Random Thoughts

[kphoger]

A few hundred iterations of randomly generated static chosen by a mathematical process as being the most similar to a dog, where 'dog' means the average of a few thousand images of dogs, doesn't exactly scream "creative process" to me.

Have you explored the music of John Cage?

[JayhawkCO]

Have you explored the music of John Cage?

I didn't know he made music.

[Scott5114]

So with my previous post in mind...

AI art exists to please just enough people but if ten people ask for the same exact prompt, and receive the same conceptualized drawing, is that art?

All that means is all 10 people had the same seed number.

What if it drew it 10 different ways because it was always learning and refining...would that be art?

All that means is all 10 people had different seed numbers.

As always, there is no ghost in the machine.

Have you explored the music of John Cage?

I assume you're referencing his most famous work, 4'33". (I haven't explored any of his other work.) I've always thought that was kind of a cop-out by Cage, because, well, it's just silence and he's making a big deal out of it. But he intentionally published 4'33" to send the message that the sounds of everyday life can be considered "music", in a sense. I wouldn't consider the random sounds that occur during a performance of 4'33" to be art. But I do consider Cage's act of publishing it to be art. Hair-splitting, probably. But, hey, by me saying I don't like it, I have an opinion about it! I am feeling in a way by Cage's decision to make silence happen! That's art!

[kphoger]

Have you explored the music of John Cage?

I assume you're referencing his most famous work, 4'33". (I haven't explored any of his other work.)

No, actually, I was referring to his other work.

For example, check out Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (March No. 2) and tell me if you think it's art of not.

Then learn about how he composed Music of Changes and tell me if it's art or not.

[Scott5114]

For example, check out Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (March No. 2) and tell me if you think it's art of not.

This piece consists of only one movement and the average duration for it is 4 minutes. It is scored for 12 radios, each radio calling for two performers, and a conductor. Its score looks like a conventional score, with the slight difference that here a half inch equals a quarter note. However, accelerandos and ritardandos are also present in the score. It is prefaced by an extensive explanation on the indication of durations, station tunings, dynamics (numbers ranging from 3 to 15, 3 being turned on but inaudible, 15 being maximum volume). According to Cage, all of these performance parameters were determined by chance operations, rather than conscious decisions.

At first, I was thinking this is probably art, because, well, he made the decision to have twelve radios in particular, rather than eight or sixteen or nine. But then at the end of the paragraph it's revealed that these were also determined randomly. So for me it's borderline—if he, say, threw dice to determine the number of radios and ended up with 12, he did still decide to keep the 12 rather than say "that's too many radios" and throw the dice again. I think I like it less than 4'33", though.

Music of Changes is a piece for solo piano by John Cage. Composed in 1951 for pianist and friend David Tudor, it is a ground-breaking piece of indeterminate music. The process of composition involved applying decisions made using the I Ching, a Chinese classic text that is commonly used as a divination system. The I Ching was applied to large charts of sounds, durations, dynamics, tempo and densities.

I'm afraid I don't know enough about the I Ching to be able to answer one way or another. But from a quick glance, it sounds like there is some degree of interpretation of the I Ching going on—if so, that would probably be art.

[kphoger]

I'm afraid I don't know enough about the I Ching to be able to answer one way or another. But from a quick glance, it sounds like there is some degree of interpretation of the I Ching going on—if so, that would probably be art.

Imagine generating three random numbers.  The first number would give you the page number in a particular edition of the South American novel Cien años de soledad.  The second number would give you the line number on that page.  The third number would give you the character in that line, from left to right.  Type that character;  spaces count as characters so, if it's a space, then enter a space.  Every time you encounter a punctuation mark, generate another random number to find out whether to continue on, enter a paragraph break, or start a new chapter.  Before any of this, however, you've already generated a random number to tell you at what point to stop the process.

When you've finished this process, is the result a work of literature?  After all, a famous literary work was used in its creation.  Does that qualify it as a work of art?

That's akin to how John Cage used the I Ching to compose Music of Changes.

