So, what do you think happens to those creations? They just go right into the dumpster, having fulfilled the moral obligation of their creators to constantly be producing things?
Going through a museum, and actively studying individual art deeply is a very different activity mentally, and much more stimulating, than scrolling through a feed passively 15 second clip after clip.
It does actually take a sort of literacy to understand and appreciate art. Go talk to anyone about art who has spent a lot of time studying it and then talk to someone who just walks through the museum to take instagram pictures and you get very different answers about what they see.
>It does actually take a sort of literacy to understand and appreciate art.
No it doesn't. It might add something (or nothing at all or detract from it) but if it is a hard requirement then it isn't art.
> Go talk to anyone about art who has spent a lot of time studying it and then talk to someone who just walks through the museum to take instagram pictures and you get very different answers about what they see.
Exactly, and both are equally correct in their view on the art pieces. I'm sorry but your post sound like one of those snob magazines that try to make art only something for the rich and well educated. It is neither. If anything money detracts from art and studying something too much can too. A young child can appreciate art by Leonardo da Vinci or Mr. Brainwash just as well as an art professor. They just appreciate it in different, equally correct, ways.
It seems like passive consumption, be it of books or tiktok, is unlikely to improve someone very much. You may learn some new facts but I doubt you’ll be able to revise any of your deep assumptions about the world.
That being said, it’s much more natural to actively read than to actively watch TikTok. Thus, in practice, reading is often a better activity than watching TikTok. The first chapter or Robert Adler’s “How to Read a Book” talks about active reading in more detail; he has a few more arguments too.
Side note: unless you are a relativist and think everyone’s view about art is equally correct no matter what, the person who studies art is probably “more correct” than the Instagramer; a lot of art requires cultural context (e.g, familiarity with the Bible and Ovid) to understand. If you are a relativist, then why does nearly everyone agree some art belongs in a museum and a lot of art is garbage that nobody cares about?
No they don't. It's a popular view nowadays because people want to have egalitarian views on everything but someone who has played Bach for 20 years has a deeper understanding of (his) music than someone who listened for ten minutes and can pick up on things that someone else cannot.
E.F. Schumacher coined the term 'adaequatio' for this.
"What enables man to know anything at all about the world around him? … Nothing can be known without there being an appropriate “instrument” in the makeup of the knower. This is the Great Truth of “adaequatio” (adequateness), which defines knowledge as adaequatio rei et intellectus — the understanding of the knower must be adequate to the thing to be known.[...]
Beethoven’s musical abilities, even in deafness, were incomparably greater than mine, and the difference did not lie in the sense of hearing; it lay in the mind. Some people are incapable of grasping and appreciating a given piece of music, not because they are deaf but because of a lack of adaequatio in the mind. The music is grasped by intellectual powers which some people possess to such a degree that they can grasp, and retain in their memory, an entire symphony on one hearing or one reading of the score; while others are so weakly endowed that they cannot get it at all, no matter how often and how attentively they listen to it. For the former, the symphony is as real as it was for the composer; for the latter, there is no symphony: there is nothing but a succession of more or less agreeable but altogether meaningless noises. The former’s mind is adequate to the symphony; the latter’s mind is inadequate, and thus incapable of recognizing the existence of the symphony.[...]
For every one of us only those facts and phenomena “exist” for which we posses adaequatio, and as we are not entitled to assume that we are necessarily adequate to everything, at all times, and in whatever condition we may find ourselves, so we are not entitled to insist that something inaccessible to us has no existence at all and is nothing but a phantom of other people’s imaginations."
It's absolutely childish to even for a minute assume that my perception and understanding of chess is "equally correct" as Magnus Carlsen's. He sees complexity and depth in the game that I cannot, because I do not have the capacity for it, learned or otherwise. And the consequences of not recognizing this, are equally dire, again Schumacher:
"When the level of the knower is not adequate to the level (or grade of significance) of the object of knowledge, the result is not factual error but something much more serious: an inadequate and impoverished view of reality."
