What is art? Or: the undefined bullshit-magnet

Introduction

There is a common belief, that goes something like this:

Art cannot be defined, since every definition would limit art. And since art must be free, defining art goes against the very purpose of it.

And indeed art comes in a million different forms, and so it seems logical to conclude that art simply cannot be defined. Yet, even if it is true that art comes in extremely different forms, the conclusion that art therefore cannot be defined is a misconception – a misconception which instead of protecting art (which it believes it does) actually is very much harmful to art. And I would like to explain why:

Defining gives meaning

Defining gives meaning. It picks something out from the sea of infinite phenomena and characterizes it as a unique thing by limiting it to some specific characteristic. It makes it definite. It draws borders around it, it makes its territory of meaning finite so to say.The word table is defined, and therefore you know that it doesn´t mean chair for example. The moment you say that „table“ cannot be defined, it can mean anything - it can also mean chair, or football or god, or grass. It literally destroys the word, completely devalues it and makes it impossible to use it in a meaningfull way. The undefined state of „table“ opens the doors wide open to just about anyone and anything to call itself „table“. An apple can come an call itself „table“. And actually I think that is exactly what happens in the „art world“ - it is just flooded with random stuff. But I´ll come back to that later.

There is a difference between the following two statements:

1. art can be anything, or

2. art can take any form

These two are entirely different things.

1) The first statement declares that art can be anything and everything. Wheras this seems to be very tolerant and being in favour of the freedom of art, it is actually the opposite. If the letters „a r t“ have no limit as to what they symbolize, they can mean all and nothing – and therefore the letters have no significance whatsoever anymore. They mean just as much as „kjsbflk“.

2) The second statement is quite different:

It says nothing about what art itself is, but it only says that it comes in a form, and the form it takes can be of all kinds.

Conclusion:

Not defining art makes it a nonsense word. Defining art in a way that limits the forms it can take would circumscribe art – you don´t want that either. (That´s what is happening when art is being politically used and controlled)

BUT nothing speaks against defining soemthing, without limiting its possibilities of appearance. That is no problem, it is actually a common thing. If I say „music“, you have a pretty clear concept of what we are talking about, even though you know that it can be any form of music, classic music, metal or jazz or whatever. You understand that music is a formless container word, containing many different forms of music. So despite that there is a clear concept as to what music means, it has never limited music in its possibilities.

A confusion of categories The widespread opinion of the indefinability of art, which we started from, is therefore based on a confusion of fundamental categories: identity and appearance.This mixing of categories is commonplace; it creates chaos in discussions on any topic.

Example: When off-axis flips were still relatively new and not yet the norm in parkour, you were quickly classified as a creative mover just because you did these techniques. But of course, the creativity lay in the process of discovering the new axes, not in the axes themselves. Here you can clearly see the mixing of the categories of identity and form, i.e., creativity and the form in which it manifests itself.

Art – the bullshit magnet

Since the understanding of “art” as “anything goes” is widespread, art has become something that can be anything and nothing in the public eye. And that's why art is THE term for upcycling just about any bullshit. No matter what nonsense you do, you just have to call it “art,” and some people will immediately think highly of it. Basically, you can get away with anything because art is this vacuum word, and so it's a safe haven for all kinds of people who have neither ideas nor skills... except that they are very “artsy.”

That´s why I say: Not defining art is the worst that can happen to art. It is devaluing it, and pulling real art with it into nonsense. Art is often ridiculed by people – yes sometimes out of ignorance, but sometimes those people are just too honest to see more than a brainfart. And I would say they are right, often what is called art is not more than that: a brainfart which is pretending to be more than that.

So the task is clear:

Defining art in a definite way, without limiting the possibilities of what forms it can take. In fact, only a definition of art which would encompass all possibilities of appearance would be right as we see later.

Don´t ask an artist

Only because artists (no matter how renowned they might be) might replicate that sentence „art cannot be defined“, that doesn´t make it less nonsensical! A good artist is not necessarily a good thinker or good art theorist – so don´t expect from artists that they can lay out to you what exactly they are doing.