And if your answer is still that this hypothetical piece of literature is indeed a work of art, then what if you instead had a computer script do it all for you in a matter of seconds?  Does that change the answer?

[Scott5114]

I'm afraid I don't know enough about the I Ching to be able to answer one way or another. But from a quick glance, it sounds like there is some degree of interpretation of the I Ching going on—if so, that would probably be art.

Imagine generating three random numbers.  The first number would give you the page number in a particular edition of the South American novel Cien años de soledad.  The second number would give you the line number on that page.  The third number would give you the character in that line, from left to right.  Type that character;  spaces count as characters so, if it's a space, then enter a space.  Every time you encounter a punctuation mark, generate another random number to find out whether to continue on, enter a paragraph break, or start a new chapter.  Before any of this, however, you've already generated a random number to tell you at what point to stop the process.

When you've finished this process, is the result a work of literature?  After all, a famous literary work was used in its creation.  Does that qualify it as a work of art?

That's akin to how John Cage used the I Ching to compose Music of Changes.

And if your answer is still that this hypothetical piece of literature is indeed a work of art, then what if you instead had a computer script do it all for you in a matter of seconds?  Does that change the answer?

I would say that is at best borderline, because there is no decision making in the process. (And it probably wouldn't qualify as literature either, since the resulting work is likely to not be comprehensible.) The only reason I say "borderline" rather than a straight "no" is because there was some artistic license in the selection of that particular book rather than, say, How to Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie or Programming Perl by Larry Wall.

But if you had the option to overrule the random character selection process because it selected something that didn't make sense, or you didn't like what it was giving you...then it would be art.

[kphoger]

(And it probably wouldn't qualify as literature either, since the resulting work is likely to not be comprehensible.)

Are there forms of comprehensible literature that do not qualify as art?  Does the written transcript of a pastor's sermon qualify as art?  Does the written transcript of a TV news report qualify as art?  The instruction manual for assembling a crib?  A set of driving directions you text to someone coming in from out of town?  A grocery list arranged by aisle number?  A grocery list not arranged in any particular order?

So let's look at the other part of my definition of art, communicating a message.

If I paint a canvas by some means of randomness, but in doing so I have a message that I intend to convey to people who look at it, does that make it fundamentally more art-like than if I had painted it without any message that I intended to convey?

Is Rothko's Orange, Red, Yellow a work of art?  What message was he communicating?  Do you even know he had a message to communicate?  If I had painted it with no particular message in mind, would it still be art?

[Scott5114]

Are there forms of comprehensible literature that do not qualify as art?  Does the written transcript of a pastor's sermon qualify as art?  Does the written transcript of a TV news report qualify as art?  The instruction manual for assembling a crib?  A set of driving directions you text to someone coming in from out of town?  A grocery list arranged by aisle number?  A grocery list not arranged in any particular order?

- Written transcripts: the sermon itself is clearly art, and so is the TV news report—for the lattersomeone wrote the story, designed the graphics, etc. If the transcript is just the words the pastor spoke with no embellishments, it's a recording medium, not art. (I think we would all agree that ordinary blank copy paper is not art.) If the transcriber adds something like "And the LORD said to him... [Reverend John looks up with a little smile]" then it is becoming art.
- The instruction manual for assembling a crib is art. Why? Well, because I have opinions about how good furniture-instruction manuals are. Ikea ones are very good and easy to follow, and generally have you work on one piece at a time in a sensible order. Office Depot ones are complicated and assume that you are assembling the furniture on the sort of endless plane you see in high-school physics problems, so you can spread out all thirty-two pieces to the drawers and add cams to all of them at once. If something can intentionally be made good or bad, it's probably art. (For that matter, the crib itself is art.)
- A set of driving directions you text to someone coming in from out of town: I made a set of these for a family member once that included a little hand drawn map and everything. That can be art. If you just copy-pasted the instructions off of Google Maps, it's not art; you didn't make any artistic decisions.
- Grocery lists: it depends on the reason the items are in the order they are in. In the order that you thought of them, no, you're not putting any intention behind the order they're in. By aisle number, no, you just sorted it. That's basically the same thing as alphabetization, which I think most people would not consider art. But if you arrange the items so that they have a particular rhythm to them that you think sounds good, you just wrote a poem. That's art.

