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Donald Knuth, 1974 @ CHM

In this portrait of the artist as a young man, bit by bit he realizes that he is a prisoner, yet keeps a hand in both camps.

From comment stream below: I think art is the emergent beauty of computational complexity. We use a process of simple steps to create a pattern or resonant homology to the computational complexity of nature.

Natural beauty, whether fractal or evolved, it the product of iteration. We immediately recognize such constructs as complex and rich (a intricate shell, a landscape). A blank canvas in a gallery or a silent symphony is not art. The art there is at a higher level of abstraction, art in the process itself. The only reason people pay any attention at all to such things is that they represent a symbolic hack to the institution of art, a banner that we’ve been punked.

31 responses to “What is Art?”

  1. pegleg000 Avatar
    pegleg000

    Wow! Knuth! I hadn’t heard that name in years! Somewhere, I’m sure I still have at least one of his books…

    Reply
  2. Ramones Karaoke Avatar
    Ramones Karaoke

    Hmmm. It’s a skill, 99.9% of the time it’s a craft at best. I absolutely agree that it *can* be art, and the finest pieces require a very high level appreciation to have that *shudder* moment as you ‘get it’, but it is seldom practised as such. And I have not had a shudder moment – ‘that is sublime’ – reading a piece of code for over 20 years!

    Reply
  3. angry shock Avatar
    angry shock

    The unnecessary that is yet indisposable for human life as we understand it.

    "The superfluous, a very necessary thing." – Voltaire.

    Reversals of entropy?

    Reply
  4. angry shock Avatar
    angry shock

    Oh, and the picture is brilliant.

    Reply
  5. angry shock Avatar
    angry shock

    Btw… quite redundant the definition: "…because it applies accumulated knowledge to the world […] and specially because it produces objects of beauty."… isn’t beauty (which is of course our appreciation or recognition of such a property or quality of something), but nested complexity? (you taught me that) and isn’t nested complexity but the iteration of applying accumulated knowledge to something? (and isn’t it skill and ingenuity but accumulated knowledge?) Aren’t we talking about the same thing(s) three times?

    Reply
  6. Luc Lagasquie Avatar
    Luc Lagasquie

    I like !

    Reply
  7. Astrocatou Avatar
    Astrocatou

    Seems to me that art,and beauty, is emotional,and subjective,(and contextual)
    "its a work of art"…..says the mother to her 4 year old…..and means it..

    Reply
  8. TrombaMarina Avatar
    TrombaMarina

    I’m going to have to find a way to use this next time I’m asked to explain how I can be a computer programmer with a degree in music composition. Of course, it’s impossible to explain to many people what a computer programmer does, so maybe that wouldn’t help after all.

    I don’t think that beauty is a requirement for art. Look at John Cage’s "Four Minutes and Thirty Three Seconds." You can say you don’t like it, you can say it’s really bad art, but you can’t say it’s not art. It’s a very conceptual art. My take-away is that if you put a frame around something and call it art, it’s art.

    But that still leaves the question, is coding an artistic pursuit? Is it an art, a craft, or a science? As near as I can tell, it’s ideally some of each. You have to learn and practice the techniques like a craft. It absolutely requires scientific thinking and analysis. But to use all that to solve real world problems is an art. But then, a math breakthrough is an art as well (to me), so I’m not sure where that leaves you.

    Love the picture.

    Reply
  9. Astrocatou Avatar
    Astrocatou

    So……I wonder…….can a computer create art ?
    (feed it images of a bunch of famous paintings….)
    🙂

    Reply
  10. solerena Avatar
    solerena

    photography is a form art in its own right, like this particular photo capturing the beauty of the moment together with an idea or a large cluster of ideas… and has a perfect composition in all simplicity and complexity of reflective lights, biological and abstract realms…
    Also Tolstoy has the essay with the same name: "What is art?"
    http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/phil of art/tolstoy.outline.htm
    I had one class once talking about what is art and what is beauty and how it is different in different cultures, times, for different people… each artist has his or her own point of view… art does not always have to be beautiful – for instance political caricature is not beautiful… art also depends as Tolstoy said of what we put emphasis in terms of importance…. Plus beauty is subjective – what is beautiful in one culture might be not so in another… reading life and evolution through codes – computer science or the codes of life is a rather recent trend… and it is reflection in art one way or another is always interesting… and computer science or any science or any human endeavor can be called art when it is done in its best… there is a beauty in ideas, scientific concepts, perfecting any skill… any work of genius… still words “beauty” and “art” are words which are used too much, so they are so loaded with meaning – to become meaningless in a way…
    And Donald Knuth was known for his sense of humor:)

    Reply
  11. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Thanks y’all!

