Big Think
Noë’s latest book is “Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature” (http://goo.gl/lP37w7).
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Transcript – Pornography is an instrument with a certain function in mind. People use pornography to get sexual pleasure. Frankly it’s for masturbating to. That’s what it’s for. On my theory works of art are not instruments. They don’t have functions. They’re not tools. Works of art subvert functions. They disrupt functions. They interrupt functions. And they do that because the disruption interruption can be revelatory. Because think about a simple tool like a doorknob. We use doorknobs effortlessly. There’s the door. Turn it, walk right through. We don’t stop and think about it. If we do have to stop and think about it there’s probably some problem with the doorknob’s design. But think how much is presupposed by a doorknob. That we have a hand like the kind of hands that we have. That our bodies are the right size that we are. That we live in buildings. That we get from one room to another. So much is presupposed by the institution of the doorknob.
So what would a strange doorknob be? It would be a doorknob that somehow didn’t work or was in the wrong place. And that therefore called all of the stuff just hidden in the background into the foreground and that’s the kind of thing I mean by saying the experience reveals us to ourselves. So in one sense I think there could be pornographic art. There could be art that worked with sex and that worked with explicit sex and that worked with the ingredients of fantasy and the erotic and all the other things that go into pornography – violence, degradation, all the different things that go into pornography. My only stipulation is that it wouldn’t be good for masturbating because it wouldn’t be giving you what you want because art is in the business of questioning what your wants presuppose. Pornography never defies expectations. If it does it doesn’t perform its function. Just as a doorknob that you need to stop and wonder how to use wouldn’t be a very good doorknob. But art happens precisely when expectations are defined. Art happens precisely when that which we’re taking for granted is forced on – we’re forced to reflect on what we’ve been taking for granted. And that’s why I don’t think there can be pornographic art.
Source
Edward Penishands. That it a true work of art. It defied all my expectations.
If, by defying expectations, porno can become Art….how is music Art? You listen to similar genres because you have a certain expectation. But then a band/Artist you like defies those expectations and you might just become a fan of some other genre (or sub-genre) do to that influence. MANY of my favorite bands did that for me, because I was open-minded enough to take the risk and listen. I allowed them to broaden my tastes!
SO if porno did that, somehow…say by utilizing its fantasy plot points to express a broader message about feminism, or the environment, or American imperialism (pornographers don't DO THAT because there's no money in it..plus none of them are that creative), why not??
If sci-fi and horror flicks can have such deep, socially conscious, or controversial Artistic messages, why not porno? Some of the Milf/Teen sites are getting pretty creative with the setup, which makes it hotter. Also, anyone who's ever watched any JAV, which is limited by a required censorship of the naughty bits, knows they can get VERY creative…and again, much more erotic because of it. Who's to say porno can't blur the lines of Art? It can certainly seem more visually beautiful than the classic nudes we've all revered for centuries, what with the HD and the 4K or whatever…
Porn have come along way to be compared whit a doorknob.
how can it be a art if the stimulation is cranked up by the motion of ones hand more so than the content.
Hey Alan, Google "Hentai".
This guy is trying to explain his opinions without seeming prudish, but the double-standard he's set ultimately undoes his own rationale.
Art can be used to provoke feelings of anger, sadness, happiness, confusion, wonder, and a whole host of other emotions that make up what it means to be human–but sexuality. That's off the table?
One of the most passionate, intimate, and necessary aspects of humanity, that can stimulate feelings of passion, anger, sadness, can put into question your presuppositions of what your place in the universe is, that is the topic of so many pieces of well-established arts like in books, music, movies, paintings, sculptures… To say that just because pornography is a means to a stimulating end that that means it is not art… it turns your argument into a joke. You set up art to serve a function and then say functional works are not art when you don't like the connotations surrounding a certain medium. It's just pure pretension.
If there's any reason that pornography isn't considered art, it's because of people with prudish mindsets like this who limit it to be the primitive thing they claim it is. Nobody expects porn to do what (big airquotes here) """art""" does, so nobody tries.
And I'm not ashamed of saying this, because I'm not ashamed to be a human with a human body that experiences human emotions and human stimulations–the reason you think like this, is because you haven't watched enough porn.
Doorknobs can be decorative, creative and artistic while maintaining a function. Point debunked.
Your door knob comparison is ridiculous. The door know doesn't pre-suppose the conditions that function in unison with it, the various elements such as the shapes of our hands, the height of our bodies etc pre-suppose the creation of the doorknob
Just make a porno that performs the standard pornographic function for like the first half or something and then subverts that function. Like, imagine beating off to a porno and when it's over it points out all the subtle shit you ignored cuz you were too busy jerking off. On a related note, literally any work of art can be masturbated to. It's a matter of what people want from something and how they construct meaning.
Of All things you can talk about and pick this, why?
I will agree that art serves no material utility. However, I cannot agree that art is defined as defying expectations. Many kinds of art are predictable.
A painting of a fruit bowl is art. A dance track is art. A chick flick is art.
If a faithfully painted portrait isn't art, then what is it?
So recorded music isn't art?
There's a director called Andrew Blake who's tried to blur the lines. His work is nothing like any of the other porn out there.
I used to be skeptical about porn being art. Then I grew up. Art is any human medium used to communicate an idea or sentiment. Porn is/can be art to communicate desire or arousal, hell, even disgust or rebellion. It provokes one to feel or think something like any other artform. Don't believe me? White girls go check out Blacked.com
My only definition for art is its humanly communicative and uses a created medium. Animals rolling in paint isn't art. Even your boring master's degree dissertation can be viewed as art if it communicates your ideas about the subject in mind opening ways to a novice..
After reading the comments, it is clear that most of Youtube is smarter and more art saavy than this brain trust Bigthink hired to spout nonsense. You folks are encouraging.
I would not elevate porn to art, but Noe's definition of art is garbage. Unfortunately his definition is same one that has ruled for most of the 20th century throughout the academy, most cultural institutions, and among the cultural elite. This definition of art is why there are thousands upon thousands of junky and banal pieces of art in museums of modern art, a constant barrage of Beckett style absurdities in the theatre, an endless stream of style over substance films in the art house cinema, every variety of auditory irritant is called music, and why literary fiction has become its own genre that is more about status signalling than engagement with the world. Art is about materializing ideas, reflecting on experiences through creative output, creating new experiences to express the personal, and probably many other things that I am missing. Defying expectations may or may not be a part of any piece of art. Contrary to the claims of highbrow critics, genre work is not about reproducing a set of rules or conventions but instead about working within a set of constraints or focusing in on a particular subject matter to explore new ground. Most human learning comes about from exploration of this type, not from setting out to defy expectations.
God this guy is such a philosopher (ie – useful only in posing questions). Unfortunately he's a terrible philosopher because his ideas only come from the manipulation of semantics from accepted "universal" meaning to however he decides to define something. It's simply bad philosophy.
Yes it can be. Get past the mainstream and there are actually some beautiful films.
Most porn is made to reinforces the fantasies of privileged demographics: cishetero men. Just by virtue of exploiting the fantasies of a less heard voice, your porn is challenging and therefore art.