When is Art a Fart?

Weird Stuff — 25 August 2011

I read two stories which impacted me in the last 12 hours. One is the news that everyone knows; Steve Jobs is retiring from the post of Apple CEO. The other was this, some guy downloaded $5 Million of stolen software and assorted sundry to 1TB Hard Drive for and art exhibit. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those God fearing philistines you’ve probably heard about, but pray enlighten me, what makes this art?

If any art is to be gleaned from this, surely it would be design of the HD and its casing, such as the ‘art’ that goes into designing an iPod, iPhone or iPad. The art of making them usable to all, even those least schooled in technology. That’s as far as art goes.

For a start, so you put $ 5 million of illegally downloaded material onto a 1 Terabyte Hard Drive. Big whoop. As our resident mathematician pointed out, sales of 1 TB hard drives around the world would be exactly nought if people couldn’t download films, TV series, music and software to fill them up. Nary a man, woman or child has ever needed a 1 TB drive to store all their document files or PowerPoint presentations.

Secondly, I’m not saying that this particular art house, the aptly names Art404, produces drivel. Not at all. Some of their projects are fascinating, for example, their “The Art of Duplication”, at which Nikita would certainly rule above all. But just sticking a hard drive onto a gypsum podium and downloading an amount of data which any ISP will tell you is not that impressive, no, that does not constitute art.

How about you? What’s your favourite ridiculous piece of art? Perhaps that artist who worked with starving dogs, or the one who worked knee deep in elephant shit? Let us know, and you’ll enter a draw for an original Matisse. True story. Call me an uncultured lout now.

The top 5 most awesome things I’ve ever witnessed

Chuck Testa – for all your taxidermy needs

About Author

Mark

Mark is a hyperactive child of the internet, a great fan of entropy and a Grammar Nazi. Interested in disasters and perfection, which have a closer relationship than you might think. Pertinent and irreverent, I'm doing this for the LULz.

(12) Readers Comments

John
August 25, 2011 at 18:02

Way to miss the point entirely.. retarded article

Reply
dejv
August 25, 2011 at 18:12

I bought a 2 TB hard-drive to store the thousands of high-res RAW files my camera churns out. And believe me, I need it.

Reply
- Mark
  August 27, 2011 at 16:15
  
  Now that I can believe.
  
  Reply
Drinu
August 25, 2011 at 18:25

First to mind pops the question, “why is it not art?”, but that is hardly of any use.

Perhaps, more useful is the philosophy behind Dada and “found objects”, developed in the early 20th century in an attempt to push the boundaries of art, of thought and to challange people’s assumptions.

In 1917 Marcel Duchamp sent an upside-down urinal to an open exhibition (look it up in Google images). The curator wasn’t very pleased, so much so that during its stay in the exhibition space it was screened from view. Quoting this book p.131, the urinal’s new title, Fountain, and also its position demonstrate an inversion of the object’s intended function.

More important is the inversion Duchamp was proposing in the artist / art-object / public relationship. Instead of conceiving a work, on the basis of whatever external and internal motivation, and employing his inventiveness and skill in order to fashion it as an object bearing some specific significance, the artist merely selects. It is new only in its situation and in any apparent change in significance produced by this displacement.

I haven’t had a chance to look into the exhibit you mentioned, but it brought to mind the “found objects” movement of the ’10s and ’20′s. Hope this, somehow, at least puts it in a wider context.

Reply
Teena Kingswell
August 26, 2011 at 07:10

to add a small note, the ‘art’ you attribute to the HD’s casing and liken to the production of iPods and other gadgetry, would be more appropriately referred to as ‘design’.

Art isn’t about technical skill or making things pretty, unless that’s the idiom you choose to create art in and want to measure it with such yardsticks. A good rule of thumb might perhaps be that to be art -- it would be required to instigate reflection upon a theme/concept (or perhaps in some cases, merely a reaction against/towards). That being said, I mustn’t neglect to point out that even the most blithering of fools can cause one to ruminate on the futility of certain pockets of humanity/existence, so take that how and wherever you may.

Reply
- Mark
  August 27, 2011 at 16:18
  
  I agree with you entirely, although some degree of technical skill is required in any art form, and if not, perhaps an awareness, if I may even use the word here. But what of these has the artist in question with the humungous HD showed?
  
  Reply
  - U Werner
    August 27, 2011 at 16:44
    
    It takes some small measure of skill to fit 5 million dollars of stolen software in 1 TB, unless it was just source code (which would take some technical skill to obtain) or he had some polynomial time integer factorization algorithm on it -- in which case there must have been plenty of skills involved.
    
    Reply
    - Mark
      August 27, 2011 at 17:11
      
      Hardly. This is the list of what’s on it. And the links are wrong too, because I checked. http://www.art404.com/5million1terrabyte.pdf
      
      Reply
Drinu
August 26, 2011 at 20:18

Furthermore, this explains the whole starving-dog-on-display story. And no, the dog did not die, not was he starved at the gallery. This was made clear a few years back.

Reply
- Mark
  August 27, 2011 at 16:16
  
  Which is why I linked to Snopes Drin.
  
  Reply
Pingback: 5 Things at Ta'Grazzja Park Żebbug. | MarkBiwwa
Pingback: 5 Reasons why Airport Security is full of shit | MarkBiwwa