If I paint a canvas by some means of randomness, but in doing so I have a message that I intend to convey to people who look at it, does that make it fundamentally more art-like than if I had painted it without any message that I intended to convey?

Probably yes, because in order to communicate the idea, you have to make decisions that make it easier for the audience to arrive at the idea you are communicating. If they don't arrive at that idea...well, it's not a very effective piece of art, but you get a star for trying, at least.

This question sort of reminds me of a piece that is just a pile of candy that visitors are encouraged to help themselves to. But the weight of the starting pile of candy is equal to the healthy weight of the artist's boyfriend. The pieces being taken from the pile by the visitors, and the pile's declining weight, represent how AIDS caused the boyfriend's body to waste away until he died. That's telling a story—that's art.

Is Rothko's Orange, Red, Yellow a work of art?  What message was he communicating?  Do you even know he had a message to communicate?  If I had painted it with no particular message in mind, would it still be art?

I would say it's a work of art for sure. He chose the colors and the proportions of each of them to put on the canvas. But because it's not exactly clear what, if any, message he's communicating with it, or why he might have chosen those colors, I don't think I like it very much. But other people do. That's fine; not everything has to be for me.

[kphoger]

If the transcript is just the words the pastor spoke with no embellishments, it's a recording medium, not art. (I think we would all agree that ordinary blank copy paper is not art.) If the transcriber adds something like "And the LORD said to him... [Reverend John looks up with a little smile]" then it is becoming art.

What about using a scribe to record your words?

In the apostle Paul's epistle to the Galatians, he at one point wrote, "See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand [verse 6:11]".  But in his epistle to the Romans, the scribe named himself in verse 16:22 by writing, "I Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord".  Does that mean the sixth chapter of Galatians is a work of art but Romans is not, because Paul wrote the former himself but not the latter?  Or is Romans "becoming art" because Tertius added that little bit to it?  What about all the other epistles of Paul, which give no indication of whether he used a scribe or not?

I find it strange to think that a speech is a work of an art but, if you write it down, then it's no longer art.  How about the speech Ain't I a Woman by Sojourner Truth?  She was illiterate.  If I purchase a copy of the speech, do I now possess a work of literary art?

[kphoger]

For those interested in the nature of the question, I highly recommend this video:

https://youtu.be/cvmm0f92L-k?si=lAqKJKAKKIVki5Rh

Edited to add:  Whoops, wrong video.  I meant this one.
https://youtu.be/l7xIS_Gobcc?si=TNurMqv4wXm-fX_A

Leaving the first one in my post, though, because it's also a good one that's tangentially related.

[Scott5114]

I find it strange to think that a speech is a work of an art but, if you write it down, then it's no longer art.

The speech is still art, it's just in a different form.

You'll hopefully forgive me for skipping over the Biblical examples, since I'm not familiar enough with the history of its creation to feel like I can give an adequate answer that doesn't overlook some aspect of it. So here's a perhaps simpler example.

Suppose Barack Obama (just picking him because he's the first living person I can think of who is known for his public speaking ability, and also so I can make a lame joke at the end of this paragraph) comes to Las Vegas and he gives a good speech, and I sit in the audience and transcribe it, just his words, and nothing else. Then I share it on the internet. (To not run down an irrelevant rabbit hole, let's also say after the speech he personally came up to me and gave me a notarized statement that he wrote it himself and didn't use a ghostwriter, and I gave him a hearty handshake and said "Thanks, Obama.")

Who is the artist? Clearly, it's Obama; while I put in the effort to transcribe it, he's the one who wrote and delivered the actual words. I didn't actually add anything to it. I didn't create anything new, Obama did. So while the transcription itself is labor, it isn't art. But the content of the transcription—the speech—is. (Sort of how a blank canvas is not art, but when you paint something on it, it is.)

