How/why music causes emotion?

Ryan_m_b

I don't see a problem with this. It's like art, it can literally be anything yet we still have a use for the word. The way I see it music and art are so loosely defined (not necessarily a bad thing) that it's isn't unreasonable to apply them to almost anything however they are still very useful as words because when we use them we're normally referring to a narrow range of things that we would collectively think of first.

IMO it's because there isn't necessarily any similarity between two recordings that people would call music or two objects that people would call art. It's the classic "music today is just noise" problem where for some people certain things count as music and for others they can literally be nothing but a collection of noises. Place what the latter think is music next to the former and you don't necessarily find similarities.

zoobyshoe

You're a biologist, right? If art can be anything, then biology is art. If biology is art, art must also, therefore, be biology. Therefore, I, as an artist, am a biologist. I honestly can't tell you what an enzyme is, but since everything is everything else, I am a biologist.

fuzzyfelt

Sharing views similar to some points made by some like Ryan, Ben and Atyy, I’ve enjoyed how they’ve been expressed and illustrated very much.

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=e...w=1111&bih=857

Ryan_m_b

Lol funny but not quite firstly just because biology can be art doesn't mean that art is biology (all X can be Y but not all Y can be X). Secondly the term artist and biologist generally refer to people who get paid to do work in those respective fields so its easier to define.

zoobyshoe

So, when is biology art? Are you an artist when you do your biological thing?

Ryan_m_b

Art is really in the eye of the beholder, but as I said above there are many things more recognisable as art because the majority of people find them so (or alternatively the art world define it as so and people go along with it). For most of what I do I doubt many people would get any aesthetic satisfaction from viewing or otherwise experiencing it. But if I were to do a fluorescent stain like the one shown below (which I didn't do but took from google) it would probably be a different story.

BenG549

Arguably anything creative can be artistic; intelligent, innovative, creative use of knowledge could be considered artistic in any field. I used mathematics as an example earlier but there is no reason why it couldn't apply to any other scientific field.

BenG549

If this is what you mean my visual rhythm I think I get it. Analogous to John Cage intentionally playing in wacky (seemingly random) time signatures... and someone who can't play in time?

Just never heard the term visual rhythm before.

zoobyshoe

Pretty, but is it art? If yes, who's the artist? Were they stained in order to be pretty? Was the photo record made in order to communicate how pretty they are? There are lots of things that quite incidentally happen to be aesthetically pleasing without that being their intended purpose.

You might make a bunch of stains specifically in order to bring out how pretty they can be, photograph them, and present them, but at that point you would no longer be doing biology.

Try again: when is biology art?

Ryan_m_b

As I said art is in the eye of the beholder. If someone looks at this and gets aesthetic satisfaction then for them it's art. There isn't necessarily an artist in the sense that the maker might not refer to themselves as one even though it would be tempting to call them one. It comes down to whether or not you think to be an artist requires intent which is separate to the issue of whether or not art requires intent to be art (I'd argue no).
I'd argue that intent is irrelevant. Consider that intent can't necessarily be derived from the piece but can still be considered art. This is easiest to see in more "out there" pieces of art that resemble every day items like unmade beds, piles of rubbish, pieces of equipment etc. You could easily set up an exhibit wherein one such piece was intentional and one was left by the janitor and people wouldn't be able to tell which had intent and which didn't and could consider both art.

To look at it another way just the other day I saw on TV a man repeatedly describing an old bridge as a work of art. He was rapturous in describing the emotions he felt looking at the bridge which wasn't that special to look at at all and I doubt the designers and builders intended it to be art. Most likely they intended it to be a means to cross the river. But that doesn't change how the person viewing it felt.
I feel I've already addressed this but its worth noting that focusing on making images as aesthetically pleasing as possible can be important work as a biologist e.g. To create easy and pleasing to read papers.
I don't feel I have to try again though I invite you to try again at understanding my point, now elaborated.

EDIT: to get back to the topic of music, is there a concrete definition that can take into account such disparate pieces as rap with no music and orchestras? If not then if say this question falls in line with art which makes it a more complex question regarding the neurological basis for aesthetics.

