What is art: the question of agency.
For most people, the visual arts encompass a diverse range of human activities engaged to create imaginative artworks that demonstrate an expression of skill, creativity, and emotion. They are meant for appreciation, usually in the concept of the aesthetic or as means of communications. The subjectivity leaves the world with interesting art debates that fall into the realms of philosophy. In this discussion, I would like to take a more specific view on this definition. I will argue that agency is needed for it to be art. Here, agency is used to denote the performance of intentional actions, that is a “conscious” mind with a purpose and intention. We will put aside two things to avoid confusion. First is our personal taste in art. Second, the religious aspect of god(s) as the artist of all that is natural. Keep these two points in mind as you read on.
Who or what has agency? The difference between persons and other agents is in the structure of the will. Only persons reflect on and care about their motivations. There has to be a reflective evaluation of motives, one that results in the formation of goals and actions leading to art expression. When a person wants to express a certain desire, then that person is said to “identify” with the desire and its motivational efficacy. On this hierarchical account of agency, the role of higher-order attitudes is essential to the kind of agency that distinguishes persons from other agents, such as animals. However, if we discover that a chimpanzee can paint, hand it to a female, and they have sex, then we can say the male chimpanzee produced art, and the female chimpanzee recognized and appreciated art. However so far, male chimpanzee only knows to trade food for sex. And finally, a zombie has no agency, as far as I know from watching “The Walking Dead.” Therefore, zombies can’t create art. Here are some examples applying this interpretation.
Paint spilled from the back of a truck on the freeway is not art. No will stop to photograph it or dig up the concrete to hang for the obvious reason. The splash of paint has no agency. It was an accident. Paint splashed on a canvas by a person is art, even if it looks like the same splash of paint on the freeway; it has agency, a conscious mind with a purpose.
A pattern I sneezed on a wall is not art, even if it looks like Elvis. A pattern created on canvas of Elvis is art, even if it is more like a sneezed pattern.
A photograph of a waterfall is art, even if it looks exactly like the waterfall we see. A person needed to make the decision to crop that scene and set the camera, regardless of skill level or the artistic outcome. The waterfall is not art. It’s a natural occurrence with no agency.
Notice that in all these examples, the mental exercise and gymnastic process matter. That is to say, the agency that created the art defines art, rather than how it is perceived. Often, artworks are clearly obvious with this standard. However, if you see a design that appears to be dirty chicken feet on paper, then you might need to know more before it can be art. Of course, we are subjective being with subjective consciousness and therefore so is this topic. To further complicate the discussion, what about the motivation of that agency? Does that matter? Is a taped banana on the wall art? That’s a big one that needs its own topic where we question method and intention. We’ll leave that for another discussion: what makes art worthy to be art.