Defining art

Is art even a thing? The definition of art naturally presupposes that art is something at all. This means that it has a kind of identity of its own, i.e., an unchanging rule that is common to all forms of art. For it could just as well be that art is not a thing at all, but merely a term for all kinds of human behavior that cannot be categorized. It could just as well be that the only thing art has in common is that it does not fit into any other category. Then “art” would be nothing more than a catch-all for all kinds of “residual waste” of human behavior. Like that random drawer in every house that has no clear category and therefore becomes a collection point for all kinds of random stuff. And that is the position art finds itself in—because it is not a clear category in the general understanding.

Personally I´m convinced that art is a thing, that there is a common rule behind all forms of art, from the cavemen paintings to Mozart. And the following article will lay out a clearcut process which I believe to be the characterizing factor common to all manifestations of art.

But there is no patent on the word „art“!

You can say: who gets to define a term at all? There is no patent or copyright or whatsoever on words. That´s true, but that´s like saying: who gets to define „table“? The meaning of a word is something which grows organically over history. It is just the same as with Parkour. If someone tomorrow would call a cheese bread Parkour, it would raise eye brows. The same goes with art. It is not a blank slate, it is a historical thing. And there are some things which just everyone would agree to name art: for instance all classical arts – music, painting etc. And so we need to look at the undebatable examples, the unambiguous examples of art to see the historical filling of the term „art“ and use these as some sort of prototype and extract from them a kind of deep structure of art which must be flexible enough to encompass modern forms of art and yet unknown manifestations of art too.

A delicate matter

A definition of art must be done carefully. Because a definition of art can mean that some things that used to be called art can later no longer be called art. The definition must therefore be very comprehensible and plausible, otherwise it is suspected of being an instrumentalized definition: just to cut off some unwanted branches and discredit parts of art that you don't like. (As has often happened in history, e.g. for political reasons).

A definition of art

So the question is how we can define art so that we arrive at a meaningful meaning of the word that includes what it historically denoted, but is flexible enough to encompass modern and as yet unknown manifestations of art.

In the article Parkour - Sport or Art, I defined art as follows (You can read how I arrived at this definition there. But in this article I will explain the exact meaning of the definition in more detail. And from this I think its meaningfulness will also become clear):

Art = A will to express, that leads to a direct expression through the use of symbols.

The significance of this definition will become clear in the course of this article.With this definition, I place art in the same category as language, since both art and language have expression as their core function. So let's start with the key concept of this definition: expression.

Expression

A quick explanation of the term „expression“:

The term literally comes from the latin meaning of „pressing out“ and also „representation“. Both already indicate the meaning of the word very well:

1.) For one, „pressing out“ suggests a direction:

inside → outside

2.) And „representation“ suggests a two-fold thing:

Some thing which represents some other thing. So there is a representor, and a represented. The representor is a symbol, and the represented is what I call information (we come to that later). Expression is the process of how the information (the represented) is translated to symbols (the representor).

We can easily see both meanings ( so the „pressing out“ and the „representation“) fulfilled in language:

For one, words are supposed to communicate to the outside that which we have on the inside through the use of symbols (anything discernible to the senses, they can be basically anything that senses can perceive, such as letters, sounds pictures, etc.).

And for the other, the symbols we use, the words, are representing a specific subjective content. For example the word „anger“ signifies the actual thing anger. So that is the „representation“.

Content

To specify „content“: Content can be anything on the „inside“, in the subjective experience:

It can be thoughts, feelings, moods, concepts, ideas of any nature. It can be Parkour ideas, mathematical ideas, architectural ideas, etc. It can be abstract feelings, it can be conrete images. And it can be a mix of all this. We could also instead of „content“ use the term information.

So we see, the term expression is very sharply definable:

Expression is the objectification of subjective sontent through the use of symbols.

Or in other words:

Expression is the inside* brought to the outside through symbols

Expression is information translated to symbols.

Note: The term „inside“ is probably not perfect, since it very much suggests the locality of subjectivity – even though that is a thousands of years old philosophical debate which is still going on today. If you´re interested in it then research on the subject of „the hard problem of consciousness“).

