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Comment by mg | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of a common theme in the art world. I wonder if there is a name for it. Maybe "Low effort art"?

Examples off the top of my head:

John Cage "composed" a song consisting of just silence.

Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal which he simply purchased from a store.

Yves Klein exhibited 11 paintings that were exactly the same. They were simply blue, no structures or subject. But he priced them all differently.

I can't remember the name, but I recently read about a photographer who exhibited nothing and then made photos of confused faces during the exhibition.

I can't remember which art prize it was, but there once was an art price which asked artists to "make a piece of art that represents your country". And a female artist wrote back "Dear jury, just give me the art prize for my reputation. You can keep the money in return. This would also represent my country as we have so much corruption here". And she won.

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A major element of 4'33" is that it is impossible to experience silence. It was partly inspired by Cage's experience in an anechoic chamber. He'd expected to hear silence but could still hear sounds that were coming from himself (the story is that a sound engineer told him the sounds were his bloodstream and his nervous system, but I find it very hard to believe that what he heard was actually either of those things).

4'33" is intended to be "performed" for an audience, and the sounds created by the audience, and any other ambient sounds are the music. Another major aspect of the work is that it blurs the lines between composer, performer and audience. In traditional classical music, the performer interprets the written work by the composer and the audience just listens, but there's no particular reason that all music has to work like that.

> his bloodstream and his nervous system, but I find it very hard to believe that what he heard was actually either of those things

Sometimes if it's really quiet I can hear something that seems to pulse at about the right speed that it could be blood flowing, so I don't find that very hard to believe? Or am I hearing something else?

I can definitely hear my pulse at night in bed, or after working out. This is definitely not too far-fetched.

> the story is that a sound engineer told him the sounds were his bloodstream and his nervous system, but I find it very hard to believe that what he heard was actually either of those things

Have you ever spent meaningful time alone in an anechoic chamber? Your ears are similar to your eyes, in that they have mechanisms to adjust to ambient noise (/light) levels.

If you are in very deep silence for a long enough time, your brain starts trying to make sense of the sounds you are hearing (which indeed includes your blood flowing in your ears [0]), potentially causing auditory hallucinations. It can be a profound experience.

[0] https://nypost.com/2023/02/02/inside-the-worlds-quietest-roo...

This is exactly how you sell the bullshit - with cleverly worded bullshit that makes the reader feel smart. He was able to pull it off because he was already famous and accomplished.

What is art but cleverly composed stimulus? Idk it’s a bit silly and I think the critique that an unknown wouldn’t be able to do it is fair, but that too is true of most art

> John Cage "composed" a song consisting of just silence.

I used to think 4'33" was the most ridiculously arrogant piece of pseudo-art in the history of pseudo-art.

But people still talk about it today, 70 years after it was composed [0], and they will still be talking about it 500 years from now. So I've changed my mind. It does exactly what good art is supposed to do: It makes you ask questions.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3

Who decided that “good art makes you ask questions” or “art is about starting a conversation”? Sounds like an excuse for passing off garbage.

“The Course Of Empire” is a beautiful piece of art for many reasons: it’s clearly masterful, it represents complex ideas simply, it conveys emotions we lack words to convey, it beautifully displays the human experience, and so on. It’s art even if you didn’t have a human to experience it - it’s self evident.

Taping a banana to a wall isn’t art. A silent song isn’t art. These are just childish, amateurish displays only enjoyed by a nihilistic culture devoid of meaning. If what you make only counts as art because it “starts a conversation” about how stupid and garbage and insulting it is, then it’s not art at all.

> Who decided that “good art makes you ask questions” or “art is about starting a conversation”?

We did. By making it relevant here.

> Taping a banana to a wall isn’t art

The one thing baser than taping a banana to a wall is people categorically, doubtlessly concluding that it is or isn’t art.

It isn’t art for you. That this point needs to be made almost singularly means that I do consider it art, if only on the first iteration. (Anyone could have done it. But Cattelan did.) I’ll sidestep the question, too, of whether any comedy is art.

Unless we’re elevating art to a Kantian ideal like math, or arguing it’s subject to the scientific method, art has to be subjectively judged. If that’s true, anyone drawing hard lines is bloviating or attempting coercion.

Well you seem to be confusing "what is good art" and "what is art". I vehemently disagree with saying 4:33 or the banana "isn't art", this sounds like a very narrow definition which I struggle to imagine.

I have more sympathy for the claim that it's not "good art", not particularly interesting or meaningful.

With regard to the banana I tend to agree. This was just a small provocating artpiece which doesn't bring anything to the table and is unlikely to be discussed much in ten years, let alone 70.

4:33 however is still very much discussed 70 years later and will continue to be, and that may be because it's not just a random joke but fits within the work of an important composer (John Cage) which contributed significantly to the artistic debate of what "is" music, at a time where this question was suddenly much less clear than it had been in the past (i.e. the same piece today would be much less meaningful).

While acknowledging that the question "what is art?" is an interminable quagmire, I'll say that art is any artifact that induces an emotion.

If an artist paints a wall white, and that doesn't induce any emotion, then it's not art.

If an artist paints a wall white and then tells you "hey, this is art", and that induces anger or frustration in you because you disagree, then it becomes art.

When the person above implies that this "makes you ask questions", the question in this case is "what is art?", which, as mentioned, is a contentious and interminable topic which itself arouses emotion, making it good fodder as a topic for art.

