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Comment by rlt3 | Hacker News Reader

Pieces like these (and others, like a 5 year old's painting) can have monetary value.

People might place value on its level of enjoyment, such as yourself.

But artistically, you'd be hard pressed to find any value in this due to its only merit being "made in Windows 95 in 2013" or "made by a 7 year old" or whatever.

Typically, intentionally doing work in a difficult manner for the sake of making it hard on yourself isn't rewarded because it doesn't really add anything.

This piece isn't made better because it was made in Windows 95 and Paint, yet that's the only reason why we're talking about it.

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I couldn't disagree with you more. There's a rich tradition[1] in the creative world of improving a product through self-imposed restrictions. Sure, you don't get any artistic credit just because you did something in a difficult way; a single red square has the same merit whether you clicked each pixel in turn or used a flood tool. But exploring the limits of a medium itself certainly does.

People can argue all day about "what is art?", but to me, it's something that provokes thoughtfulness or a sense of wonder. Something that communicates a view of the world. And I think this [ http://hallasko.com/collections/prints/products/looking-up ] and this [ http://hallasko.com/collections/prints/products/aglowfish ] easily meet that condition, while also exploring what can be done in the medium.

Yeah, we're talking about that they were made in Paint, because he's showing us a painter[2] can do with Paint. If you ask me, that's valuable.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constrained_writing

[2] He has a lot of experience as an actual painter, too, which means he's a lot more qualified than I am to decide something's artistically valuable.

Imposed restrictions are all about removing common treads so you have to think outside of the box.

Writing a poem in a certain meter is certainly challenging, but not the same thing as writing a poem where you can't use the letter `e'.

This isn't about self imposed restrictions, but merely a choice to do something the hard way.

How something is made can be a significant part of the price. I remember a report on a painting that was unsigned. Experts were divided on who had painted it. I can't recall the painter's name, but if it was him, the painting was worth $200k. If it was one of his students, as half the experts thought, it was worth $2k. Same painting - only thing different is the 'metadata' for who made it, which made up literally 99% of the value.

Similarly, there is art out there where an aficionado knows how difficult it is to do and hence will pay more for it, where a layperson will say "what crap" and refuse it. The story of a piece often has value over and above the piece itself - and making something to a certain level of quality while using inferior tools can be a valid part of that story.

Typically, extra labor -- that is rewarded -- for an art piece is going to be something that is pertinent for some common end.

Using Windows 95 to paint something doesn't add anything to the end of a piece.

Using marble and creating a structure that looks like a fluid river (or flowing something) adds value to the piece even though it was hard.

Using marble, period, adds value simply because the work is in marble (monetary value) and represents a skill that you can produce works of art in marble. Using Windows 95 means you can use dated technology to produce literally the same thing that Photoshop CS6 could product (most likely in less time): a JPG.

It literally is the same difference as painting a scene with your hands, and then doing it with your feet. Nothing was added and the work is no different, but you did it with your feet.

Again, how it's made forms the story around the piece. If you saw that painting in a jumble sale, with no story, it is irrelevant how it's made. But if you know it was painted with someone's feet, then that becomes part of your appreciation of it, and hence it can become more valuable to you.

I have a small framed bit of Chinese calligraphy ("Laugh") in my bedroom. It's nice in its own way, but nothing special. It was, however, given to me by my half-sister who I only got to know for a couple of years before she died from cancer. That bit of art has a particular story attached to it now, and that story makes it worth so much more to certain people (being 'me', basically) despite the art itself being mundane. The story associated with a piece has a value of its own, sometimes entirely orthogonal to the piece itself.

> But artistically, you'd be hard pressed to find any value in this due to its only merit being "made in Windows 95 in 2013" or "made by a 7 year old" or whatever.

Erm..maybe. Is Erwin Wurm's art art? It is in galleries. It does have monetary value. But it is conceptual. It is basically says here put 15 sweaters on. Or stick your head into a hole in the wooden fence. Is that art? What if I stuck my head in a wooden fence would that be art. What if I told by Wurm to do it and someone took a photo or video of it? Is that art?

It is hard to defend the position of inherent objective artistic value. You are welcome to try it. Art to me has always been an extension of the artist, their life, story motivation and work. On its own it is just up to the art critics to tell us from their high places what is art and what isn't. And that seems to be pretty arbitrary to me so I don't buy that. But maybe you can humor us and give a set of criteria so we can better pick between genuine art and the fake art.

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