2000-06-20

Art is: something you (the beholder) cannot improve upon.

For example, when I listen to "Bessie's Blues", I cannot think how to improve it. 
I can't think of how they (or I) could play it any better (i.e. produce more 
pleasure in me).

Perhaps I can think of some way to improve the efficiency or convenience of 
the transmission of the message, so that people can understand it more easily. 
But I don't want to change the message itself. (For example, I might think of 
a way to present the music more directly to the brain, or how to make the beholder's 
brain follow the same patterns that the musician produces when he is playing the tune...)

I imagine a continuum from "Would change a lot" to "Would not change"; each one 
of us puts works of art along that continuum somewhere. I place "Bessie's Blues" at 
the "Would not change" endpoint, and Britney Spears at the other endpoint.

If I see a piece of code I cannot improve upon, that is art, too; it brings me 
pleasure. Or a comedy routine, or a landscape, or a troll post on slashdot...