Form: Reply

—“CURT: QUESTION: THE ECONOMICS OF THE PERCEPTION OF ART?”—

Could you recommend any works on Art Theory? I have been looking a bit into Rand’s Romantic Manifesto.

(CD: honestly – and this will surprise people – as far as I know (and I know) there aren’t any better. My work is an extension of the RM. And honestly it’s the best most important piece she wrote and in my opinion the only piece with long term value. It influenced me greatly. If you add Gary Becker’s economic analysis of art I think you get the rest of it.)

It seems the absence of art (silence, non-action) achieves non-imposition of costs whereas the act of art always imposes costs.

(CD: I would say is broken into two statements.

1- Markets require attention seeking – that is how we reduce opportunity costs: density of opportunity and density of attention opportunities.

2- Some commons offer aesthetic attention seeking as an alternative to ‘unordered’, wild or unmaintained, commons. A well manicured park with statues of men of arts and letters is a pretty good place to be.

3- Not all commons are available for attention seeking, or attention-drawing, – and in fact that is what ‘sacred’ means.

4- Not all people possess the ability and training to respect sacred spaces, and they must be protected from such people.)

Are all actions of an individual considered art?

– No.

(CD: I would say that art consists of that which the actor intends to invest in obtaining attention by the expenditure of resources for the provision of aesthetic returns. in other words, we choose to invest in the aesthetics of any given craft (making) for the purpose of attention to the decoration of mind, time and space in all that term’s possible meanings.)

Who defines what is art and what is not?

– Consumers, viewers, participants.

(CD: Um, I would say no, that art is what it is across the spectrum of childish to amateurish, to professional, to iconic, to revolutionary. I would say that craft, design, editorial, and art are very different things. i would say some people engage in fraud that takes advantage of consumer ignorance, and that the value of art is determined by long term market forces (what survives the competition between fashion and ignorance).

(CD: many goods are brought to market, those that survive in the market survive, those that don’t do not. What is an attempt at art is defined above. what succeeds at art is determined by a series of markets, the most common of which is REFERENCE BY OTHER ARTIST: by imitation.

Art is worthy of perception.

– Perception costs are time and energy.

(CD: the market determines whether it is worthy of perception, most art is not worthy of perception just like most products are not worthy of consumption. The difference is that it is easier to find a sucker for bad art than it is to find a sucker for a bad car, and far harder to find a sucker for a poorly tailored bit of clothing.)

Are all actions of an individual considered art?

– No. Who defines what is art and what is not? Consumers, viewers, participants. Art is worthy of perception. Perception costs are time and labor.

(CD: We would use a slighting different set of terms I suggest you adopt: Art competes for attention. Attention is a resource, consisting of time and energy. The returns on attention are either there, or they are not. Given that the returns vary from the free association the art causes for the individual, for people who see his possession of it, for public use, and for public ceremonial use, the chances of providing that return are highly dependent upon the craft, design, content, scale, of the piece. What you put in your bathroom, your guest bath, your living room, your office, a court building, and a church hold different standards.)

Viewers perceive, recognize and set value on something. Perception and recognition cost time and labor. Similar to how consumers set prices. An act of art doesn’t exist because its up to it is a viewer value judgement.

(CD: Hmmmm. Art is a product like any other. Books are a product like any other. tools are products like any other. You must undrestand the language and context of the book to buy and use it for returns. You must understand the possible operations and context of use of a tool to buy and use it for returns. )

(CD: the problem in your reasoning is as usual one of grammar. People create products. Those products serve a function or not (satisfy a market demand). Those products serve sufficient market demands to sell or not (provide marginal value necessary for incentive to exchange). Those exchanges(investments) survive the market for aesthetic competition over time, for the intended market whether individual, group, polity, world).

Here is what you might be searching for: Public art of any kind is dependent on shares strategy, values, knowledge, and experience. Lacking those shared properties it is no longer possible to produce art that does not impose a cost instead of provide a return.

Everything is open to economic analysis under propertarianism.)