Amanda Palmer talks about the meaning of art while being awesome

I am fully aware that no one reads this anymore, but this is excellent, and if anyone happens to stumble across this little blog, I beg you, watch this please. 

Senses Capture

We've talked about art that's observable by sight and hearing, and the possibility of culinary art.  I wonder if, at any point in the future, we'll be creating and observing art that appeals primarily to the senses of smell and touch.  How would that even work?  Just an idle thought I had. 

Improv

Today, I was doing a monologue as Joan of Arc and got a friend to stand onstage with me and sentence me to death.  It was a performance, and while I had rehearsed, I had never rehearsed with him, and as far as I know, he didn't know the play.  As such, he had to improvise his actions and reactions.  In this particular monologue, Joan spends several lines begging for mercy, accusing her accusers of wickedness, and touting her own virtue.  When she sees that her accusers are unmoved, she changes her tack:
"Then, Joan, discover thy infirmity,
Which warranteth by law to be thy privilege:
I am with child, ye bloody homicides!"
I began that last line quietly, and increased volume until I was yelling the word "child" at my friend.  He was visibly startled: his upper body jerked back, his eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open.  A perfect reaction, and completely organic. 
What I'm wondering is this: do you think improv has a place under the heading of art?  Is it more of a craft?  Is it too closely related to simple, cut-and-dry life?  Does its close relation to everyday life keep it from being art?

Lines from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part I

Culinary Arts

I recently tried a dish that a friend of mine made, consisting of vegetables and spices, which was completely covered in aluminum foil and cooked over a fire.  A simple recipe, but delicious and nutritious.  Is this art?  Does its simplicity keep it from being art?  Is it more likely to be art if my friend made up the recipe himself?  Or does the fact that its aesthetic value lies not in the way it looks or sounds, but in the way it tastes and smells, keep it from being art?  It was mentioned in class that the eyes and ears are more objective than the tongue, and that physical tastes are harder to gauge or judge (I forget the exact wording).  But what about acquired tastes? 

Having doubts

I don't know if I can do this.  I've been thinking about it since we talked about it on Monday, and I'm really not sure I can define art.  I realize I have another option, but I had already written a paragraph about how I define art prior to our class discussion.  It seems reasonably true, but I'm worried it's too inclusive.  I'm also worried that there are gaping holes in the logic that I can't or don't want to see.  So I read my paragraph and think about modifying it, taking into consideration what we came up with on Monday, but I'm a little short on space, and anyway, I don't see anywhere in my paragraph that I could open up to more thoughts/information. 
Question: Even if we have some of the pieces, some of the components that we can pretty much definitively say belong to art, is it better to just resist defining art?

To define or not to define art

...That is the question.  Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the possibility of radical inclusion or exclusion, or to take arms against the impulse to define such a slippery topic...

I'm trying to make up my mind.  I'd like to be able to say that I know exactly what art is now, but despite being better-informed, I feel that I'm not much more sure about the definition of art than I was when this class started.  My opinions haven't actually changed very much.

Where do they differ?  How have my thoughts about what makes art "art" evolved?  For one thing, I'm less inclined to bring value judgments into a definition.  Regardless of the level of mastery involved in creating a work, I can look at it and say whether or not it is art (whether or not I'm correct is another matter entirely).  I do feel, even though I am still not entirely assured of my abilities to define art, that I have a better basis for judging a work.  Now, when I look at a painting, I might think about childhood wishes being expressed, or intentionality, or even significant form.  My thoughts on the definition of art lean more toward the mechanics of the craft, I suppose.

Do you choose to define art?  How much of a choice is it?


Title/first paragraph paraphrased from Hamlet, Act III, Scene I.

What are we saying?

During the rehearsal process for The Taming of the Shrew, we were thinking a lot about the text and how we wanted to present it.  Generally speaking, we played up the humor to the fullest extent, and tried to make our characters come across in what we were saying.  Particular difficulties arose when we reached Kate's ending monologue.  The director had a vision for the end of the show that was not explicitly supported by the text, but we went ahead with it anyway.  Of the people I heard from after the shows, a few people understood the somewhat less simple ending we were trying to present, and a few were a bit angry because they did not understand.  I can't, and don't, blame them.

This situation, however, puts me in mind of Collingwood's statement about art existing only in the imagination.  The end result of the art was not what the cast presented onstage, because the process didn't stop there.  The end result was in the minds of the director, the actors, and the audience.  Depending on the person, the words sounded slightly different, the actions meant something slightly different.  That was where the work of art was.

I am content to accept this, but I have to wonder: how well can we gauge the success of a work of art if it really exists in the mind?