/sci/ - Science & Math

>>8871067
Now personally I think there's a bit more to art than fashion, but maybe that's just my elitism.

In any case, I don't want to waffle, but this Conversation model helps us here to consider art as not just an aesthetic phenomenon, but a social one. Who controls the conversation? Currently a lot of people would say it's the gallery owners and curators. Not by speaking themselves, but by picking what they like to hear (see) and giving the podium to the artists who're making those works.

Notably, art cannot help but be influenced by what else is happening in the rest of the world. Are artists making works inspired by Syria? Absolutely. Are artists making works that they think will sell well. No doubt. Are people buying works that seem to make a statement about themselves?
> "I have good taste"
> "I can afford expensive things"
Yes.

So sure, this conversation is happening within the art world, but it's listening to everybody else too.

So how do we view Art through science? I think you can't really approach art at all from the perspective of a hard science. It's a social phenomenon. It's guided by basic psycho-physical principles
> we like various types of symmetries
> we like certain colors to be balanced
> we like certain subject matter (the human mind dedicates a massive amount of processing power to looking at faces)
> we like things that are "new" in some sense
but it will always be guided by the rest of the social world, and everything that's come before it in the art world. So it's a lot like sociology; it's a complete fucking mess, it changes the moment you understand it, and there's no way of knowing for sure that what you suspect is really the case.