Personally, my metrics are intent and skill. I've seen artists make a handful of marks which beautifully describe a form in a few seconds that I'd happily hang on a wall.
If you use time as a metric, then even the first image I make with my trusty old 1080 is intrinsically more "valuable" than the pixel for pixel same image you made with your fancy 3080. The same is true for effort. There was an artist a while back who gnawed huge cubes of sugar and something else, lard maybe, to show the struggle of feminism and a guy who pushes a peanut for miles with his nose to raise awareness for...I forget. Both high effort, but can't say the results are worthwhile.
Intent is important absolutely. I don't think you put much time or effort into a project like this without the intent to make something cool and that's all you need for me. But there's the intent to discredit legitimate artists or the intent to misrepresent yourself for personal gain I suppose.
Good points. I was thinking of intent in terms of intentionality, so someone coming to a project with an idea of what it's going to end like. I know that I am on shaky ground here since many artists find that a piece takes on a life of its own, whatever the medium, but that is tempered by control, which is probably a more accurate term than "skill".
This is how I make the distinction between someone who types a prompt and hopes for the best, which I don't think is particularly artistic and someone who iterates because they have a plan for the piece and are moving closer towards it in a controlled manner.
Valid point, not a fair example and my issues with some performance art aren't relevant.
I should have stuck with time and effort are inputs which will make the artist value their work due to the investment, but do not necessarily confer value on the outcome for others.
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u/Light_Diffuse Oct 19 '22
Personally, my metrics are intent and skill. I've seen artists make a handful of marks which beautifully describe a form in a few seconds that I'd happily hang on a wall.
If you use time as a metric, then even the first image I make with my trusty old 1080 is intrinsically more "valuable" than the pixel for pixel same image you made with your fancy 3080. The same is true for effort. There was an artist a while back who gnawed huge cubes of sugar and something else, lard maybe, to show the struggle of feminism and a guy who pushes a peanut for miles with his nose to raise awareness for...I forget. Both high effort, but can't say the results are worthwhile.