How not to offend with arts

[PabloLuna]

I like to make drawings.  I am better drawing than making music.
I noticed that arts can offend people.

Once I made a picture where people shake left hands.
I did not notice it, but it ended up that left hand in some cultures is dirty and therefore the picture was shocking for some people.

There was another case, where I used a commercial 3D model, I made her wear in blue and used darkness to hide her attributes... and still it seemed to be somehow offensive for some people, because she is hot, nicely 3D modelled.

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/1981/mctest021fg5.jpg

Then I find here that someone here wanted to pay tribute to Indian music and offended peole from India.

In spanish we use to have long sentences, but english speakers seem to find that shocking.

I just wonder what do we need to do NOT to offend with arts, either graphical arts, music, writing, etc...

[Louigi Verona]

People shouldn't be so touchy, imo. Getting offended easily is their problem. If something is shocking in India, one should understand it may not be shocking somewhere else.

[psishock]

Your drawing is very cool Pablo, how could anyone get offended from a nice looking body? (imo if so, then it must be another pointless religious issue.)
You just shouldn't care about people who can't value your hard work, there are plenty who will do, i can assure you. People are different, you can't change that.

[LPChip]

The image is indeed very nice. The only reason why I could possibly disaprove an image like that, would be if I knew that the community had young children who could get the wrong idea behind that image. But even then, this image would probably only give the wrong impression if the text accompanied would say so.

I recently had a nice similar encounter with just a piece of text. Someone wrote a story that could be seen as sexual. I'll quote the text written here:

I'm standing in the warm, moist, air. Droplets of liquid silver hugging my breasts. The water flowing down my curves. The white bubbly soap all around me. My hands seemingly unable to resist rubbing my slender legs. I massaged my into my dungeon, and moaned as I did it. I twist the shower handle and open the quartz glass door. Step onto the feather-like towel, and pick up another. I stare into oblivion, thinking of him. I suddenly shake, thinking to myself. "It's impossible, I can't be with him, he's different from me."

All of a sudden, I can feel my teeth changing, sharpening into blades. Long, gray-brown hairs coming up though my skin. I whisper to the air, with my voice shaking. "Oh no, no, no, no, NO!"

...

"I have to get there quick! There's not much time!" I yelled out to everyone in the neighbor hood. The gray blue clouds covering the sun-lit moon. My legs began to tighten. My breathing started to get shallow. "Finally, here at 4357, Lincoln Avenue. I hope Greg fixed the syringe after the last accident." I unpatiently knocked on the door. Greg opened the door in astonishment. "Alice! Quickly, run up to my room. I'll get the medicine." I ran up Gregory's wooden stairs with speed. I ran into his room, and waited...

"Alice, here, take this!" Gregory throws the syringe at me. I quickly jab it into my skin, I had to use all my energy to get it through my thick mat of hair. Everything began to dim. I heard Greg's voice dampen. As soon as I knew it, I was asleep on Gregory's bed.

The author added the following text in their title: Warning, mild nudity.

The text itself although you could indeed agree about it having nudity is written in normal words and a mature person will indeed see it. A child would not however unless being told about. The title in this case did that. By removing the warning from the title, it became okay.

This is often what people do as mistake. They add a description that basically colours the subject in such way that people actually show objections to the text, and not the actual content.

An example for the image posted above would be this:

Hi,

I've made an image in my favorite 3D editor. I tried to make a female woman, but be warned, it might be seen as sexy.
[ image ]
What do you think?

People will read this and then say: yeah, this is too sexy! Should be banned. If you wouldn't have mentioned that, they might not've even associated it with being too sexy.

[KrazyKatz]

This is  really an oversimplification of a HUGE topic.

I think this a twofold issue:

1- Cultural inference and beliefs.

2- 'Art' and 'Not art'.

Let's start with 2.

Take the Mona Lisa, pee all over it, then wipe your shoes on it after walking in something that a dog did, then hang it up again. Some people would call that art.

Take classical music and bastardize it by layering rap vocals on it, and some people call it music.

People may call this art, but it is simply perverting true art. It has nothing to do with "preserving the past". It's taking something that is art and reducing it to 'something one can associate with to give them a sense of identity in order to feel less insecure'.

So the real problem is not in causing offense with art, it is making sure that what you made is art.

Which brings us to 1.

What if your art offends beliefs?

I don't think that you can expect people to not be touchy while you are pissing all over their beliefs. If they were to do it to you, you would be annoyed too.

However, then one has to question whether a belief is legitimate or not. It is the same issue with art but in this case it would be called truth.
People also pervert truth in order to give themselves something to associate with to have an identity, but then that belief really is no longer a truth.

So in this case, if your art is offending either:

A - It's not art
B - The actual belief that it's offensive is illegitimate and a non-truth.

Yet again the same difficulty arrives: Defining what is true and what isn't.

If you postulate that both art and truth are universal, non subjective and not relative, then the difficulty is in defining what is true and what is art and what is not.

If you claim they are relative and subjective, then essentially there is no truth and no art.

[psishock]

If you claim they are relative and subjective, then essentially there is no truth and no art.