Expression is a process

So if we agree that art is based on the mechanism of expression, it automatically means that art is an operation consisting of three phases:

1. Information (that which is to be expressed) →

2. translation (translating subjective content into objective form) →

3. the expressed form (the finished art work)

So if we accept that expression is the main underlying characteristic of art, then that automatically means that it is the main characteristic of art:

Art must always have content!

That means, that any piece of art must stand for something, there needs to be something behind it, since it is only the translated outcome of information. If there is nothing behind a piece of art, if it carries no information, if it has no content, it is not expressing anything. It is something, but it is not an expression. It is something, but it is not art.

→ But here comes a difficulty:

Unconscious / subconscious infromation

The whole process of art is not always a conscious process and art often brings the unconscious to the surface. For this reason, it cannot be a prerequisite for something to be real art that the artist can tell you in great detail exactly what he/she means by it, since it can come from a place that he himself cannot interpret.

How can anyone therefore say wether a piece of art is an expression or not? How can anyone differentiate between real art and just pseudo-art, an imitation of art? The fake artist can always evade the question of what his art means by saying: I don´t know what it means myself, since it comes from my subconsciousness.

But even if the artist cannot even slightly indicate the meaning of his art, so the information that the artwork represents, it doesn´t matter. The 3 steps of the expression-process should be still clearly visible:

1.) information / the urge:

So the artist has something inside of him (information, subjective content), and even if he cannot put words to what it is, he clearly must have a drive, an urge to create his art - it is the will to express the information. It is this what artist mean when they say they had to „get it out“. It can be a very forceful urge, which the artist strives to fulfil, often even with great personal sacrifice.

2.) translation:

The artist must learn some craft, he must have some skills that are needed for translation (could be an instrument, acting, moving, etc). The artist usually feels drawn to a certain field of activity or instrument (system of symbols) which is most capable of carrying the specific content that pushes the artist. Different systems of symbols are capable of carrying different kinds of content (For more explanation check out the article: language and what it can express). Music can convey other information than mathematics for example.

3.) the expressed form

Art always results in some form. It must so, since form is the outcome of expression. Some artists say that art is not about the result, but only about the process. That cannot be true for expression, since expression is a process which would defy its own prupose if it werent about an endresult.

Yet what is true, is that that which is to be expressed is often way too big to be done with one picture or one parkour line for example. The idea causing the drive can be so big, that it requires many years, maybe decades to fully explore it and bring it out in all its details. This can make the artist feel as if it is never done. BUT even if that which is to be expressed is too big to be done with one piece of work, the artist still has a sort of feedback mechanism, which tells him that he is on the right way.

And that is an additional fourth step:

4.) feedback

The artist feels a sense of satisfaction when he thinks his art is finished. This point occurs when the artist feels that the form is now an appropriate representation of the information. This is the moment when he feels that the work is done, and he experiences a kind of satisfaction—like putting a period at the end of a sentence. This “yes, that's it” feeling suggests that the form is now an adequate representation of what triggered the urge to express. In other words, which was to be represented (the information) is now adequately represented in the artwork. This feeling of feedback occurs in every small detail of an artwork, but also on a larger scale: Over many years, an artist often approaches an art form that he perceives as an increasingly accurate representation of what triggers his artistic urge. And this process of becoming more and more specific is guided by intuitive decision-making. It is as if the artist is playing “hot and cold” with his subconscious.

Looking back, you can see that many artists' work becomes increasingly crystallized, increasingly definite. In an artist's history, you can see when their initial interest in a particular direction was awakened, followed by vague steps in that direction, becoming more and more concrete over the years until they arrive at a crystal-clear form of art that completely satisfies them. And along the way, they receive small “it's done” feedback that shows them they are on the right track. Or “no, that's not it” feedback when they are on the wrong track.

An intuitive process:

So you can see, even if the artist doesn´t know what it is that drives him, his artistic work should still clearly show forth the 4 steps of expression. It´s not like the artist needs to consciously go through the 4 steps, this whole process runs automatically. The artistic action is lead by feeling rather than pre-conception, the path is walked by choices of preferance rather than by knowing the end-goal.

