The Mental Process of producing a piece of artwork

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graFXmachiniac's avatar
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There seems to be a considerable difference in the mental process of generating a piece of artwork depending on the purpose of the art:  "artsy" art where the artwork itself is the end product; or "toolish" art where the art is a tool used in making an object (designing and machining a new shape of gear for example, or investigating how things work -- heat loss of your coffee in a new design of a coffee cup).
It would seem that the artsy art process is an expression, primarily, of emotions, feelings and personal thoughts.  This makes the experience of producing a piece of artsy art a fairly cathartic process.  At the other end of the spectrum is "toolish" art (I made up the word) where the artist (usually an engineer, scientist or person of similar interests and training) uses artwork (any graphic image) as a tool to make or investigate real objects or events.  Making a model of an imaginary character is still in the artsy category as it has no counterpart in reality (where the performance of things can be tested and analyzed).
The idea of art as a tool might be analogous to the role of paper plates and bowls on a picnic, along with the disposable flatware.  The pleasure of a picnic meal is the end product and the tools (disposable paper utensils) are merely a convenience.  After the event the tools are not kept or put on display.

The performance measure of most of engineering is "maximum output for a minimum input."  Terms such as "miles per gallon" for your car are part of our common evaluation of performance of cars -- more is better.  Which means the car can travel farther on a minimum input of gasoline.  The styling of a car is only secondarily considered as part of improving this performance criteria.  The shape of cars is evaluated largely as an artsy art object -- how it looks.

To grasp this range of this spectrum of artsy art to toolish art over the next few days or weeks I'll illustrate the idea with a challenge to design the most efficient carrier possible to transporting a sphere and a cone together at the same time.
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smilimalice's avatar
It's a interesting vision ^^
Maybe art and design are a little too separated in this idea? (If I understood well that's the separation you put between "artsy" and "toolish"? But I'm not shure I understood all...) I think that the frontere is much more blurred... for exemple Duchamp's art (with the ready-made) or Ron Arad's armchairs (original editions) which are between pieces of artwork and design (they were the re-editted in plastic).

But I can't wait to see how you will illustrate your idea with you sphere and your cone! x)