    I just knew that an open question would be better than any symbolic title I could give it…

    Reply
  12. Astrocatou Avatar
    Astrocatou

    And your opinion…?
    (about the text in the image)
    Or at least what you were thinking when you posted this…?
    It raises an interesting point for me……that writing software must involve all kinds of things….which most of us never see,or even think about..

    Reply
  13. steelhive Avatar
    steelhive

    Don’t know about the art question. I was busy checking out the binary for bugs. I’ve never managed to earn one of his reward checks — now drawn on the Bank of San Serriffe!

    Reply
  14. sandhamr Avatar
    sandhamr

    Checking for bugs! Now that’s a beauty!!! LOLOLOL

    Reply
  15. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Dave: I am on phone in Africa so can’t easily look up the images but Kurzweil gives plenty of examples of computer generated art. They are quite beautiful, as they they are the product of iterative algorithms.

    Reply
  16. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    And as for what I think, well, I think art is the emergent beauty of computational complexity. We use a process of simple steps to create a pattern or resonant homology to the computational complexity of nature.

    Natural beauty, whether fractal or evolved, it the product of iteration. We immediately recognize such constructs as complex and rich (a intricate shell, a landscape). A blank canvas in a gallery or a silent symphony is not art. The art there is at a higher level of abstraction, art in the process itself. The only reason people pay any attention at all to such things is that they represent a symbolic hack to the institution of art, a banner that we’ve been punked.

    Reply
  17. Astrocatou Avatar
    Astrocatou

    Thanks…..
    "The only reason people pay any attention at all to such things (blank canvases ?) is that they represent a symbolic hack to the institution of art, a banner that we’ve been punked."

    I think my concept of symbolic hack (and punked) is lacking….will Google..
    Watch out for lions…

    Reply
  18. Astrocatou Avatar
    Astrocatou

    "specific nested complexity"…?

    definition please…(!)

    Reply
  19. solerena Avatar
    solerena

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/24270806@N06]
    San Diego is a great place for arts… something in the air there… computers can pick it up too:D nice find… not all art and beauty is directly linked to nested complexity… what about haiku? complexity could be expressed by a very simple artistic gesture… a hint towards something more complex…

    Reply
  20. TomiTapio Avatar
    TomiTapio

    Yeah but some poetry is just ultra-boring.

    Reply
  21. angry shock Avatar
    angry shock

    Relevant to beauty from the eyes of science (as nested complexity) … a props of this discussion and Knuth’s quote (and my comments at least)

    Murray Gell-Mann on beauty and truth in physics
    http://www.ted.com/talks/murray_gell_mann_on_beauty_and_truth_in...

    Reply
  22. Astrocatou Avatar
    Astrocatou

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/gi]
    Excellent link.

    Reply
  23. solerena Avatar
    solerena

    Yep, cool talk: back to unified field theory and math, I would replace an onion with a rose…sounds sexy. It makes me think: a question is how to make a unified field theory, high level math, theory of everything more attractive? There is not enough attention, money and do not see women there either…thus not enough beauty… I do not want to hijack this post for another topic and might put something on my own photostream…and saw a rather familiar face in the audience…interesting.

    Reply
  24. solerena Avatar
    solerena

    LOL:)

    Reply
  25. Astrocatou Avatar
    Astrocatou

    With apologies to SJ
    http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-jackson-pollock-artist-physi...

    Reply
  26. solerena Avatar
    solerena

    Why, Dave’s article does relate to this post:

    "We are all students of nature, and so was Pollock. Often, artists and artisans are far ahead, as they push boundaries in ways that are quite similar to, and yet different from, how scientists and engineers do the same."

    "Of course, another, much harder, problem," he adds, "is the notion of ‘beauty’ in art or science, which we all can recognize but find hard to quantify."

    Reply
  27. solerena Avatar
    solerena

    🙂

    another great way to use algorithms:

    news.yahoo.com/israeli-algorithm-sheds-light-bible-163128…

    Reply
  28. angry shock Avatar
    angry shock

    wow, great additions to the conversation, I’ll be back!

    Reply
  29. solerena Avatar
    solerena

    and this talk is really beautiful!!! – physics and art together:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-Gk_Ddhr0M

    Reply
  30. Astrocatou Avatar
    Astrocatou

    [http://www.flickr.com/photos/24270806@N06]
    Good article on this in Sunday NYT Business section…
    "Science to Art"….
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/business/science-to-art-and-vi...

    NY…its on the east coast…:)

    Reply
  31. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    Speaking of TED, this photos was just used as the opening visual on a TEDx Talk on deep learning

    Reply

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