Expression therefore seems to be structured in four phases, whether you are aware of it or not. But knowing this sometimes makes the work easier.

Yet, in many cases the artist is conscious of the end-goal, since not all art is expressing subconscious content. It depends on the kind of art and also the maturity of the artist (did he/she just begin his artistic endeavour? Or is he/she following a direction already for 30 years – then she/he might have a more definite conception of what it is all about).

Congruence between information and the expressed form – a mystery

So for something to be an expression, there needs to be some form of connection between the art piece to that which was the initiating drive behind it. There is somewhat a congruence an identicalness between them. So they are identical in the sense that the symbol stands for the same as the information – they are two sides of the same thing.

Example: A sad painting is not sadness itself, yet, being drawn from the experience of sadness, the forms are shaped by the feeling, and therefore there is a connection between form and content, a congruence, an idenity. In this lies by the way an unsolved problem in the sciences. It sounds like this:

How can something entirely subjective and formless—like a feeling, intuition, or inner state—be translated into a specific, objective form (like a sentence, painting, or melody) in such a way that the form faithfully represents what had no form to begin with?

A composer feels a deep, indescribable grief. He sits at the piano and improvises a melody that, after hours, feels exactly like that grief. He stops and says: “That’s it.” But what made that melody right?

   1, No one told him the melody means grief.

       2, He couldn’t describe the grief in words.

       3, Yet somehow, the form (melody) matches the formless (grief).

But that mystery aside, let´s continue.

Density of information - a quality characteristic of art

Having defined art in a way that the „transportation of information“ is its main characteristicum, we now can even go further and introduce another thing bitterly needed in the art world:

A criteria off measurement to determine the quality of art:

Density of information.

By information density, I don't mean how much information is conveyed, but how compactly this information is packaged, regardless of its quantity. This means that the fewer symbols a work of art uses to express the information it wants to convey, the higher the information density. And thus also the quality of the art. The skill of art is to get to the point and neither say too much (diluting the information) nor too little (information missing). That´s why some art is really powerful and some is rather pale. It depends on the concentration of information.

This can be seen very clearly in poetry: instead of describing a scene with a list of its endless details,a poem selects only those few words that capture the essence of the scene. It is therefore a matter of recognizing what is relevant and omitting what is irrelevant.That is why some art is really powerful while other art is rather bland. It depends on the concentration of information. The more rambling, the vaguer the information.But this also means that the more clearly the poet can identify the feeling (or information) to be conveyed, the more precise the feedback mechanism and thus his choice of words.

So the rule to good art is: convey more with less. In other words: information density.

Information minimalism

This is minimalism at the information level. However, this should not be confused with minimalism as a design style, which primarily refers to a reduced design language. Both have in common that they focus on the essentials, but design is mostly about objects with a function (e.g., a chair or a building). Therefore, the form is primarily defined by the function of the object. In art, however, the packaging of information is the function. So if it serves the essential information, it can also require an extravagant, embellished design language.

Question: Must art be „deep“?

Saying that art must have meaning, doesn´t say anything about the nature or the depth of that meaning. It doesn´t mean that art needs to be deep. Not at all! It can be absolutely shallow. The nature of the information conveyed is irrelevant as to wether something is an expression. It just needs to be some information – no matter how little, or how trivial. And if you design tile patterns, that amounts to art, IF the artist has a drive behind it – and be it so „trivial“ as to like the symmetry or harmonious shapes. A sure sign that there is a connection between the art piece and the drive in the artist is that the artist has an honest affection for his art works – he must love it in some way. So this definition of art allows anything to be art, as long as there is some information (directly*) conveyed in it.

*I say directly, because indirectly all activities convey some things, but they are not meant to convey it: for example, going for a walk with your dog probably means that you love it, yet you don´t go for a walk with your dog in order to express your love for the dog. It does so indirectly though.

