Research seeking a scientific foundation for the theory of art appreciation has raised controversies at the intersection of the social and cognitive sciences. Though equally relevant to a scientific inquiry into art appreciation, psychological and historical approaches to art developed independently and lack a common core of theoretical principles. Historicists argue that psychological and brain sciences ignore the fact that artworks are artifacts produced and appreciated in the context of unique historical situations and artistic intentions. After revealing flaws in the psychological approach, we introduce a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation. This framework demonstrates that a science of art appreciation must investigate how appreciators process causal and historical information to classify and explain their psychological responses to art. Expanding on research about the cognition of artifacts, we identify three modes of appreciation: basic exposure to an artwork, the artistic design stance, and artistic understanding. The artistic design stance, a requisite for artistic understanding, is an attitude whereby appreciators develop their sensitivity to art-historical contexts by means of inquiries into the making, authorship, and functions of artworks. We defend and illustrate the psycho-historical framework with an analysis of existing studies on art appreciation in empirical aesthetics. Finally, we argue that the fluency theory of aesthetic pleasure can be amended to meet the requirements of the framework. We conclude that scientists can tackle fundamental questions about the nature and appreciation of art within the psycho-historical framework.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0140525X12000489

“But they don’t have our concept of art”

The artful mind meets art history: toward a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation.

Museums house collections of miniature objects produced by the indigenous peoples of the American Pacific Northwest. Overlooked and subjected to academic seriation which categorised them as expressions of transcultural inauthenticity, they have never previously been the subject of systematic study. This project develops a new methodology for the study of these miniatures, viewing miniaturisation as an imaginative agent of communication in human social relations, which uses combinations of affordances and semiotics to distribute ideological information to knowledgeable audiences. Through a detailed affordance study in combination with fieldwork in four indigenous communities, miniaturisation becomes understood as an effective method of communicating threatened cultural information across long distances and time spans, incorporating diverse commercial, pedagogical, cultural and magical motivations. By understanding miniaturisation in this way, this project can fundamentally change how museums approach imaginative material culture, generate substantial new insights into the ideological aspects of Native Northwest Coast material production and provide tantalising glimpses of emotion and motivation among historic carving traditions.

Miniaturisation: a study of a material culture practice among the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest

This essay discusses whether computers, using Artificial Intelligence (AI), could create art. First, the history of technologies that automated aspects of art is surveyed, including photography and animation. In each case, there were initial fears and denial of the technology, followed by a blossoming of new creative and professional opportunities for artists. The current hype and reality of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools for art making is then discussed, together with predictions about how AI tools will be used. It is then speculated about whether it could ever happen that AI systems could be credited with authorship of artwork. It is theorized that art is something created by social agents, and so computers cannot be credited with authorship of art in our current understanding. A few ways that this could change are also hypothesized.

Can Computers Create Art

When does a machine-created work becomes art? What is art? Can machine artworks fit in to the historical and present discourse? Do machine artworks demonstrate creativity, or are they a type of new media from which artists extend their creativity with? Will solely machine-created artworks be acceptable by our artworlds? This article probes these questions by first identifying the frameworks for defining and explaining art and evaluating its suitability for explaining machine artworks. It then explores how artworks have a necessary relationship with their human artists and the wider context of history, institutions, styles, and approaches and with audiences and artworlds. The article then questions whether machines have such a relational context and whether machines will ever live up to our standard of what constitutes an artwork as defined by us or whether machines are good only for assisting creativity. The question of intellectual property, rights, and ownership are also discussed for human--machine artworks and purely machine-produced works of art. The article critically assesses the viability of machines as artists as the central question in the historical discourse, extended through art and the artworld and evaluates machine-produced work from such a basis.

“But they don’t have our concept of art”

Citations

The artful mind meets art history: toward a psycho-historical framework for the science of art appreciation.

Miniaturisation: a study of a material culture practice among the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest

Can Computers Create Art

Art by Computing Machinery: Is Machine Art Acceptable in the Artworld?

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Music in Australasia

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