Are artists attention seekers?

I didn't deny that things that aren't useful at first sometimes become useful later.

What I was talking about was motivation. The simple fact is that not every scientist is motivated by developing some practical tool for daily life. Even if that at some point becomes possible due to their work. The point is that the application wasn't necessarily the original intention.

The fact is that there also remains much valid science that doesn't yet have any practical application and whose discovery was purely motivated by understanding something much in the same way that plenty of artistic works have been motivated by seeking to discuss and understand something, albeit generally less tangible.

The point is that science (as the word is currently understood) really refers to a method of studying the machinations of nature by empirical means. It doesn't refer to study devoted solely to solving practical problems - that is generally called engineering and obviously engineering depends on results from other fields, predominantly science. The fact is though that there are many scientists who aren't engineers.

At the end of the day, it really comes back to what I said before - you really have to examine the word 'practical' in more detail if you want to have anything other than a pointless discussion here. Various forms of art clearly have played and continue to play an important function in society and whether you consider that to be practical or not depends on how you want to define the term.

You are seriously grasping at straws here. Only few areas of science have not been used (not "much" as you wrongly claim), and the motivation for many is simply curiosity. Why that is a bad thing as you imply is a mystery to everyone...as it is not bad in any possible way.

Only modern crappy art seeks to "discuss" subjects, which does not make it art, but makes it a statement - 99% of the time being a joke/bad and highly random eg Tracey Emin. None of that is art. It is a stupid woman succeeding at being pretentious and conceited. If they want to make a statement, then write a book.

The mistake you have made is that you have not considered how accessible art has been over the ages. Only until recently has it been widely accessible due to advanced printing techniques and improved transportation, thus before then (only 1930's and before), it was hard to access. It could not be widely reproduced in the same manner as text, thus its impact has been very limited at best. Books have changed the world, be it The Bible or The Origin of Species....but art has not.

No, you are unable to hold an intelligent discussion. Plenty of areas of science haven't been used - whole bodies of knowledge. I never claimed that being motivated by curiosity is a bad thing. That was your argument, you seem to think that everything that isn't 'practical' in some undefined sense isn't worthwhile. You then make this distinction between science and art as being 'practical' vs. 'impractical'. My argument was that this isn't the case.

I think you just have very little understanding of what you are talking about. Most serious art is a discussion or study of something, even if that something isn't always so tangible.

The same applies to science, or more generally any form of knowledge.

Do you also realise that many books are in fact pieces of art rather than science? Art doesn't just mean oil painting you know...

Or you have no idea what you are talking about and are now resorting to insults and name calling. This is why you have never named this bodies and just claimed that it exists. Well sorry, I disagree thus you need to give something more than "Nah, I sez so lad!".

Utter rubbish. Which great masters had their work based on some study or in depth pretentious message? Only now do we have idiotic narratives to describe a piece of sailing cloth folded over some iron in the shape of a dick to represent the struggle of the poor person. That is nonsense and pretentious crap. Tell me how that compares to "when did you last see your father"?

Derp, so people were not reaping the benefits of improved architecture, the steam engine when they were made? With science, only those who discover it and create something from it need know it. With art, everyone needs to see it.
Books are not art, they are literature. This is why we have such a word - to distinguish between them

Read title. Discuss.

I find a lot of arty people a bit pretentious, but I wouldn't say they're any more "attention-seeking" than those who create stuff in general that's meant for public consumption. You woudn't say a scientist was attention seeking for building an invention everyone could use

'Public consumption?'

I don't know about you but usually when I go to a museum I don't eat the art. Consumption means to digest.

I'm surprised you haven't heard the phrase "for public consumption...?" Google it if not.

You got the definition wrong. Public consumption is a phrase used to say that it is deemed enough for the public to handle, for example I could say 'this film has a lot of blood and killing but it was still seen as suitable for public consumption'. Any other use of the phrase is wrong.

You can't say 'my piece of artwork is for public consumption' for example, that doesn't make sense.

No, I didn't. "For public consumption" means "for the public to see" - whilst it's generally used as part of "suitable for public consumption" that's not the only context in which it can be used. For example, see the definiton of the phrase "for someone's consumption" here:

http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/consumption

You keep thinking that.


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I did already (go back and read the posts). You then made some vague claim about inventions following the discovery of the Higgs Boson (I doubt it will happen soon) and then said that it doesn't matter because sometimes practical applications
follow a long time after scientific discovery. I wasn't disputing this, I just said that it doesn't always happen and in any case that was besides the original point which was that science isn't just the study for the purpose of practical application.

You can't seem to follow a point though - you just use the idiot technique of changing the question and going in circles which is boring to me...

A lot of Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings were based partly in his study of and interest in anatomy... they weren't just pretty pictures. Sibelius's Sixth symphony reflected the authors feelings of serenity and joy in the Finnish winter landscape. Dostoyevksy's Crime and Punishment was a contemplation on the nature of guilt etc. etc. Some art is purely a technical study, some is a study of human emotion or political events.

Look, you seem to have little knowledge of what art is and don't seem to understand how to appreciate any of it. Did you consider that might be because you choose to be ignorant rather than an inherent failing of art as a human endeavour?

For that matter, you don't really seem to understand what science is either which is why I view your counterpointing the two as kind of dumb since the distinction you make i.e. science practical, art not practical just isn't how many other people see what these fields are.

Science is a method. The goal of science isn't to create steam engines. That is the goal of engineering. Of course the engineers who created the steam engine depended on scientific knowledge but the point is that science in and of itself isn't necessarily motivated by 'practical' concerns.

Of course literature is a form of art, as is music and in many cases, large parts of architecture - go and read a wikipedia page or two at least...

1- Read again:

1. Premise: Art is self-expression.

2. Premise: Self-expression is not necessarily art.

Thus,

Conclusion: Art is not as important to society as science.

2- This thread is meant to discuss the idea of artists being attention-seekers. You gave a reply and using the premise of your reply I showed that your statement was false.

mate, if youre so bloody determined to shoot down everything that everyone says, why the hell did you ask the effing question in the first place?

ok, name some form of self expression that is completely separate from the arts. so no writing, or music, no dancing/movement, no creating anything.

artists are their art. without the art there is no artists. then i dont get what the hell youre on about in the next bit, but i take it to mean that arguing about whether or not artists are attention seekers isnt the point?? i must have misunderstood coz thats pretty damn hypocritical.

success is measured in different ways by different people. for some egotists being successful means having a lot of recognition. for others, it means doing something well, or being proud of what youve achieved.

and then your last paragraph made me lol, so im not gonna bother replying to that - ill just leave it in its untouched form so others can have a giggle.

get down off your high horse and accept that people do actually have opinions that differ to yours.

Writing statuses about myself on Facebook. That is self-expression as well.

And a form of art as well.

You conclude that art is not as important to society as science, why not?

When I think of art (not science), I think of hypotheses of original ideas before they are experimentally verified with the scientific method; Einstein's papers on special and general relativity for example.

Without art, there is no science because a hypotheses isn't science, it's an idea, until verified - then it's science.

You posed an interesting thought.