Public opinion & Art
In college, I had the opportunity to choose a special elective in my philosophy program. Which, happened to be the philosophy of beauty. I thought it was going to be slightly more about what makes people beautiful. Boy was I wrong. We discussed topics such as Platos triad of reality, what is art & can public opinion be right. Platos triad of reality is described as such. There are layers of reality. The layer closest to reality would be definitions. The definition of “things” to Plato were realer & more eternal than the physical object. Platos reasoning was that the physical object is subject to change & perish. The physical cannot withstand the test of time the way the definition can. For example a chair can be burned into ashes changing what it is. The chair changed but the definition of a chair did not. Platos second layer would be what we humans interact with. What we are & what we interact with. The third and final layer detachment layer is art. Art is a representation of what exist inside layer two. Even art that is original if that can exist is then created in layer two of reality. To Plato art is the furthest we can get from reality.
This all brings me to NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) which are largely collections of art but seems to be collectables as well. NFT art has caught my eye as an art lover. A lot of what I’m seeing is creatively beautiful. Even better artist are really profiting from their work with this business form mat.
Can public opinion be right about the meaning of NFT art? If a NFT was created with a particular intention to provoke emotion in a specific way. Can the public’s formed opinions about particular art works. Be valid if they differ from the creator?
My opinion is that people have the absolute right to interpret art & be moved however involuntarily that happens. I think that’s okay. However, their opinions are wrong in my opinion. So long as the artist created art with intent. If the artist created art with the intent to be left to interpretation then obviously that is the point of that art work.
Does digital art create an extra layer of Platos reality triad? The future of digital art is only the beginning. It’s possible some digital arts be made into physical form but does that defeat the purpose? Some food for thought on art aligning so closely with technology.
