On Forms vs. Art Forms

[lhynard]

For the last 7 weeks, my graduate student Christian fellowship on campus has been watching a video series by theologian R.C. Sproul, entitled Recovering the Beauty of the Arts. In this series, Dr. Sproul discusses modern Christianity's seeming fear of the arts and the problematic nature of this issue

Comments

[mathiasroesel]

Communication is not the same as transport of information from one system to another with the information staying the same. That goes without saying, I suppose, and it's why I, as opposed to you, do not agree with the quote:"All forms are art forms, and all art forms communicate something."

Now, as for the latter half of his statement, I agree wholeheartedly
I disagree because, as you said, "communication requires two persons -- a giver and a receiver."Art forms aren't persons but forms, being unable to communicate. Rather, as the well-known saying has it, beauty lies in the eye of the observer. Same goes for transported information.

The other question you raise is what is art. Yet that is a can of worms which I leave to others to open.

[lhynard]

Communication is not the same as transport of information from one system to another with the information staying the same. That goes without saying, I suppose.

I did not intend to imply that it is transport with the information staying the same. On the contrary it never does. Just like in engineering, there is no perfect machine, in communication, there is no perfect medium. (Yet despite our inability to make a perfectly efficient machine, we still have functional machines, and one machine can be said to be better than another objectively.)

I should have been more clear in my post that I believe that art forms are the media through which something is communicated. All communication has to have a medium, a source, and a recipient. When I agree that an art form communicates something, I am implying -- and from the context of his talks, so is Sproul -- that the art is solely the medium and not the source. I guess I would have done better to say that a form without a communicative source is not a medium for any communication and thus

[myopicmeringue]

I think some people are not even thinking about communication when selecting clothes. For myself, I select primarily for comfort. Self-centred reasons. I am aware that some clothes look awful, so try to make myself presentable (but again, that's not communication, but a self-centred desire to avoid being treated with disdain) but beyond that, I'm not bothered. I don't care if people aren't dazzled by my clothes, because I have no particular desire to dazzle anyone. I also don't wear make-up because I don't like the feel of it on my face. Surely it depends on whether a person is more inward focused or more outward focused, and how much their external image matters to them, and how much they want to impress and climb the social/career ladder.

Oh - and my clothes tend to match, because I have good colour sense. Nothing to do with communication. :-)

[lhynard]

Yeah, that's how I see things, too.

Also, for me, I wear low quality clothes to work so as to not worry if they are damaged by acid.