Aesthetics for Birds

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art for Everyone

Category Archives: What is Art

May 8, 2018
by Aesthetics for Birds
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JAAC X AFB: Is Monday Night Football a Documentary?

What follows is a post in our ongoing collaborative series with the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. This is based on a new article by Henry Pratt, “Are You Ready for Some Football? A Monday Night Documentary?” When I lived in Wisconsin, I had a large, hairy housemate named Brian who watched a lot of hockey and football on TV. Sometimes he’d even do so shirtless to avoid stains from marinara sauce. It turns out that, unbeknownst to me at the time, he’d seen thousands of documentaries and was something of an expert on them. Wait—what? Quoth Gregory Currie, in his prominent article on the category: “game shows turn out to be documentaries about their participants, chat shows documentaries about the interviewer and interviewees, and sports programs documentaries about the activities of the athletes” (294).

April 24, 2018
by Aesthetics for Birds
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Beauty in Strange Places: Art First

I met a critic, I made her shit her drawers She said she thought hip-hop was only guns and alcohol I said “Oh hell naw!” But yet it’s that too You can’t discrimi-hate cause you done read a book or two What if I looked at you in a microscope, saw all the dirty organisms Living in your closet would I stop and would I pause it? …Speeches only reaches those who already know about it This is how we go about it – André 3000, “Humble Mumble” What follows is a guest post by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò (Georgetown University). This blog recently hosted a post on country music which defended country music partly because of its interaction with the class dynamics between the working class people who listen to the style and the broader culture in which they do so. The author of this piece comes close to a … Continue reading →

February 28, 2017
by Aesthetics for Birds
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*This Thursday* JAAC X AFB Discussion: Tavinor on Video Games

Just another reminder that the next JAAC x AFB Discussion will be appearing this Thursday, March 2. We will be looking at “What’s My Motivation? Video Games and Interpretive Performance” (abstract below the fold) by Grant Tavinor, available in JAAC’s Winter 2017 volume, 75 (1), online here. Grant is Senior Lecturer of Philosophy at Lincoln University, NZ and author of the book The Art of Videogames. And big thanks to C. Thi Nguyen (Assistant Professor, Utah Valley University) for providing the critical précis. Grant will provide a response, and they will both be available to discuss your questions and thoughts in the comments. Mark it in your calendars, and look forward to seeing you then!

February 21, 2017
by Aesthetics for Birds
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Upcoming JAAC X AFB Discussion: Tavinor on Video Games

The third JAAC x AFB Discussion will be appearing next Thursday, March 2. We will be looking at “What’s My Motivation? Video Games and Interpretive Performance” (abstract below the fold) by Grant Tavinor, available in JAAC’s Winter 2017 volume, 75 (1), online here. Grant is Senior Lecturer of Philosophy at Lincoln University, NZ and author of the book The Art of Videogames. And big thanks to C. Thi Nguyen (Assistant Professor, Utah Valley University) for providing the critical précis. Grant will provide a response, and they will both be available to discuss your questions and thoughts in the comments. Mark it in your calendars, and look forward to seeing you then!

February 21, 2017
by Aesthetics for Birds
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Can #Selfies Be Art? Saatchi Says Yes

I’m going to go ahead and say Saatchi isn’t really that cutting edge on this one. People have been doing self-portraits for a long-ass time. Maybe those don’t count as “selfies” though? In any event, the famous Saatchi Gallery will host a show this spring called “From Selfie to Self-Expression”. This is funded together with the enormous Chinese telecom company Huawei. (Hm, I wonder why they’d be interested in selfies.) Maybe most exciting is for those artistic sorts who read the blog: You can enter your own selfie for a chance to be shown at Saatchi! They’re currently holding a selfie competition (entry rules here), open until March 12, 2017. You have to submit images via their website interface. For whatever reason, you can’t just post an Instagram with the #SaatchiSelfie hashtag and be entered. Although they do want you to use that hashtag on Twitter, Instagram, etc. Or you can just scope out … Continue reading →

February 10, 2017
by Aesthetics for Birds
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Yougov Survey Answers Perennial Question: Can Video Games Be Art?

Survey says… No. :'( But tattoos can be, and many other things. Internet-based market research company YouGov asked over 1500 Brits whether they thought various mediums could be art. Their results: Unsurprisingly, results varied a lot across age groups, and some across class. Take a look at YouGov’s write-up of these surveys, and their detailed survey results. This updates some older results they got in 2014. Well, I guess we can shut things down around here. Thanks to everyone for playing! p.s. But seriously, stay tuned for the next JAAC x AFB Discussion on this beloved non-art-form. We’ll be discussing Grant Tavinor’s JAAC paper “What’s My Motivation? Video Games and Interpretive Performance”. Photo credit: Ryan Quick, The Art of Video Games via Flickr

January 26, 2017
by Anthony C.
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The Curious Case of Pepe the Frog: On the Ontology and Value of Internet Memes

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Donald Trump Jr. (@donaldjtrumpjr) Editor’s note: This story has a Part II, with updates on Pepe’s death! In the waning days of last fall’s presidential election a frog took center stage. In early September, Donald Trump Jr. posted an image on Instagram featuring his father leading “The Deplorables.” The image is intended to be a response to Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” remark. However, what catches one’s eye is a curious depiction of a green frog wearing a Trump wig. The Clinton campaign quickly pointed out that the frog is an instance of an internet meme known as Pepe the Frog and denounced Trump for his campaign’s usage of the meme due to its associations with white supremacy and the alt-right. Not long after, the Anti-Defamation League added Pepe to its online database of hate symbols.

December 4, 2016
by Aesthetics for Birds
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3d Printed, AI-produced Original “Rembrandt”

A collaboration between ING bank, Microsoft, Delft University of Technology, and the Mauritshuis museum brings us the Next Rembrandt project. They’ve created an original, Rembrandt-style “painting” created by analyzing existing Rembrandt paintings (colors, head direction, facial composition, etc.). <!–more–> If this is a taste of what the robot apocalypse will look like, then I guess it seems sort of anticlimactic. Anyway, if you were curious about how to make the MOST paradigmatic Rembrandt painting, you’d want the following characteristics: Okay, but so much you probably already knew, without any deep data algorithms. Just with your fleshy meat brain. But could you do this part? They did micro-landscape analysis of the brushstrokes and mimicked that, too. Then used “paint-based UV ink” to create the final product with a 3D printer. And how does it look? I mean, it looks like a Rembrandt to me. (Some people claim they can tell it’s not authentic. I’m skeptical.) This – like … Continue reading →

September 20, 2016
by Aesthetics for Birds
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Art for Dogs

New in the “Is It Really Art?” category: Okay apparently I’m a bit behind the curve on this one, but for those of you who didn’t catch it about a month ago, there was an art show for dogs in London, sponsored by MORE TH>N pet insurance, with artworks designed by Dominic Wilcox. Artnet News writes that “The exhibition is, of course, a marketing gimmick” – but it’s not like there’s no precedent for art that is a marketing gimmick. (*cough* BMW *cough*) The press release from the RSA Insurance Group reads: “They say art is for everyone, and while this may be true, the ‘everyone’ mentioned here traditionally refers only to humans. With pets assuming an ever more important role in our lives, isn’t it time that the art world catered to them as well?” Well I don’t know who “they” are, or if they’re right… but everything about this … Continue reading →