This brief article is a reprint of an email reply I made during a discussion taking place on the 'ArtAnonPro' email list... one of the Yahoo family of special interest groups.
Ideas I have been messing with for the past couple years finally fell together in a fairly cohesive, brief summary, which stands well enough as it is, and does not require a formal rewrite.
Simon said:
sh> This is more what I was after , a roadsign saying 'Look, Art!' ( Turner prize winner
sh> in the making here).
sh> It's just that the product is not beans, its a painters' skills instead.
sh> But clearly no-one else is comfortable with such an idea.
To which I replied:
Speaking only for myself, it is not a matter of comfort vs. discomfort, this is just not how I pursue my work.
I look at art as a method, just as science is a method.
Science and art are methods for examining 'what is'.
Science uses the 'scientific method' which is an extremely well defined method, on which much has been written, and most scientists agree on exactly what is meant, by 'scientific method'.
Art, at the moment, does not have any widely accepted 'artistic method', for examining 'what is'. Try dropping the search terms 'scientific method' and then 'artistic method' into Google, for a rather amusing comparison.
As a painter working in the fine arts, I see my task as being one analogous to a scientists, insofar as I am both making careful observations regarding 'what is' and also performing 'experiments'... paintings... and that I am also reporting my findings (what I have seen, of 'what is') back to humanity, in the form of my paintings and my written papers.
Science's method is one well adapted to observing objective reality, using the intellect as the primary tool, and making reports that approach 'truth', as nearly as possible.
Art's method... at least the one I am in the process of developing, and deploying, is one well adapted to observing subjective reality, using the emotions as the primary tool, and making reports that approach 'honesty', as nearly as possible.
In my context, as explained above, the goals you have set, have no meaning, or place to fit.
I had never even heard of the Turner prize before, but I have heard of the Field's Medal in math, and the Nobel Prize in science, and I do not think that the people who win those awards actually win them because they had as their initial goal, setting out to win the award. I would guess that they had all of their energies focused on the study of 'what is', in their particular field, and wound up winning a prize, without ever really trying.
Anyhow, I am not uncomfortable with your method, when you are practicing it, but I would see it as an interruption in my work, if I were to attempt it.