Now suppose I take that transcription and give it an interesting layout and interesting typography and add a badly-drawn picture of him in the corner. Now I have made an artistic decision. Now both the transcription and the speech are art.

Copyright law is not a great 1:1 for where the line is between between art and not art, but Feist v. Rural at least grapples with the the same question.

[JayhawkCO]

I find it strange to think that a speech is a work of an art but, if you write it down, then it's no longer art.

The speech is still art, it's just in a different form.

You'll hopefully forgive me for skipping over the Biblical examples, since I'm not familiar enough with the history of its creation to feel like I can give an adequate answer that doesn't overlook some aspect of it. So here's a perhaps simpler example.

Suppose Barack Obama (just picking him because he's the first living person I can think of who is known for his public speaking ability, and also so I can make a lame joke at the end of this paragraph) comes to Las Vegas and he gives a good speech, and I sit in the audience and transcribe it, just his words, and nothing else. Then I share it on the internet. (To not run down an irrelevant rabbit hole, let's also say after the speech he personally came up to me and gave me a notarized statement that he wrote it himself and didn't use a ghostwriter, and I gave him a hearty handshake and said "Thanks, Obama.")

Who is the artist? Clearly, it's Obama; while I put in the effort to transcribe it, he's the one who wrote and delivered the actual words. I didn't actually add anything to it. I didn't create anything new, Obama did. So while the transcription itself is labor, it isn't art. But the content of the transcription—the speech—is. (Sort of how a blank canvas is not art, but when you paint something on it, it is.)

Now suppose I take that transcription and give it an interesting layout and interesting typography and add a badly-drawn picture of him in the corner. Now I have made an artistic decision. Now both the transcription and the speech are art.

Copyright law is not a great 1:1 for where the line is between between art and not art, but Feist v. Rural at least grapples with the the same question.

But what happens if you transcribed his speech when you were in a small Turkish town now called İznik? 

[Scott5114]

But what happens if you transcribed his speech when you were in a small Turkish town now called İznik? 

Well, I'd just have to eat cheese then.

[kphoger]

So while the transcription itself is labor, it isn't art. But the content of the transcription—the speech—is.

I think it's a meaningless distinction, between the spoken word and the written word.  Both are the speech.

[JayhawkCO]

So while the transcription itself is labor, it isn't art. But the content of the transcription—the speech—is.

I think it's a meaningless distinction, between the spoken word and the written word.  Both are the speech.

I think Scott's distinction is, "who is the artist?".

[1995hoo]

I find it strange to think that a speech is a work of an art but, if you write it down, then it's no longer art.

The speech is still art, it's just in a different form.

You'll hopefully forgive me for skipping over the Biblical examples, since I'm not familiar enough with the history of its creation to feel like I can give an adequate answer that doesn't overlook some aspect of it. So here's a perhaps simpler example.

Suppose Barack Obama (just picking him because he's the first living person I can think of who is known for his public speaking ability, and also so I can make a lame joke at the end of this paragraph) comes to Las Vegas and he gives a good speech, and I sit in the audience and transcribe it, just his words, and nothing else. Then I share it on the internet. (To not run down an irrelevant rabbit hole, let's also say after the speech he personally came up to me and gave me a notarized statement that he wrote it himself and didn't use a ghostwriter, and I gave him a hearty handshake and said "Thanks, Obama.")

Who is the artist? Clearly, it's Obama; while I put in the effort to transcribe it, he's the one who wrote and delivered the actual words. I didn't actually add anything to it. I didn't create anything new, Obama did. So while the transcription itself is labor, it isn't art. But the content of the transcription—the speech—is. (Sort of how a blank canvas is not art, but when you paint something on it, it is.)

Now suppose I take that transcription and give it an interesting layout and interesting typography and add a badly-drawn picture of him in the corner. Now I have made an artistic decision. Now both the transcription and the speech are art.

Copyright law is not a great 1:1 for where the line is between between art and not art, but Feist v. Rural at least grapples with the the same question.

