happen?

~~~
moron4hire
What purpose does drawing a line serve? "Over here, this is art, over there,
not, so now you know and can't be confused by what is and isn't art."

Your examples of a telephone book, a traffic signal, a TCP/IP packet, are
interesting, because these are all things that, in their specific form are not
made by a person, which fails on my first criteria. They're made by machines.
However, the infrastructure in place to provide them was made by a person. And
I would absolutely call the telephone system, the highway system, or the
Internet a work of art. I don't think that's even controversial.

I had a friend that literally this is what he wanted. He wanted to to be told
what was and wasn't art, what was good and what was bad art, so he could know
what he should be spending his time and money on. Emphasis on _had_ a friend,
he was a dolt in a lot of other ways, we don't hang out anymore.

"Not everything can be art!" He would say. Why not? Really, who gives a shit?
Why did he care that some things should _not_ be art?

Art is fundamentally in the personal reaction, just as much as it is in the
delivery. The two are inextricable. A rainbow is not art if you don't believe
in God, but it is if you do.

I consider art appreciation to be an important step in becoming a well-
adjusted, tolerant human being. You have to learn to know what you like, and
why, and you have to learn that others won't agree with you. THAT'S why people
refuse to define art, because they don't want others defining it _for them_
and don't want to be found guilty of the same sin. Because it's in the
personal reaction as much as the delivery.

So by that measure, no you can't (and I don't mean shouldn't, I mean it is
physically impossible) to call something you've kept to yourself "art". The
word "art" is itself a communication of an idea. To call a painting you burn
before you let anyone see it, a dance you do in the mirror, a song you sing in
the shower, is to attach meaning to it, and meaning is for the purpose of
communication. At that point, if you do communicate it, you've performed it in
some form. Perhaps the art is your retelling of how skillfully you masterbate.
Or perhaps the person you are communicating to through your journal is your
future self--who is himself of a different, more experienced, though shared
cultural background, as present day you. Its artness is made in the
transmission of the idea, and immediately so.

~~~
platz
I can definitely appreciate this line of thought.

You might be familiar with the Fluxus movement in art; if not, you might find
some of their ideas interesting too -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluxus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluxus)

------
bmh100
I appreciate the author's viewpoint, but I think he does not make an argument
persuasive to opposing viewpoints. He does not address values, assumptions,
and reasoning used by such opponents. The Wally quote and the talk of admired
past painters using aids are helpful on a subconscious level, as they are
appeals to authority and accomplishment. It would be much more persuasive to
directly attack the naturalistic values of opponent. I would challenge the
author to develop a more persuasive essay. If it is reasonable to extend the
author's argument to cover music, then what sort of argument would he need to
offer to convince others that Skrillex has the same artistic merit as Frank
Sinatra, which in turn has the same artistic merit as Mozart? Going beyond
even that, I would like to hear the author's opinions on algorithmically
generated art, like the Mandelbrot set.

~~~
rld
The author never mentions artistic merit, presumably because it's a result of
his premise. If you can't cheat at art, it's because there's nothing to cheat
for, so there's no such thing as artistic merit.

~~~
bmh100
I don't quite agree with your conclusion as written, because I think you can
make the point that purely skill-based efforts do not have artistic merit. For
instance, the frozen fish packager in an assembly may not be seen as having
artistic merit in the his or her endeavors. This is because the effort is not
creative, but following a process. It is not meant to provide any aesthetic
value or entertainment, but is meant to achieve another objective.

On the other hand, if you mean that nothing intended as art can lack artistic
merit, making the concept of "artistic merit" useless in that context, then I
fully agree.

------
thaumasiotes
Here's a satirical headline that I can't seem to find the article for anymore:

"Mathematicians vote to disqualify new theorem discovered using brain-
enhancing drugs"

------
pistle
I don't know why we differentiate art from action. Some people intend for
their actions to be consumed by others for a purpose of communicating or
commerce, but there are no bounds to how little difference there is,
theoretically, between any action and art - including inaction.

Any constraints given to a "form" of art are illusory. Every constraint can be
deconstructed and bent into meaninglessness.

There are no forms, just our perception through living. We have the benefit of
sensation - creating contexts and realizing patterns. This leads to valuing or
appreciating certain presentations, but that's all arbitrary based on how we
experience our existence.

Art is a marketing term for what most of us would call living.