BenG549

Well you've said it's pretty, which is an artistic property. You have made the point that information content and artistic qualities exist together in speech, can this not be said of Ryan's example? If I hadn't been told what it was I might look at it and say "that's a nice picture" to me it looks artistic.


A lot of people would describe these things as artistic. Didn't a urinal appear in the tate recently, I'm sure it's origonal purpose was not to be art but someone took it home who had different ideas... now it's famous art.


What stops intelligent, innovative, creative use of knowledge (in any field) being arguably artistic?

zoobyshoe

You're simply conflating the words "art" and "pretty" (and whatever near synonyms mean aesthetically attractive).

art
/ärt/
Noun
The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture,...: "the art of the Renaissance"

Works produced by such skill and imagination.

You can get aesthetic satisfaction from all kinds of things without them being art. Art requires an artist and the intention to create art. Minimum.

At this point you're no longer doing biology. You're doing graphic art. See? If you are photographing amoeba and you decide to wait until the one on the left moves out of the frame in order to have a better composition, you are, briefly, doing photography and not biology.

Ryan_m_b

I disagree that intent is required for the reasons I've stated. Also I'm not conflating pretty as shown by my comment regarding certain types of modern art and my example of the man calling a bridge a work of art. The experience is far more than visual enjoyment, hence why I use the word aesthetic.

To reiterate my thought experiment: if I showed you a bunch of objects stuck together without telling you if the intent was art or not (or if there was any intent at all, it might have been thrown together by a machine) could you not say it was art on the basis of how it made you feel? And if it was made by machine and I put it in a gallery would that make it art? Even though no artistic intent went into its creation? And bringing this back to music has there not been entirely machine created music? Is that not art because there is no intent?
I think you're being too reductionist with this. That's like saying that organising cell stocks isn't biology, it's organisation. Or that ordering stocks isn't because it's admin. Or that putting a plate into a micro plate reader and adjusting the settings isn't etc etc. Why can't photography be a part of biology if its important to the process of research and publication?

zoobyshoe

What I said was a lot more complex than that:

I agree, it could be mistaken for a deliberate work of art. Art often mimics biological and natural dynamics.
By which they would mean they find them aesthetically pleasing. I do too. I could see people using an image like this as a screen saver. It's a coincidence, though. That doesn't make it less pretty, it just makes it not-art.
Art can be hijacked for non-artistic purposes. Propaganda, for example:

Dada was "anti-art" in the service of a political point. A lot of people never got over Dada and resurrected its "anti-art" aesthetic for shock value at various times. The urinal was one of those times. You're supposed to wonder how the hell it ever got put in a museum.
Nothing, but it's one thing to say, "Theory x is elegant and aesthetically pleasing." and saying, "Therefore, theorist x has demonstrated that physics is a form of art."

zoobyshoe

No. This is what I mean by you conflating "art" and "pretty". "Pretty" stands for whatever aesthetic reaction. You can look at a flower, a biology stain, a cat, or a person and feel the aesthetic effect they inevitably have on you without them being art. I don't turn a flower into art by looking at it and becoming fascinated. It's not art till I draw it, and it's not art after I draw it. The drawing of it is the art.



All those things aren't biology, just like I'm not doing art when I empty my pencil sharpener or go buy art materials, or wash graphite smudges off my hands.

Ryan_m_b

We have different definitions of pretty because I find little of Magritte's works pretty but many aesthetically pleasing. Regarding a flower you're right I don't think natural things are art, I think they have to be created by people but that doesn't mean you can't get the same feeling towards natural things.
So what is biology then? I'd say that biology is the study of living organisms and doing biology includes all the parts of the process.

BenG549

Yeah but I didn't want to take up soo much space posting your entire comment, I thought my comment would make sense without it, my bad. I'll take that back.

Interesting that you feel that art must be deliberate... to use a similar example to Ryan. If I fell over and dropped everything I had on the floor. Then someone said NO BEN DON'T TOUCH IT... took a picture of it and then a year later some said I want to buy that picture if you its an interesting bit of modern art... at what point did it become art? There is no intent to create art, but a picture of my mess is in the tate.

Bit picky but I don;t think art has to be aesthetic (assuming that means purely visual). Physics and scientific theories can be considered art without artistic intent... physics is not art.