Feist is best-known for addressing the "sweat-of-the-brow" doctrine and whether arranging public information in an obvious way (alphabetical order by last name) is itself creative enough to support a copyright claim simply because the "author" inserted some fake data. It's a very interesting read for those who enjoy this subject matter.

Your post reminds me of an interesting discussion we had in my law school basic IP class. I wish I could remember the entire discussion, but it's been 29 years. Essentially, we were discussing a point similar to the one you raise, and in a reverse of how law school usually works, I posed a hypothetical to the professor, who I knew to be a huge Grateful Dead fan. Because a person who makes a recording gains a copyright in that recording provided he's not violating someone else's, and because the Dead specifically authorized recording their shows as long as you bought a ticket for the "tapers' section" and set up there, the question I posed was what happens if the Dead later release their own soundboard recording of the same show (whether as part of "Dick's Picks" or whatever). We had an animated discussion that took up most of the class period and I think I recall that the outcome was that the Dead own the copyright in what they released, but because the taper recorded it with permission and was allowed to share copies of his recording with other people via "tape trading" or similar, the taper would retain his rights both in his own recording and as to how he could use that recording consistent with the terms and conditions for recording from the tapers' section.

[kphoger]

You'll hopefully forgive me for skipping over the Biblical examples, since I'm not familiar enough with the history of its creation to feel like I can give an adequate answer that doesn't overlook some aspect of it.

Oh, of course.  Let's change the details for the sake of being on firmer ground.

Letter #1.  There's a political matter that Bob feels passionately about.  Let's say it's about the tariff on horseradish from Hungary.  He writes a letter to his congressman about it.  In the letter, Bob mentions at one point that he had struggled to come up with just the right word to convey his thought (it ended up being piquancy), and he specifically used the phrase "as my fingers hovered over the keyboard".  He mails it to his congressman.  By that one phrase, the congressman know that Bob is the one who personally typed the letter.

Letter #2.  A year later, there's another political matter that Bob feels passionately about.  This time, it's about zoning a specific section of the county for horseradish farming.  What can we say, but the guy really is passionate about horseradish?  He decides to write a letter to the board of county commissioners.  However, two days earlier, Bob broke his arm when he tripped and fell in the parking lot at a farmer's market while he was trying to find some locally sourced horseradish.  So he dictates to his wife Mary, who types the letter for him.  After he's done dictating, Mary decides that her own thoughts on one particular point might make his case even more convincing.  So she inserts a couple of sentences of her own, beginning with the phrase "I, Bob's wife Mary, who have been transcribing this letter for my husband, would like to add".  By that phrase, the county commissioners know that Mary is the one who actually typed the letter.

Letter #3.  Six months later, there is a political matter that has nothing to do with horseradish, but one that Bob nevertheless feels very strongly about.  This time, it's about Daylight Saving Time.  He sends this passionate letter to his congressman, his state representative, his board of county commissioners, and his mayor.  There is no indication anywhere in the letter as to whether he typed it himself or dictated to his wife.

Is there any difference between the three letters when it comes to their being a work of Bob's literary art?

Barack Obama ... Who is the artist? Clearly, it's Obama; while I put in the effort to transcribe it, he's the one who wrote and delivered the actual words. I didn't actually add anything to it. I didn't create anything new, Obama did. So while the transcription itself is labor, it isn't art. But the content of the transcription—the speech—is. (Sort of how a blank canvas is not art, but when you paint something on it, it is.)

1.  Obama writes out a speech, word for word.  He then reads the speech, word for word, at a press conference.

2.  You write out a speech, word for word.  Obama then reads the speech, word for word, at a press conference.

3.  Obama gives an extemporaneous speech at a press conference.  You write down the speech, word for word.

#2 and #3 end up with the exact same result:  a speech that was spoken at a press conference and the same speech written down on paper.  Is that written speech a work of literary art in one scenario but not the other?

140 years later, somebody finds the original written-out speech.  Nobody knows if you're the one who wrote it or if Obama was the one who wrote it.  Nobody knows if the speech was extemporaneous or scripted.  All they know is that Obama delivered that speech at that press conference, and that they know possess the written version of it.  If your answer to the question above was 'yes', then how could a person in this scenario be able to know if the paper in their hand is a work of literary art of not?