------
hawkharris
During a recent trip to a contemporary art museum, I noticed a painting that
appeared to be a carbon copy of a different well-known painting. As it turned
out, that was the point. The plaque read, "This piece explores the notion of
originality in art. What is plagiarism? What is authentic?"

On one hand, it sounded like a ballsy excuse that could be used in any field
to justify ripping off other people's work. On the other hand, the painting
did spark an interesting debate about originality. No matter how you look at
it, I think it's pretty funny.

~~~
neumann
My friends and I have a game where someone points to something, and everybody
else has to quickly come up with an artists statement. The most preposterous
yet sellable one wins. Often they sound like the one you quoted.

------
hristov
I am not sure I would call it cheating but there definitely is an issue here,
and the author dismisses it all too easily. The issue is that it seems that a
lot of today's artists just do not have the skills of the artists of the past.
Paul Graham actually touched on this as well in one of his old essays.

Thus, when artists use photography they may not use it as a tool to expand
their abilities, but as a crutch to compensate for lack of skill. And they try
to argue around that by saying something like "art is not about skill it is
about ideas and expression". But the thing is, when you get the skill then you
can also have much more interesting ideas and expression.

For example if you look at a portrait done by one of the old dutch masters,
you often see so much expression and emotion and character in the face. This
is often much more than you can see in the usual modern photograph to say
nothing about the crude camera obscura methods of the past. How do they do it?
Well they use their skill in connection with their vision in order to make
painting more powerful. They make minor embellishments and subtly change this
or that to make the face look more striking.

But my point is, in order to do all of that you have to have the skill first.
It is not that easy to separate skill and expression.

I think that is why many artists today are talking about how the old masters
used camera obscura. They just want to provide an explanation as to why no-one
seems to have the skill of the old masters anymore. By the way that theory is
wrong. All you have to do to prove it wrong is look at some rembrandt self
portraits, for which he could not have possibly used camera obscura and which
do not differ in technique from his usual portraits.

Now maybe I am being too hard on artists. Those skills are tremendously
difficult to master, even if you do have the talent. And considering people do
not spend much on art anymore, it is probably unfair to expect today's artists
to spend the enormous time and effort to obtain those skills. Perhaps, certain
art skills will be permanently lost like ancient violin making.

That's ok, and I cannot blame artists for being creative and expressing
themselves with the skills and techniques they can practically develop. But
lets not lie to ourselves and pretend that it is just as good. Something is
definitely lost when a photograph replaces a face drawn by a skilled master.

~~~
alphakappa
You are experiencing survivor's bias. The artists from the past that you know
of are the excellent ones whose art and reputation survived. If you explore
enough galleries and museums, you'll know that there are plenty of
contemporary artists who create mind blowing art too, and in 200 years, some
fellow will talk about how artists in the 23rd century do not have the skills
of the 21st century masters.

------
read

      Drawing is the honesty of the art. There is no
      possibility of cheating. It is either good or bad.
    
      - Salvador Dali

~~~
vacri
Avoid commenting on downvotes - if your commentary is reasonable, someone
usually rectifies it. Talking about downvotes just becomes chaff itself,
encouraging more downvotes (and seems to be the fashion recently).

------
scelerat
Since it's posted on Hacker News, this story immediately made me think of
things that come up while building anything, but especially software...

\- choice of language for a project

\- the decision to use this library or that, or to "roll your own"

\- etc

Ignoring the obvious "cheating" of plagiarism or copyright violation, there's
still occasionally pressure, internal or external, focus heavily on tools and
methodologies over building the actual thing and focusing on its essential
traits, weaknesses, and strengths.

And finding the right balance between the attention given to tools versus the
thing you're building is itself an art of sorts.

------
the_cat_kittles
"You'd think that's all anyone should care about, but unfortunately that's not
the case" \- Totally disagree. You don't get to decide what other people care
about. And I would confidently wager that virtually everyone is affected by
things that so-called purists dismiss as not worth caring about. The notion
that there is a concrete boundary between the art and the context is so
simplistic, and it completely ignores basic psychology. Doesn't it seem a
little narcissistic to think that you would know what other people should care
about?

------
aresant
Quick note from the comments - here's the mixed-media artist mentioned in the
article [http://samuelaraya.weebly.com/](http://samuelaraya.weebly.com/)

------
egypturnash
My opinion as an artist: If you feel like it might be cheating to do
something, then it is.

------
Terr_
Sure there is: Just made a statue that secretly doses visitors with drugs to
get them high.

Cheating, in art, is generally linked to where the audience can later consider
themselves unjustly deceived.

