Spartan Bannana:
Honestly I can't tell art and trash apart.
How come when I put a tin can on a pedestal it's trash, but when someone else does it it's "art"

Look up Marcel Duchamp's Readymades - not sure if it'll help too much, but it may give you some insight.

I have not read anything of this thread, including any more than the first sentence of the OP.
Art is something created with the intention of being art, and is not for the sake of survival or reproduction. It's good to have an aesthetic or communicative appeal, but not really necessary.
There, I've solved everything ever. Just check, your cancer is gone! Thank me later.

Larenxis:
Art is something created with the intention of being art, and is not for the sake of survival or reproduction. It's good to have an aesthetic or communicative appeal, but not really necessary.

It's about as necessary as cars, plumbing, and refrigerators if you expect the human mind and society to evolve.

hahaha i was put on probation for that? only because it's true. I mean look at Tracey Emin LOOK AT HER. People thinks shes all prestigious and a what not and her last exhibition had a victorian woman having sex with a mechanical zebra in it. Prove me wrong.

It really depends on the art, the art of archery, the art of writing, the art of painting, the art of gaming, the art of computing. I think the best idea to answer a simple matter of definition, is to refer to a dictionary as much as I hate to say so.

l33tabix:
hahaha i was put on probation for that? only because it's true. I mean look at Tracey Emin LOOK AT HER. People thinks shes all prestigious and a what not and her last exhibition had a victorian woman having sex with a mechanical zebra in it. Prove me wrong.

Still...a little more tact would have been on order no?

As for the subject at hand...I'd classify everything and anything anyone is willing to call art. That is, I don't like accepting general consensus that X is art and Y isn't. It's all down to what the individual feels it is. It's not like saying 2+2=3, but...then, 2+2=4 right? And...it's been discovered to be so by years upon years of thought and research into the matter right? But, I don't think art is like that, where as someone can say 2+2 does not equal 4, you wouldn't be overly worried about telling someone that they were wrong. But, art being as it is, you can't really -prove- someone as having the wrong ideas about things when it relates so closly to what they like to look at, how it effects them etc.

That said, I have a fond dislike of art that is...well, maybe splashes of paint on a screen, or canvas covered in little splotches. I understand that when people first did that, is was kind of a take that against more accepted forms. But today, it just seems like anyone can do it and attach some 'deep' 'physcological' 'meaning' to such pieces and be lauded as geniuses.
But still, despite this, I still would not consider them not to be artists, or their work not art.

Also...about art being anything for aesthetic purposes only and anything practical not. I cannot for the life of me name one single product or invention that some thought has not also gone into it's aesthetic appeal aswell as it's practicalities. And even items where there has been no deliberate attempt gone into how it looks, cannot not be used in some way as art. I dare anyone to think up even one thing! :D

I like the art behind the genius of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
May the great Arkleseizure be with you, Adams. May you rest in odd peace.

Behold, the ultimate art!

Anyone who actually gets this, know that I salute your repository of useless knowledge, because I always strive to make references as obscure as possible.

Anyway, I have my own definition of art, and it stands at "If I could've made that, it isn't art." What Anarchemitis posted, I couldn't do. I call it art. The blue duck is art. That guy who saturated miles of pristine California highway with umbrellas, that is not art. Another guy (more recently) convinced one of New York major museums to suspend several Geo Metros in midair in such a way as to convey the car being blow sky-high. While that is a fate well deserved by Metros, that is not art. All I'd've needed is some ridiculous excuse to get away with such shenanigans (like the ones those people used) and I could have done that.

Yes, I realize I completely ignore music, nature, etc, etc, etc, but my definition stands.

PurpleRain:
But that's the thing, why does it even please us?

It pleases us because it does. Best not to think too hard about this stuff; thinking about how the brain works is like trying to open a crate with the crowbar that's inside it. Oh, and you're blindfolded.

iamnotincompliance:
I have my own definition of art, and it stands at "If I could've made that, it isn't art."

Or perhaps that art is easy to make, it's become so common you've grow decencortised(sp?) to it.

Copter400:

PurpleRain:
But that's the thing, why does it even please us?

It pleases us because it does. Best not to think too hard about this stuff; thinking about how the brain works is like trying to open a crate with the crowbar that's inside it. Oh, and you're blindfolded.

I like the quote in Mass Effect, "It would be like trying to describe colour to a creature without eyes."

Spartan Bannana:
Honestly I can't tell art and trash apart.
How come when I put a tin can on a pedestal it's trash, but when someone else does it it's "art"

Simple, your pedestal isn't in the White Cube gallery in London. 'Context' matters.

Note: you can just about get away with doing 'happenings' and performance art outdoors (i.e. no apparent gallery 'context' to imply art), but it is harder to pull off. There was a case of a public artwork installation of found objects put in a shopping centre that was accidentally swept up by the local bin men - true story.

Performance art can often be confused with street theatre, which isn't quite the same thing as art tends to eschew narrative for theme alone.

Nudity and quasi-pornography, and self-injury are often employed to differentiate the work of a Performance artist from the actor.

The work of Christo (i.e. wrapping famous to the point of cliche buildings/bridges up and then unwrapping them so you "see them afresh") is about the only good example of a happening that comes to mind. I don't particularly like public sculpture, I feel it is there for the wrong reasons (i.e. "great men" with dubious pasts) or are entirely abstract (i.e. Henry Moore) which are, in truth, largely, massively scaled-up pebbles that he found on the beach, that resembled distended and perforated figures - also true.

I hope this answers your questions.

By the way, I didn't intend to imply that people shouldn't ask "Is it Art?", but "Is it any good?" meant by reverse-implication that "Bad Art", or Kitsch (like Big Brother) wasn't categorizable as Art. I would say that the act of making a montage of a series would help author it so that it made some artistic point, if only (as has been suggested) as negative social commentary on wannabe celebrity and decadence.

almost everything is art, it's just how you see it.

stuff thats obviously excluded: Pron, violence, etc.

Gah, someone had to open Pandora's Box. Seriously, this argument always chases its tail until it's back to where its head was at in the first place: I got sick of it in high school.
But just to contribute and not be one of those damn annoying "this thread sucks" snobs: art is whatever I say it is. So there!

Reaperman Wompa:
almost everything is art, it's just how you see it.

stuff thats obviously excluded: Pron, violence, etc.

Guernica by Picasso. Violent.

I can wrap up what art really is, in a nice little package....

Art is anything (and i mean anything) you can convince another person the fact that it is art.

It is really that simple....

you think about it, because something conjures up emotions etc, just makes it easier for you to convince someone else that it is art....

look at the dadaist, they basically had it right with saying anything can be art, if it is in a gallery...

you personally might not believe it is art, that urinal on the wall, but if someone else believes it is, art then it is...

now to say what is good art or not... that is nothing no single person can say.... only time can say what is good art or not, and honestly when we all on our death beds, im sure none of us will be thinking about what art is and if it is good, so really all art fails over time...

Reaperman Wompa:
almost everything is art, it's just how you see it.

stuff thats obviously excluded: Pron, violence, etc.

Violence can be artistic. Matrix, 300, etc. Sure its stylised but you're still watching people fight and act violent.