Saturday, June 8, 2013

Subjectivity, Effort and Art

There is no such thing as writing without effort.
In a way, writing = effort.
The more effort you put into it, the more you will get out of it.
The same goes for creating.
Creating = effort.
The more effort you put into it, the more you will get out of it.
Games, movies, TV shows, books, music, storytelling, acting, crafting, drawing, sandwich creating...

HOWEVER...

Art. This blog post suddenly looks a lot classier.

How much effort is needed before something can be considered "art" and enjoyed by the public? Marcel Duchamp, the founder of the Dada art movement and creator of this inherently fabulous piece of art (in which he took a porcelain urinal, inscribed R MUTT 1917 on the side, and exclaimed "THIS IS ART"), would probably say something along the lines of "Art does not have to be about effort. I chose; therefore my choice is art." The act of deciding to pass off a signed porcelain urinal as art is, in itself, art. Basically, according to people like Duchamp, anything can be art.

It's a valid theory, and one I'm incline to agree with whenever I'm stuck trying to create something. I'd think back to this urinal and say to myself "Man, I'm tired. Oh well. I'll just create something in like five seconds and pass it off as avant-garde". And then I'd write a poem or something, like this:

DOG (by me)
The dog.

And then, ideally, some art critic somewhere would write some review like:

Critic's Review of the Poem DOG (by me)
Wow. This here, my fellow fellows, is an amazing poem; a completely enlightening experience. The poem is so...so SIMPLE...all it takes is five words (less than three letters each), and already the image of a dog is conjured in my mind! Wow! There must be a deeper meaning behind this masterful work of art. The poem highlights the relationship between written word and mental perception, the HIDDEN BEAUTY behind aligning simple two-letter and three-letter words in his or her eyes and transferring that simplicity over to the subconscious, the mind-eye, where a complex mental image is formed based on the reader's past experiences. So THIS POEM, this AMAZING MASTERPIECE POEM, is basically a portal into the individual soul, representing something DIFFERENT based on an individual's PAST EXPERIENCES. One person reading the poem will imagine a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DOG than the next person, unless there's a Jesus dog out there touching the hearts of many a sentient being. So IN ESSENCE, this poem is a MASTERPIECE.

Wow. Deep.

But really, simplicity can be enjoyed just as much as something more complex. But can effort really be subverted by simplicity? Can art really be interpreted as anything, even as a simple toilet with a signature penned on it?


Sometimes subjectivity pisses on effort, and sometimes that very same subjectivity rewards that very same effort. I think my dog is better than your dog. You think your dog is better than my dog. We both agree that our dogs are better than Harry's sad excuse for a dog. Different opinions on the same dogs, with vastly different results.


Subjectivity, effort and art. It's there; we just can't understand any of it.