No art
Let's start from the fact, that I was never capable of truly appreciating art. At least in the sense of standing
in front of the "art" and making a thoughtful face. Or in a sense of having some transcendental feelings
passed to me from the "art". Except for music. I can really appreciate music and feel it… So, art.
I really do not understand anything people usually like about paintings, sculptures, poems, architecture.
Though I do not find them interesting, in some way. Or, maybe, I just have no reason to stare at some
painting to appreciate it; on the other hand, I will listen to some piece of music I enjoy for lots of times. So
maybe my logic here is quite far from being perfect, and maybe I'm all the way wrong in my perception
of art and creativity.
In more "precise" form: 1) I have neither desire nor need to extensively study some piece of art; 2) I
generally take about 5 seconds to appreciate to the full extent I possibly can any piece of art; 3) I find no
feelings in any piece of art; 4) most of the time I can understand the piece of art and have my own view
on how much the artist was creative, professional, what emotions have been put into the art piece; 5) I
definitely have works that I do like, and I don't measure them by some parameters, that's just an aesthetic
feeling; 6) all of this includes all forms of artistic expression except music.
For music: 1) I do like to listen to some music piece till I can recognize each instrument and note in it; 2)
most of the time I will eventually return to the same piece of music to listen to it and completely submerge
into it again; 3) I do feel the music, usually quite deeply, and that is exactly what I like about it; 4) my
understanding of musical creativity, professionalism and emotional subtext is quite vague and sometimes
happens to be quite different from common conceptions; 5) usually I like the music proportionally to the
emotional content in it (for me).
Sensory art
So there must be something very different in how I sense music to how I sense all other forms of art.
If we explain all of the factors that people usually tell about in their perception of art through
neuroscience view, then there must be something different in my sensory functions, that makes musical
arts and other forms of art so opposite. Following that thought, there must be some other manifestations
of such differences — but I haven't observed any.
One possible explanation would be that I can instantly memorize visual art and literary art, and music
being scaled in time is harder to comprehend in full, — but, quite on the contrary, my visual memory
is barely average, I can never memorize a single poem (and actually I can hardly memorize any text —
only some general thoughts, ideas and emotions I got while reading it); and I can memorize music, and
even replay some motives on the piano (and replay almost entire piece in my head just after one or two
times listening to it). So again, different, but not in the way that would've explained anything.
Intelligent art
But here's one hypothesis.
Let's theorize a bit. So take some interesting snowflake pattern. Is it art? Hardly, right? Is it creative?
Not in the slightest. It simply is not created by a human being, or, as I would like to generalize here, by
an intelligent being. Now take some artist (human or not), who took that same snowflake, and painted (or
photographed, preserved or whatever) it. Is that art? Definitely. Is it creative? Could be (and it is quite hard
to say how much).
Consequently, we may say that some intelligent being has to be the artist, not some force of nature
or a technical process; otherwise the creation of such force of process is neither art, not it is creative. Can
any sensory view of the creativity explain the necessity of intelligence? Even more, when we see
the beauty of nature and find it really pleasing, what chance is there that this can be explained by our
cultural beliefs in intelligent natural forces, god(s), etc?
What I'm trying to convey here, is that maybe the only thing that makes us see something as beautiful,
emotional, pleasing, creative — is the process of communication with the (sometimes supposed) artist.
And the more "complex" were the thoughts of the artist (or the appearance of such), the more will we
like such "something" — and more likely we are to call it art.
Back to no art?
So how does it stand against my view on arts? Quite simple: I like understanding emotional unconscious
thoughts much more than any kind of conscious thoughts, and find any conscious thoughts simple,
mundane and prone to being a lie. And such bias can easily influence what I like in art if such
hypothesis holds true. Take music I like for example: mostly it is of genres that don't value thoughtful
creation but instead suggest "a stream of consciousness" type of creation. And no poetry or painting
or sculpture or architecture can be created ephemerally.
But that is just one hypothesis, and the question stands: so what after all is art, how it came to be, and
what are we doing with it?