You got this one right Katz, they are indeed personal, or maybe a bigger group of people will think the same way as one. Same goes for "good", "bad", they are really just a point of view, the right question should be "who will benefit from it and who won't?". Also, i don't believe in "art" but i do believe in creations (of any person). I don't think we should draw a border and "praise" everything that is a little appealing for us than some works, call it art, and throw everything else out.

[KrazyKatz]

@ Psi: Just to make sure you're getting me correctly.

I'm not actually stating which one is true and which isn't, but merely stating both sides.

You may believe that it's personal and that right and wrong is simply a point of view. Someone else may disagree and see art and truth as not a point of view, but a universal fact that we should try to recognize.

I also presented the difficulties that arise with each choice:

-If Art and Truth is relative, then there is no such thing as art and truth. It is simply a human invention with no real value or essence, only an artificial one we give it.

-If Art and Truth are universal, then we will argue on what the real truth and real art is.

[psishock]

I'm not actually stating which one is true and which isn't, but merely stating both sides. You may believe that it's personal and that right and wrong is simply a point of view. Someone else may disagree and see art and truth as not a point of view

Ok i'll try to think really logically here.... isn't it this what we call personal?

but a universal fact that we should try to recognize.

we are doing it :gjob:

I also presented the difficulties that arise with each choice:

-If Art and Truth is relative, then there is no such thing as art and truth. It is simply a human invention with no real value or essence, only an artificial one we give it.

-If Art and Truth are universal, then we will argue on what the real truth and real art is.

Again with simple logic, if some people disagree with something, it cannot be universal, it becomes instantly relative and personal.

then there is no such thing as art and truth.

Yup, that's my point.

It is simply a human invention with no real value or essence

Exactly, but that's why we have emotions, and we're giving value and essence to the things that are dear to us. Someone might find real value and heavy essence in some pieces of art, others may won't even pay attention to them, or say that they are average pieces of stuff.
This is taste, and taste is very much personal in my dictionary, how can we ever call it universal?

[Sam_Zen]

If I make some art, I don't care a bit whether people are feeling offended by it or not. It's their mental problem, not mine.

But in the recent years this has, especially in Europe with the mixing of cultures, become national matters again.
For example the danish cartoon issue had led to self-censorship among many writers and publishers.
This success inspired the traditional western religions to come up with a lot of 'feeling offended' too, nudity for example, or cursing.

Almost every day now, there's some organization in the news about some offense they feel, and they want to have it banned.
I write a daily column in Dutch about all kind of things in society, and sometimes I get very irritated about these people.
So then I write, on purpose, a very offensive article against these kind of developments.

LPChip mentioned little children. People get very mad when the kids would be exposed to plain nudity, but the same people let
the vulnerable kids be exposed to brainwashing 'beliefs', or sneaky advertisements. I consider this as abuse too.

[psishock]

People get very mad when the kids would be exposed to plain nudity, but the same people let
the vulnerable kids be exposed to brainwashing 'beliefs', or sneaky advertisements. I consider this as abuse too.

brainwashing 'beliefs', or sneaky advertisements, many many more things are happening "out there", but one can't protect the kids from the "outside world" just all the time 'till they die, can it? That means, the wind of life will hit them sooner or later. One should rather teach their kids how to "understand" and "react" to these informations from all around the world.

[KrazyKatz]

Again, you are interjecting what you believe onto what I am saying .

You are entirely correct in saying that we all have our own will to decide what is right and wrong, art and not.

BUT...

That does not mean we are right in our choice if there is one universal truth.

Again with simple logic, if some people disagree with something, it cannot be universal, it becomes instantly relative and personal.

So in response, here is an example:

I believe that gravity does not exist.
You believe that gravity does exist.

I walk off a building...
I learn the hard way that my choice is incorrect, and that there is a universal truth called gravity that is irrelevant to our beliefs.

It is not instantly relative and personal. One of us is simply wrong.

So too it is possible that there is one Right and Wrong, Art and Not Art. The difficulty is proving it. Even if we can't prove it, it does not automatically make it relative.

As for emotions and taste, this is a question of preference. One can evaluate a picture as art, but still not like it. You could see a woman that is pretty but not your type. I can value the design of a rocketship as phenomenal, but I really don't care about rocketships. The rocket is still a phenomenal creation though.

Cheers!  :gjob:

[PabloLuna]

Instead of having art and no art, I believe you probably refer to the difference between high culture and low culture.

[KrazyKatz]

This is getting deeper than I wanted to go :?.

I'm specifically not referring it to culture. I'm referring it to a universal element. It's abstract.

In fact "Higher Culture" means a culture with more refined art.

I realize that it is a very difficult idea to get ones head around. This is the sort of stuff studied in philosophy.

[Louigi Verona]

It is not instantly relative and personal. One of us is simply wrong.

hm hm hm. one truth huh?
I don't know. superficially every situation has a right and a wrong side. deeper however there is no right and wrong.
"truth" is always an object of "justice" and justice is not an absolute value.
on the other hand an absolute truth, something that is an absolute value, cannot be a privilege of only one side, otherwise it wouldn't be universal. in any given situation this core, this absolute truth should be able to embrace every side of any conflict, being beyond the conflict itself, with the conflict being part of it, but not the only part of it.

In other words, from the perspective of absolute truth there is no such thing as wrong or right. Wrong or right can be only relative to a specific goal.