Art

Monday, 4 March 2002
Art is
an expression of human creativity
whose prime reason for existance
is the appreciation by others.

I created this definition once because it is impossible to define art. Which challenged me to immediately create a definition. Nothing beats an "impossible" problem.

Bike wheel

A few weeks ago I remembered my definition, looking at a modern art exhibition in Köln (museenkoeln.de/ludwig/).

Many of the works on exhibit did not appeal to me. I did not see any creativity. An upside down bicycle wheel on a stool appeared familiar. A few weeks before I saw the same idea in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (philamuseum.org/...). Is this a copy or do I see the original, creative thought?

Original or not, it is not my idea of art. Yet if it is on display here there must enough others that appreciate it.

Kayak

On the ground floor of the same museum a video is being exhibited. An actor is sitting in a kayak that is dragged by a car on a gravel road. For 15 minutes or more I stare at this image. The sound of grinding is unbearable. The video ends when the performing artist recognises his own behind in the two holes in the bottom.

Am I missing something? Yes, this has to qualify as an original thought - I have never seen anything like it before. But is it art? Not for me. And obviously not for others, either. The video room is empty when I leave.

Odd drawings

The artist Luc Seebroek was the guest on a radio interview last week (nps/kunststof/...). Even a radio interview turns into an enjoyable creative stream of words, where fantasy continuously struggles with reality. For an hour I listen enraptured to this artist who refuses to be labelled or categorised.

His Kamagurka cartoons are bizarre. A number of interviewees at a comic conference failed to appreciate his work. To them his cartoons are just strange drawings. Strange, as I am one of many that do appreciate these strange cartoons.

Diagram

Last week I had a lot of fun creating the diagram for Ulam's conjecture. It was a creative process, although the idea has been circling in my head for years. Unfortunately, I have not spoken anybody yet that appreciates my creative play of lines in CSS and HTML.

Obviously art is not a good career choice for me. So I will just stick to pretty screens for roster software.

Till next week,
Nut