NancyLebovitz comments on Helpless Individuals - Less Wrong

42 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 30 March 2009 11:10AM

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Comment author: Vaniver 02 December 2010 07:10:24PM 3 points [-]

They don't "dominate the field". They've achieved high cultural status while doing something that looks sort-of similar to "the field".

As an example, I'm more familiar with the work of Jeremy Soule than I am with the work of Stravinsky. That's not at all a statement about their relative quality as composers, just a statement that one of them makes soundtracks for video games. And while they're very nice, I can't help but imagine that a lot of my affection for his pieces comes from the emotional attachment to the games they were in.

But I've also got to point out that in aesthetic fields, when you get to the point where inferential distance makes laymen unable to appreciate what you're doing, you've gone from creation to masturbation.

I go to art museums from time to time and am struck by the difference in captions as you move from medieval art to contemporary art: the captions for the medieval art tell you who everyone in the picture is (because you're unlikely to recognize St. Augustine by looking at him or his symbols), but the art speaks for itself. The captions for the contemporary art have to tell you not just the symbolism but also the subject. Many of them were essentially performance art, which disgusted me pretty deeply. That may actually be a better way to put it- if your work is best understood as performance art, you should change fields.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 04 December 2010 01:39:44AM 4 points [-]

But I've also got to point out that in aesthetic fields, when you get to the point where inferential distance makes laymen unable to appreciate what you're doing, you've gone from creation to masturbation.

That's a little much-- there's plenty of art which appeals to specialist audiences (hard science fiction, for example-- most people aren't going to have much fun with Diaspora), but which is still a meaningful effort by the artist.

Comment author: CronoDAS 07 December 2010 08:43:30AM *  1 point [-]

Some video games, too, seem to be aimed at very narrow audiences, and yet are quite impressive if you happen to be part of that audience. For example, the infamously difficult I Wanna Be The Guy is quite clever, but it definitely takes a certain kind of background and mindset to actually enjoy playing it. And there are many people who don't appreciate even extremely popular video games; for example, my mom will never experience what makes people enjoy Halo.