>someone who has played Bach for 20 years has a deeper understanding of (his) music than someone who listened for ten minutes
See, there it is again. The snobbery. We are discussing art, not music theory. No, one that has played Bach for 20 years cannot by default appreciate art better than someone who just heard Bach for the first time. It is exactly the same as saying only a mechanic who have worked on cars for 20 years can appreciate a good sports car or only a doctor can appreciate the human body. It is pure elitist nonsense! Just because you know the theory behind how something is made doesn't mean you are better at appreciating it. Far from it. Using all kinds of theory on, say, a book will often ruin it.
It is those who have used a lot of time on theory that want to believe they are better, not those without the theory that understand art less.
It's more dire for the average person to get stuck in an assessment loop that may not have their best interest at heart.
The problem of art being impossible to appreciate without sufficient training is that there then becomes no way to detect dishonest art. The worst possible intentions are officially impossible. There is no way to stop the dissent into art created for the sake of producing "inadequate and impoverished" feelings in all but the most devoted followers. Post-modernism is one such authority play all the way down.
Reading this, I just want to see the "scholarly approach" to TikTok. That sounds like some nice performance art.
Alternatively, this is the kind of thing guys like Banksy and Warhol were doing with their art. It's a pretty narrow minded view of art to not include some of the stuff going on on TikTok.
It's surprising to me how many people in these comments are trying to gatekeep art, as if art must only be the life's work of famous masters. Museums are full of crude drawings, sculptures, tools created by people who didn't consider themselves artists. Art reflects the social mores of its time and we can also take interest in art to simply get a glimpse into the past.
Plus no one in their right mind would have compared the Pieta to a local bard with a talent for singing and dancing getting paid to entertain people. Just a lot of backward comparisons all because people have in their mind a single definition of what "art" is and should be.
There is a difference between a museum, which curates culturally significant art from places around the world and at home, to TikTok, a social media app that is for making money.
The 'culturally significant art' you're talking about was created for money. It's not any different than TikTok, it's just from long ago. TikTok is refined Vine and some of those Vines were worth preserving and spawned careers like ProZD.
Culturally significant art was created for money in a different way than a global brand like TikTok creates content for money habibi. They are not equivalent no matter how hard you try to fit your square block in the circular hole.
It's made by individuals, not TikTok? I'm not really sure if you know what TikTok is after this comment.
Just to clarify, TikTok does not do ad revenue sharing. They have a creator fund, but TikTok creators really make money via brand deals, merch sales and direct donations from fans.
TikTok is a social media platform that makes money from other people creating content for others to consume. Individuals get money for either sponsoring a product or getting many views. How is this the same as someone paying for a clay pot in Ancient Egypt that we admire at today in a museum? The act of getting money is not devoid of the context of which it was acquired.
In one case, people are viewing something created specifically for people's entertainment. In the other case, it's detritus or grave goods we're viewing.
What a shockingly simplistic view of art you have. It pains me to know that the cultural artifacts of my people will be viewed by you in the same vein as a 30 second TikTok video.
Are you serious? How do you think the clay pot ended up being recovered by an archeologist? There's pretty much two ways...
You should look up some TikTok creators from Egypt, there is plenty of great stuff out there.
The basic premise of your argument as I understand it is that art is something you see in museums or art is something that has been gated by age or by scholars or by "cultural significance". This is not how art works, some great works were discovered long after the artist had died. TikTok creators create art, some of it good, some of it bad, but it's art all the same.
First, I've seen Arabic TikTok creators and I don't need to be lectured about their presence and content.
Second, that is not the argument I am making. The ancient Egyptian clay pot at a museum was just an example. I stated the act of getting money is not devoid of the context of which it was acquired when it comes to art.
Well, in the same way, producing TikTok content is creation, but watching TikTok content of others isn't (just like looking at other people dancing isn't creation either).