It even gave me a good story to tell once, when my kids were acting out. They sat down and listened, and have mentioned it several times since.

They also still talk about Jack the Ripper. I couldn't imagine a worse metric than "starts a conversation". The Mona Lisa started far more conversations after it was stolen - did getting stolen make it better art?

But if the alleged artists taping bananas to walls tell us that's the measure to judge art by, who am I to question their wisdom?

This is not entirely true, that it is low-effort. There is a lot to be said for coming up with an idea, which can take months or years, and what the idea will say about the art.

In Hong Kong, they were being detained and limited from protesting no matter what signs they were holding up, so someone had the idea of holding up blank pieces of paper. It's brilliant because it shows how oppression works - they still detained people - and the paper isn't explicitly saying anything political but still somehow it is. The implementation is easy (or low effort), but the idea itself is where the value is. And you have to come up with it.

John Cage’s orchestral piece is actually really interesting. Last time I heard it, I was told to treat the ambient sound in the theater as the experience and it was a very interesting thing to do. Hearing people cough, shuffle around, etc. and trying to visualize where each sound came from. I recommend it at least once!

Classic postmodern. Shows the lack of something. Usually the lack of originality and the lack of any value.

For lack of originality, those examples are all very original.

For lack of artistic value, are all highly regarded by critics and art audiences.

For lack of mometary value, they've been sold for very expensive prices...

You have a different definition of original than me, it seems.

Critics and art audiences: totally no "opinion monopoly" or manufactured consent at play, right?

Monetary value? You mean money laundering?

Are you sure you aren't attempting to judge originality with the benefit of hindsight? The fact that these works have been mindlessly copied countless times since they were first conceived and now appear trite and simplistic, doesn't make the original concept any less original.

As to the value and validity of the opinion of critics and art audience, surely the most import opinion about just about anything is the opinion of the intended audience.

The trick was original once. I don't know if that first was the blank canvas or the silent music track, but every other iteration is just a copy.

Regarding the fulfilment of expectation of the intended audience: I agree that it is an important aspect, but it will not make art good, merely makes it marketable. I have a feeling that museums are only serving as means of advertisements, to keep the perceived brand value of these items (and people) high. Criticising it is just as dangerous for this, as remote work is for the real-estate bubble. Criticists are stakeholders in this game, as well as the authors and the buyers. Their livelihood depends on the public agreeing to, or at least accepting the valuation of these items.

I think the real art in (post)modern art is this control of the public opinion, a large illusionistic trick. To me it seems similar to the "crypto" scam, so NFTs were kind of a perfect post-modern works of art! (when they were novel)

>You have a different definition of original than me, it seems.

Probably, as I prefer the standard dictionary one.

>Monetary value? You mean money laundering?

I also mean the traditional art buying public, before the 70s when modern random figures came into the picture, when money laundering wasn't needed and money laundering laws and checks where almost or entirely non-existent. Did Peggy Guggenheim and other such figures do it for money laundering?

>Critics and art audiences: totally no "opinion monopoly" or manufactured consent at play, right?

As opposed to the non-manufactured consent or opinion plurality of Joe Random?

> Probably, as I prefer the standard dictionary one.

you made me chuckle, thanks!

> Did Peggy Guggenheim and other such figures do it for money laundering?

Kind of? https://daily.jstor.org/was-modern-art-really-a-cia-psy-op/

> As opposed to the non-manufactured consent or opinion plurality of Joe Random?

It is funny while postmodernism is all about deconstruction and questioning existing values, social structures and authorities, when its authorities are questioned by an outsider, it becomes so defensive...

>It is funny while postmodernism is all about deconstruction and questioning existing values, social structures and authorities, when its authorities are questioned by an outsider, it becomes so defensive...

Not that funny in this case, since this has nothing to do with "postmodernism".

The artists that did those things we discussed were peak modernism. Dada/surealism (Duchamp), or nouveau réalisme (Klein) for example, and of course the entirety of data, lettrism, etc. have nothing at all to do with postmodernism.

In fact post-modernism, both when taken as a critical stance and as an artistic theory, was precisely against modernism (that those artists represented).

You're not the audience, artists are. A lot of these pieces play with the assumptions that artists have about how works should be composed, and they turn them on their head. We might not care, but they can inspire artists to make even more creative works that we do like.

Interesting take.

Could you cite some well-known artists that are postmodern and lack originality? Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Basquiat, Richter? I understand if you don't like postmodern art but not original isn't a criticism in my eyes.

The only good defence of low effort art is the very likely apocryphal Picasso anecdote when a lady see a drawing and exclaimed it only took him 30 seconds.

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/01/14/time-art/

I think the moral of the story that whatever the domain, you can pull the low effort stuff in a profound way provided you put in the enormous leg work needed in proving your reputation in the high effort stuff.

Maybe "conceptual art" https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/conceptual-art - this link from the Tate includes Klein and Duchmap.

I saw one of the Klein Blue pieces at the Tate Modern last year.

I was surprised to find myself quite taken by it! It really is a striking colour, and an imposing presence overall!

I think about it all the time, and picture it in my house at least once a month.

Found object maybe?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_object

Maybe you are thinking of Dadaism?

Sherry Levine.

It’s not low effort.

Unless that’s what you brought as a consumer of the art!

You forgot the most recent one - the taped banana.

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