If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is present, does it make a sound? According to Encyclopedia Britannica in an article written by Richard Berg, a Director at the University of Maryland Department of Physics, the scientific definition of sound is that it is vibrations in a medium such as air or water which travel in waves to the eardrum[i]. The eardrum vibrates as a result which sends signals to the brain. The brain interprets these signals as what we call sound. If a tree falls in a forest and there is no eardrum to vibrate and no brain to interpret then there is no sound, only vibrations in air molecules.
Similarly, if an artifact is produced but there is no human being to consume it and call it art then there is no art. Artists produce artifacts, only the person consuming the artifact can decide whether or not it is art. This principle can be understood from common daily experience. What often confuses the point in relation to art is that a human being has the potential to fill the roles of both creator and consumer consciously and intentionally, like a person who prepares their own meal. Furthermore, the human condition lends itself to the phenomenon of people viewing the world through the lens of their own personal perspective. Therefore, it is common to attribute the creation of art to the artist rather than the consumer, but in truth an artist does not create anything that is inherently art any more than a tree falling in a forest can replace a vibrating eardrum. The creator-consumer dynamic also results in the cycle of art imitating life and life imitating art. There is an anecdote about Picasso during the German occupation of France in the Second World War when a German officer conducted a search of Picasso’s studio and upon seeing a photograph of Guernica, with strong depictions of the horrific effects of war, he asked Picasso “You made this?” To which Picasso replied “No, you did”[ii]. There is an inherent relationship between a human being and the world they live in. They are not two separate disconnected entities. Each one is an expression of the other.
Today, artificial intelligence is being used to generate paintings, music, NFTs and other forms of artifacts. When the artifact is created by a computer rather than a human being, it is clearer to see the distinction between creator and consumer. A computer has no moral compass, emotions, or intuition to decide if something is art or not, it is only carrying out programmatic instruction based on an algorithm. A human consumer is required to judge if the result is art. That which does not excite the moral sensibilities of the consumer in any way, either consciously or unconsciously, is considered to not be art. That which does is considered art and is then assigned a level of quality, from junk to masterpiece, according to the judgement of the individual consumer. Art is a vehicle for the art consumer to express and reveal morality.
Footnotes
[i] Richard E. Berg “Sound” Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/science/sound-physics
[ii] O’Brian, Patrick. Pablo Ruiz Picasso: a Biography. Norton, 1994
Guernica is a large mural painted for the 1937 Paris World’s Fair. It is a response to the Nazi bombing of the city of Guernica, in Picasso’s native Basque region of Spain, which was conducted as a fascist military exercise against a rural civilian city with no defense and of no strategic military value.
Zelazko, Alicja “Guernica” Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Guernica-by-Picasso
Marc Mandell 