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Why isn't there a fourth or eighth Grand Alan?

Since there's a Perkins Union, we need the following:
Denny's Union
IHOP Union
Village Inn Union
Waffle House Union

RIP Embers Union.

[Max Rockatansky]

The standing army from the Waffle House Union is quite something in regards to hand-to-hand combat training.  I've seen them swat chairs out of the air like it was no big deal.

[Max Rockatansky]

The rental car shuttle at SeaTac is only getting worse.  I just spent an hour in line waiting to get on the bus and to the rental car center. 

[kphoger]

Since there's a Perkins Union, we need the following:

RIP Embers Union

Ah yes, the Repeatedly Igniting Pyrotechnical Embers Union.  I'd forgotten about them.  A very strange organization with an even stranger history.  But alas, it long ago outlived its reason for existence.

[Scott5114]

Is there any difference between the three letters when it comes to their being a work of Bob's literary art?

Not really. There's some degree of artistry to Mary's one sentence, though.

3.  Obama gives an extemporaneous speech at a press conference.  You write down the speech, word for word.

If you substitute the word "artistry" with "creativity", does my position make more sense? Because to me they have a lot of overlap. (I will caution that I don't mean the sense of "creativity" that means "novelty". Pokémon games are not very creative because in a sense they are all basically retreads of Pokémon Red, but I would say there's still artistry to them, even if it's not very ambitious artistry.)

If I transcribe an Obama speech word for word and add no annotations, then I have not created anything. All of the creativity was Obama's doing. I am not acting as an artist any more than someone who plops the Mona Lisa down on a Xerox machine set to default is. All I am doing is taking someone else's creativity and repackaging it, So Obama's work is art, and mine is not.

Now, if I start adding annotations, I am creating a new creative work—art—using Obama's as a base. I am adding to it, transforming it. I'm making subjective decisions—after that sentence, did Obama grin, smirk, or smile?

2.  You write out a speech, word for word.  Obama then reads the speech, word for word, at a press conference.

In this situation, you have the text of the speech, written by me, which is art. But then you have Obama's delivery, which is a distinctly different art—as the speaker, he has to make creative decisions about how to deliver the lines I've written. (Imagine the same speech being read by Obama and his successor Donald Trump; they would differ in the speed they speak, which parts of the speech, and which words in each sentence, to emphasize, tone of voice would be different, and so on. So clearly there is some sort of creativity there.)

#2 and #3 end up with the exact same result:  a speech that was spoken at a press conference and the same speech written down on paper.  Is that written speech a work of literary art in one scenario but not the other?

I think you might be conflating the content and the medium. The content of a speech is of course not the physical paper it is written down on. And it is the content, rather than the paper, that the term "art" applies to.

[kphoger]

I think you might be conflating the content and the medium. The content of a speech is of course not the physical paper it is written down on. And it is the content, rather than the paper, that the term "art" applies to.

If the content is not the material medium of paper, then why don't you say the same thing about the material medium of the human voice?  Why does handwriting not qualify the handwritten product as art, while speaking automatically qualifies the speech as art?  Are you suggesting that the act of writing does not involve decisions that could be defined as creative and subjective?  If I write down what you say, am I not required to decide how to punctuate the text in a way that I believe best links the phrases together?  Am I not required to decide where the paragraph breaks belong in a way that I believe best organizes the thoughts?  A colon might imply a connection or progression of thought between two otherwise independent phrases or clauses, whereas a period in the same spot would not.  A double line break would imply the end of one train of thought and the introduction of another, whereas a mere paragraph indention might not.  Are these decisions not a form of literary artistry?

What do you think about ASCII art?  If I send you a work of ASCII art in an e-mail, and you print it out at home, is the thing that comes out of your printer a work of art?

Is it impossible for any deaf person to have ever experienced the art of Winston Churchill's wartime radio broadcasts?