what do you guys think of this.
A piece of art has no meaning apart from the meaning an audience places on it.
A piece of art had no meaning apart from the meaning the creator puts on it.
A piece of arts meaning is a combination of how the audience percieves it aswell as what the creator wants it mean?
I personally favour the first one, perception is reality.
It's an interesting question. Art in that sense screws with the norms of communication, wherein there is the supposition that we communicate via a common semantic reference. I use a term that you and I both know, to say something. Abstract art undermines that, resulting in a situation where you can no longer be certain of what is being said.
And therefore I think there is no "answer" to this. If the communication link is broken or severely degraded then it's the same thing if you would try to listen to a radio broadcast that had so much static you couldn't make anything out. How could you possibly ever establish the meaning? You couldn't. Of course, the great scam is then to say "it still has the meaning that we place on it". But that is gibberish, because now every person is imprinting their subjective ideas onto it and there is no objective standard anymore.
You can make this all the more absurd when applied to censorship.
- Your work of art offends me, I demand that you remove it.
- It's just a picture of the sky.
- I place my own meaning onto it and you cannot claim that this is wrong, I'm merely interpreting. Therefore I am offended and you must be censored.