Does soul in creativity matter?

For years I steadfastly held the position that art is defined by the artist. Which means as long as a thing is done with artistic intent, it is art. A blank canvas is art if the artist says so. (It's shit art, but art nonetheless.)

On the flip side, a sunset is NOT art, because there is no human intent behind it. A picture of a sunset, if taken with artistic intent, would be art. And a picture of a sunset taken for a documentary with no artistic intent would not be art. Same picture, different intent. So intent defines art.

After years of getting kicked in the ribs over this position, I conceded that art is in the eye of the beholder. A sunset can be interpreted as art. A blank canvas featured at an art exposition can be considered not to be art.

A side effect of the second position, which I still think is fundamentally flawed, is that the procedurally generated, non-creative drek barfed out by ai is *gasp* art, if people say so. So f**k you human artists, the mob has spoken: the AUDIENCE determines what's art and what's not, so if they consider ai outputs to be art, they're art, no different than a work composed by a human with feelings and a genuine spark of creativity. I hope they're happy with the conclusion their disregard for artistic intent has brought them.

give me a second

It's possible to concede lots.

All I'm saying is that if everyone gets to define art for themselves, the definition of art becomes meaningless. Everyone's opinion is equally valid, so no matter what they think about whether any given thing is art, they're right. I hate this position because it means it's the AUDIENCE that makes something art, rather than the artist.

Perhaps there is a middle ground or compromise. The artist can act as their own audience. What 'moves them' while they are making art is something. Perhaps the feedback, between what they feel is art in their process and what the market appreciates as the skill of their craft, is a thing. So the audience proper can become obsessed with trivial aspects. Is the celebrity actor skilled or talented in the ability to become famous? Or equally trivial is the genius painter grasping the paint brush in a traditional manner to paint a portrait, of some painter holding their brush just right, non-ironically [Hipsterish]?

The more the audience uses their mind over their heart and the more commercialism encourages that kind of critique is bad. However artist respond with new ways of feeling about their subject matter, their own processes and the materials they are given. Doing so, their bizarre creations balance out a kitsch of the masses desires, with cares of someone's envy who cannot make art.

They obsessively emote over serving Twinkies on cut up tires, to a rented stadium of performative fans, that will somehow make everyone get the absurdity of it all. Taylor swift and her obsession with Easter eggs is kind of that. She knows her capacity to write songs and the emotions she inspires in her fans is one thing. Another thing - the thing that became a thing because giant media companies made it a thing - is having fans mull intellectually over the meaning of parts of lyrics, or aspects stills of her visual artistry like album covers, music videos etc.

She knows that hunt is a farce yet by taking it seriously and lighting a spark in her fans to do so?? Perhaps the whole world takes the hunt seriously. And is a quest for nothing done with heart better than a billion people... no offense OC... than those billion people as you say meaninglessly digesting their own isolated opinions of the value\lack-of it in her mega artistry.

Art is returning to the people via the web. Let's hope big business does not steal it back again with AI. Not cause AI is innately bad. Because AI costs a ton of money and puts ordinary humans out of a job. I forget where I was truly going with this dissertation. I think I ranted in a meme on the same topic a day or so ago. Art puts us in touch with realities that are elusive. They may be profoundly elusive like physico-spritual items that was lost. Or commonly so like everyone being too egotistical for their own good. Or boring feelings.

That was beautiful. It's such a precious thing to see someone with a brain actually putting it to use. Kudos, and many thanks.

I'm endlessly interested in minutia. Word definitions is one such pursuit. Some call it pedantic sophistry. But the purpose of language is to precisely communicate concepts. This is impossible without coherently defining the words being used. (My rant had little to do with the the initial meme, it's just where my mind tends to go when the subject of art is brought up.)

I recognize that ultimately it falls to each individual to find their own meaning. It just irks me when that meaning is the result of glaring logical inconsistencies. My response was a riposte against the projected position that the concept of art is subjective, but that ai art isn't real art. People are free to have it both ways. Logical consistency is a clear lens though which to search for meaning in reality, but it's certainly not mandatory.

The quality of art is absolutely and necessarily subjective. The definitional criteria of art must be objective in order for the word "art" to convey coherent meaning.

thxs... to paraphrase my ex-step-father