Art
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->5 Million Dollars 1 Terrabyte (2011) is a sculpture consisting of a 1 TB Black External Hard Drive containing $5,000,000 worth of illegally downloaded files.
<img src="http://media.rhizome.org/blog/8346/fivemillionsonetb.jpeg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<a href="http://www.art404.com/5million1terrabyte.pdf" target="_blank">List of files</a> [PDF]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://rhizome.org/editorial/2011/aug/16/5-million-dollars-1-terabyte-2011/" target="_blank">Link</a>
I hadn't realized I have been increasing the value of my hard drives all these years. Who wants to buy some modern art?
<img src="http://media.rhizome.org/blog/8346/fivemillionsonetb.jpeg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<a href="http://www.art404.com/5million1terrabyte.pdf" target="_blank">List of files</a> [PDF]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<a href="http://rhizome.org/editorial/2011/aug/16/5-million-dollars-1-terabyte-2011/" target="_blank">Link</a>
I hadn't realized I have been increasing the value of my hard drives all these years. Who wants to buy some modern art?
Comments
<img src="http://www.artnet.com/Images/magazine/features/kuspit/kuspit9-11-08-10.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
source: <a href="http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/kuspit/kuspit9-11-08_detail.asp?picnum=10" target="_blank">http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/...l.asp?picnum=10</a>
I think you'll find you forgot to add number two.
I can only assume you are trolling.
No, I'm being serious.
Art is not just 'something that looks pretty', as the sky looks quite pretty but I don't think anyone would describe meteorology as art criticism. Nor is it something technically impressive, as if you've ever paid much attention to most very old works of art you'd think they were executed by a ten year old, and certainly wouldn't pass muster in any modern drawing class. It isn't something expensive, as reprints of famous works are usually considered art even though they're mass produced for the cost of a sheet of paper and the ink. Art is not a lot of things.
What it often is, however, is something that conveys an idea.
Now this can be something that evokes a sense of profound beauty, some works of art are called so because they fill people who look at them with the joy of nature, seeing something so beautiful that they are moved by it. Such art may be commited out of a love of the subject, such as how love has inspired people to write extraordinary poetry. This kindof art can be described as 'very pretty' but that is not all it is.
Some works of art are <i>designed</i> to evoke specific emotions, such as all the many and various patriotic art and propaganda which anybody who has studied recent military history will be familiar with. This kind of art is often done as a communication tool, to convey an idea to other people, or to control them and make them do what you want, it often displays a keen technical knowledge of the language of art, and visual and auditory communication. Much art falls into this category as throughout history, most music and paintings have been commisioned by rich and powerful people to impress others. The sistene chapel is <i>designed</i> to put the fear of god in you, the eighteen twelve overture is <i>designed</i> to portray the glory and carnage of the russian defence of moscow against napoleon. Such art is technically impressive, but that is not all it is.
Still again some people are driven to create works of art by their environment. Northern ireland is littered with murals depicting the various beliefs and stories of people who live there, most painted during the troubles, because people wanted some way to express their ideas and emotions. Similar things can be seen around the world at cenotaphs, monuments erected to fallen soldiers in major wars. Carved and built out of grief to help people work through it. One of the more famous examples would be the taj mahal, which was built to honour the wife of an arabic emperor. Its quite expensive, but that doesn't make it art.
The common theme among art is that it communicates an idea, specifically an idea that the viewer can empathise with. You look at a memorial, or a piece of music, or a painting, or a poem, and you understand a little of what the person who created it meant when they did. Or at least you do if you take the time to devote a few brain cells to the thing you're experiencing.
In this case, I think what I'm looking at points out something people often don't think about. Density. Anybody in the world can now steal five million dollars worth of stuff. Time was you had to be a bank robber to get away with that. More to the point, five million dollars worth of stuff fits on a hard drive you can carry around in one hand. Data storage is often very abstract, you think of a terrabyte but you don't really think about how that translates to say, twenty or thirty years ago. When you carry around a hard drive you're carrying around a library, or an orchestra, or a bank vault, or an art gallery. Perhaps all four if it's a big hard drive.
Art is, perhaps more generally than it is anything else, a form of language. What this particular item has to say might not be a world shattering revelation, but I think it's worth a place in an exhibit.
Or can they? Is that drive really worth five million dollars? Were five million dollars really taken from someone, or a group of someone?
Well that depends, if you define stealing as 'the act of unlawfully acquiring items of value', which is a pretty general definition fitting such theft-related crimes as fraud and embezzling and all the other interesting ways you can get rich with little effort, and assuming you have enough patience (and possibly more than a terrabyte of hard drive space) it is entirely possible to steal five million dollars worth of stuff.
Whether or not the drive is technically worth five million dollars is not really required for the idea to work, it doesn't even need to have any data on it at all, just tell people it does, they'll get the idea.
and the rosetta stone @ $20,000
eh, once I broke a hard drive that had a million dollars worth of data on it for a supermarket. Who got hired who got fired vendors used etc, and it was all time sensitive cause the store hadn't opened yet and was slated to open in less than a week.
That was a fun moment of realization, and then her husband told me Money is no issue, fix this. They were family friends, and we soldered the bent pin back.
Then it's a fake and a fraud and is not the work of art you claim it to be.
- Pablo Picasso
You can argue about "is it really $5m stolen?" until the cows come home, it won't change anything. As much as I dislike labelling this piece as "art" it <b>DOES</b> stimulate a debate about a very <b>very</b> important topic of our time. In many ways, you could call it the most pure form of art possible because there is almost no inherent value in the physical piece itself - it conveys an idea which can be freely and easily copied (see the irony here?). The masterpieces of the italian renaissance would be worth jack ###### if you could create identical copies as easily as copy/pasting.
In fact, I actually hate the fact that you've made me think about this, and realise that this is a piece of contemporary art that I actually like. I feel like a total hypocrite (I am a <b>massive</b> critic of contemporary art). Thanks :|
So a thing is only as valuable as it is hard to copy?
Monetary value.
Er, so the print of da vinci's sketch of a ballista on my wall is not art because it's a reprint? Even though it looks visually identical to the original?
What if I built a machine which could print images using the same paints as classical artists? Does that make it more valuable? It's functionally identical to the original.
Unless your definition of art is 'something very expensive but functionally useless' I don't see how you can argue that.
I could sit any hard drive in front of you and tell you that. It's not art, neither are.
I could sit any hard drive in front of you and tell you that. It's not art, neither are.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
You know saying things over and over doesn't make them true.
Take your own advice.
That <i>is</i> generally how one goes about presenting an argument.
As opposed to repeatedly saying 'you're wrong, it's not'.
Well that is what you get for making art that looks like (read: is) trash