At 6:37 AM -0700 6/5/01, Josh Ronsen wrote:
>The problem with me thinking about this subject is that I do not
>have a good definition of art. As someone trained as a scientist, I
>need a good definition or axiom to begin.
>
>So:
>
>Art is "the conscious use of skill and creative imagination
>especially in the production of aesthetic objects"
>-http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
>
>Thus:
>
>Anti-art is the unconscious use of chance and unorigional
>matter-of-factness found sometimes in the gathering of banal raw
>material.
Ah, I disagree, as you may now as well. You've just created a
definition of "contra-art," of the negation of your premise. Anti-art
defies all conventions and definitions. It makes its own rules and
sticks by them or not. Though there are various traditions of
anti-art -- political, formal, technological -- anti-art need not be
about tradition, nor about revolution. Anti-art challenges the
concept, the premise of art, not just a subset or permutation, though
that's possible as well. Good anti-art is probably quite like art.
Kathy
Looking for my 1972? "This is my anti-essay".
