Jan 04, 2021 update:
For an updated version of the TLVIV New Dogma - Please see:
https://tlviv.com/pages/tlviv-new-dogma

The Tel Aviv New Dogma In Brief:

Art happens in the viewer’s mind, or heart, it is the process of interpretation, therefore anyone who interprets an artifact is an artist. Anyone who takes part in creating an artifact is a creator. Any action aimed to affect Human sensation constitutes an artifact  - tangible as a sculpture, or, intangible as music, or even a joke.  

'Art is the process of interpretation, it happens in the interpreting mind, hence  the viewer, or more accurately the experiencer, is the artist'
[TLVIV New Dogma].

 

Introduction:

All worthy to be break art rules are already broken. Even the most anarchist forms of avant-garde are Deja Vu obsolete. Thus the only important question in contemporary art is – Where to?

Art in general, and modern art in particular have exhausted all territories of original innovation under the conventional definitions of art. The status of no more rules to challenge poses a question mark on the significance, contribution, and necessity of new art. 

Technological advancements - the ease, the speed, and the technical quality, in which anyone can produce overload of artifacts (music, video, print, stills) – emphasize this question of: Where to?

In addition to doing old things in new ways, technology presses to answer that question by offering new instrument for artistic expression; Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Optics (e.g. 3D, Holograms), Nano Tech, Bio-Tech, and many more.

However, the greatest challenges technology brings are deep learning, deep fake, and above all artificial intelligence that undermines the conventional definitions of art.

Philosophical questions are becoming practical. If an intelligent machine creates an artifact designed especially to manipulate human emotions, exceeding by far any humanly made artistic creation, is it art?

The "Art where to?" Question, and Tech driven challenges, require to go back to the most basic question: What is Art?

 

Art by TLVIV's New Dogma

 

What is Art?

Art is the process of interpreting an artifact.

 

What is an Artifact?

Any action aimed to affect Human sensation constitutes an artifact, tangible like a painting that proceeds to exist after creation was ended, or intangible as music. 

This definition is wide and includes almost anything from a silly commercial to Humanity's greatest artistic achievements. Hence the real question is what constitutes good art, or good artifacts. 

 

What is good art?

Good art is measured not by its intensity - almost any low grade horror movie has stronger effect than Picasso's Guernica - rather by its contribution to the public vocabulary, or to the process of extracting meaning from the private vocabulary of the creator to the public shared language, or to the process of interpreting artifacts.

 

The Viewer is the Artist, the Artist is a Creator.

Art happens in the viewer's mind or heart, thus the Artist is the interpreter of an artifact. According to this Copernican view point the conventional use of the term Artist should be replaced by creator. Anyone who participates in the process of creation is a creator, anyone who interprets an artifact is an artist.

 

Truth in Art

Truth in art is the right interpretation of a given artifact. Right and wrong are decided, neither by the creator, nor by the viewer, but by the public language in the same way that the right meaning of a word is determined by an updated dictionary. Often the right interpretation is too complex, or too private to a degree that it lacks sufficient anchoring points in the public language. The absence of a decisive right interpretation does not mean that contradicting "truths" coexist (relativism).

Art's Law of Conservation of Mass - an Artifact Cannot Exprees Nothing.

Da Da as an artistic representation of meaningless signs is impossible. An artifact by definition triggers the interpretation process, regardless whether there is a meaning to be found. Even if the database is empty from a pattern. For example a painting consists of random splashes of paint. The paint stains call for interpretation, thus these random splashes have at least one meaning which is running the process of interpretation on a database empty of this particular pattern.    

Modern Art Vs. Other Categories of Art.

Categories of art are made for orientation and classification. Hashtagging an artifact as classical, modern, ethnical, or other is part of the process of interpretation.  Most of the time classification indeed helps – but cannot be taken for granted especially with landmark artifacts.

Modern art is about running the process of interpretation but with less to hold on to. Differing from classical art the context is not as well defined.  Interpretation effort of classical art can hold to circumstances of creation such as, creator, commissioner, sponsor, historical context, realistic figures, and many more relevant details.  

Interpreting modern Art, the interpreters find themselves navigating without a map or compass. This requires an intellectual effort that often leads to emotional binary reaction of like or dislike. Seemingly, interpretation of modern art tends to trigger sensation of uncertainty more than classical art;  How to interpret the artifacts? Is the interpretation pragmatic or out of the field of overinterpretation? On which database interpretation effort should run?

However classical art is not that different from modern art. Many of Humanity's greatest creators worked in times or places where freedom of speech was limited at best, or even life risking. The strict rules of composition posed an even greater challenge, yet creators had found ways to express their truth which could be very different from the common interpretation of the relevant artifacts.

 

The Commerce effect:

What Is Commercial Art?

If acquiring or experiencing Art or an artifact involves a transaction – then it is a commercial art or artifact. 

What Is the Relation between High Commercial Value and Quality of Art?

Allegedly there is none, since the commercial value is determined by Market doers, such as critics, curators, Museums, Galleries, and Art buyers, all with commercial interest pretty much like investors who have interest in their portfolios. History provides plenty of examples for great landmark artifacts that had almost zero value, whereas insignificant artifacts were sold for millions and now worth nothing. However, outrageous sums of purchase tend to secure an entrance to the public language.

 

Abstract:

The TLVIV New Dogma redefines Art as the process of interpretation, and reconstructs the roles of, and relations between, Audience = Artists, Creators, Artifacts, Museums, and private-to-public language.

 

Citation Information: 

TLVIV Art Blog, TLVIV's New Dogma – The Theory. https://tlviv.com/blogs, Nov. 2019. 

 

TLVIV Art Blog,  Nov. 14, 2019 
V. 1

V. 2 April 4, 2020 (Minor proofing)

V. 3 April 12, 2020 (Proofing)

V. 4 July 19, 2020 (Proofing) 

(C) 2019