> I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you're refuting my argument with this point, I'm missing something. My stance is that art is art if it has *something* to convey, whether or not it ever has an audience to do so. For that matter, I don't even think the goodness or badness of art necessarily depends entirely on other people's opinions, but certainly its impact on other people, particularly its intended audience if it has one, is telling.

I seem to have misinterpreted your original post. I had misread the focus to be on the idea that others needed to be involved, rather than what the art was attempting to convey. I agree that art should convey something, but it should not matter whether it conveys to an audience or only to the creator.

> Yay. You asked that question better in ten words, but I wouldn't call your post art either. A little odd? Yes. But why this is considered a virtue is beyond me.

The oddness was not a virtue of the experiment I was pointing out, but rather a simple lead-in sentence to the question. =)

> Does it answer the question, or at least work toward an answer? It asks the question, certainly, though less succinctly than you did. But what good is it to anybody unless the work does something to make progress in answering that question?

I would offer that sometimes the point of a work of art is simply to ask the question. It may be that the art is intended to ask you to find your own answers to the question, without blocking the way with the artist's personal opinions.

> In point of fact this work's service can be fully appreciated without ever being performed or heard. What use is a art of art whose purpose and meaning can be wholly conveyed by hearing someone tell you about it?

As I said, the philosophy I saw in the exercise is merely what it inspired *me* to think. I seriously doubt this is the whole purpose and meaning of the exercise. Other people surely see other ideas and notions in the work that I haven't considered. I didn't give you the whole story, just my perspective, as a demonstration that the idea wasn't devoid of meaning.

Of course, I can't tell you what any work of art completely means (other than my own), and even then you might have different ideas about it than me. The point is, someone can tell you what they see in a work of art, or even what it means, but that doesn't mean it's all you will see. In other words, I don't believe there exists such art whose meaning to you can be wholly communicated by someone else.

---

As a side note, I've found that through my time as a composer (although nowhere near professional), I have a different perspective on these musical whackjobs than most people. This is music today, the way I see it:

1) Consonance is bunk.
2) Dissonance is bunk.
3) Where to next?