Pseudo-art & art-actors

Ok. Having now defined art, the process behind it, its purpose and also a criteria do determine its quality, we can now look at some phenomena within the socalled art world, which after this does not reach the definition of art, and would lose their status as art:

Some classical examples of pseudo-art:

Artsy-Look

Often, what is referred to as art is merely an „artistic“ appearance—completely devoid of information—with nothing behind it, no real content, no idea, or specific feelings. Art has become a term that describes a kind of style, a fashion, a vibe—just like the skater look or the hipster look, for example. Simply a stereotypical milieu that people can identify with. But if you don't skate, you're not a skater. No matter what you look like.

Random art / absurd art:

Something you find at all art universities, or on the Instagram profiles of art students and anyone who likes to come across as “artsy.” Perhaps the most clichéd “art” style: randomness. It is assumed that the absurdity of chance has a certain depth. Of course, it is nothing more than a vacuum of thought. You might as well roll a die. The result is just as meaningful as this art. It is expressionless and therefore not art, but “art.”

"Provocative" art:

Provocation is considered a classic function of art—and that is, of course, true, because honest expression does not care about social norms. That is why art sometimes breaks with these norms and thus appears provocative to some. But this provocation is only a by-product—it provokes because it presents content, which offends some people.

But cliché provocative art has nothing of its own to present. It provokes only for the sake of provocation. It is empty in and of itself. I think that behind this kind of pseudo-art there are often only financial motives or attention-seeking, because it usually thrives only on shock value. It is nothing more than a tabloid newspaper that calls itself “Tolstoy” or something similar. It allows people to indulge their sensationalism without feeling bad about it, or even to feel particularly cultured.

Obscure art:

Fake art is expressionless. So it comes as no surprise to me that one of the most popular themes in the stereotypical art world is this: obscurity.

If you have no content but want to pretend you do, what could be more obvious than to hide this emptiness behind a seemingly mysterious obscurity? This gives the impression that there is content behind it, even if it seems very enigmatic! It's a bit like those psychopathic gurus who pretend to be profound, but there's nothing behind it (only in the case of art, it's a bit more harmless, of course). It's just a facade of content. Content that pretends to be so deep and complicated that no one can interpret it anymore. And if you ask the creator of this art what it means, you'll hear it again: “It means what it means to you.”

If you ever talk to such an artist, I suggest you ask them the following: “Do you think it's possible that your art means nothing at all? And do you think it's possible that you are unconsciously just reproducing an image of what you call ‘art’? And isn't it then more of an imitation than an expression, and thus the exact opposite of art?”

I'm sure he/she will answer:

“You can't define art.”

And the circle is complete.

According to my understanding of art, this would not be art, but rather art-like behavior. However, in a peculiar way, there is still an actual congruence between the form and the non-existent content:

This indefinable art is the perfect reflection of its underlying (un)definition of art. A vacuum of meaning, perfectly reflected by meaningless forms.

The irony of the story

The irony is that the belief that art cannot be defined (“...because defining means limiting”) in order to protect the diversity and freedom of art has exactly the opposite effect and ensures that “art” is reduced to a few clichéd forms. And that makes sense, because when it comes to expression,

information defines form.

If someone who has no pronounced artistic drive (in other words, there is no information within them that urgently demands expression) wants to be considered an artist for whatever reason, what choice do they have but to orient themselves toward what is commonly regarded as typically artistic and then imitate it? There is no real content there, except perhaps indirectly, “I want to be considered an artist.” And if you ask them what their art means, they simply evade the question and hide behind this sentence, which is just as nonsensical as their “art”: “It means what it means to you!”

A slight mitigation:

Now, however, I would like to mitigate my harsh judgment somewhat: Not all forms of imitation art are based on the attempt to adorn oneself with a superficial artist image. Anyone who feels drawn to the art world will certainly already have a drive within them. This is usually very vague at the beginning. And on the way to becoming an artist and learning the craft, one also imitates certain stereotypes. This is absolutely legitimate and understandable and probably part of the process. It's just not high-end art, it's a kind of practice form of art. But at some point in the development, information must take over completely.

Outro

I would suggest, the definition of art laid out in this article is very healthy for art, and it does chop of some parts of art… which no one can miss, since no one knows what they are, since they don´t stand for anything, so they are not a thing to begin with.

Okay. So that´s it with my art criticism for now :)