What is Art?

Throughout the semester, I have been writing about art, its history, and how it applies today in the Digital Age. In this blog, I will be defining art in my terms since I had said earlier that art is defined by the viewer. So without further ado, let's begin.

Art; it is a place where man can be truly creative, a place to ignite thought, inspire and demonstrate skills that many can poses with time and training. In a very watered down sense, art is something that takes place in the minds of all and is an expression of oneself. To me, art ranges from Duchamp's urinal to the spectacular video games of today. The material in the ISTA 301 course has indeed had an impact on my perception of art. I would have never imagined that computer generated art is not considered as art to many critics and that video games can be considered art also.

With that in mind, this course has also shown me that art critics are some of the harshest and most narrow-minded folks on the planet. A rather obvious example is the late Roger Ebert. Mr. Ebert was one of those critics that heavily bashed on the topic of video games as art. I for one, disagree a lot with him on how video games have too much user interference. It seems that Mr. Ebert had never gotten a chance to read the "Choose your own adventure" books, but I digress since I gained more knowledge of the processes that occur behind the scenes.

The course had also showed me the intricate processes that occur when one attempts to create an artwork. I now know that it is a bit difficult to come up with a unique art piece and stay within the bounds of not going into copyright infringement. As far as my computational thinking is concerned, art is still a process that is quite similar to that of a code writer/programmer. It starts with an idea and gradually goes through it's rough patches until the final product is achieved. This course was really fun for me and if I got to do it again, 10/10 times, I'd do it again.

This doesn't mark the end of this blog, by any means no. The course has given me more than enough insight to continue writing and giving my 'two-cents' on art and how it applies to Computers and Tech.