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Monday, September 30, 2013

The Definition of Art

So the other day (today) I got a little curious; can someone define art? What is the definition of art? Is there one to start with? So I did a little research and stumbled upon this article.   

Vcay



First published Tue Oct 23, 2007; substantive revision Tue Oct 9, 2012
The definition of art is controversial in contemporary philosophy. Whether art can be defined has also been a matter of controversy. The philosophical usefulness of a definition of art has also been debated.
Contemporary definitions are of two main sorts. One distinctively modern, conventionalist, sort of definition focuses on art's institutional features, emphasizing the way art changes over time, modern works that appear to break radically with all traditional art, and the relational properties of artworks that depend on works' relations to art history, art genres, etc. The less conventionalist sort of contemporary definition makes use of a broader, more traditional concept of aesthetic properties that includes more than art-relational ones, and focuses on art's pan-cultural and trans-historical characteristics.


1.Constraints on Definition of Art

Any definition of art has to square with the following uncontroversial facts: (i) entities (artifacts or performances) intentionally endowed by their makers with a significant degree of aesthetic interest, often surpassing that of most everyday objects, exist in virtually every known human culture; (ii) such entities, and traditions devoted to them, might be produced by non-human species, and might exist in other possible worlds; (iii) such entities sometimes have non-aesthetic — ceremonial or religious or propagandistic — functions, and sometimes do not; (iv) traditionally, artworks are intentionally endowed by their makers with properties, usually perceptual, having a significant degree of aesthetic interest, often surpassing that of most everyday objects; (v) art, so understood, has a complicated history: new genres and art-forms develop, standards of taste evolve, understandings of aesthetic properties and aesthetic experience change; (vi) there are institutions in some but not all cultures which involve a focus on artifacts and performances having a high degree of aesthetic interest and lacking any practical, ceremonial, or religious use; (vii) such institutions sometimes classify entities apparently lacking aesthetic interest with entities having a high degree of aesthetic interest; (viii) many things other than artworks — for example, natural entities (sunsets, landscapes, flowers, shadows), human beings, and abstract entities (theories, proofs) are routinely described as having aesthetic properties.
Of these facts, those having to do with art's cultural and historical features are emphasized by some definitions of art. Other definitions of art give priority to explaining those facts that reflect art's universality and continuity with other aesthetic phenomena.
There are also two more general constraints on definitions of art. First, given that accepting that something is inexplicable is generally a philosophical last resort, and granting the importance of extensional adequacy, list-like or enumerative definitions are if possible to be avoided. Enumerative definitions, lacking principles that explain why what is on the list is on the list, don't, notoriously, apply to definienda that evolve, and provide no clue to the next or general case (Tarski's definition of truth, for example, is standardly criticized as unenlightening because it rests on a list-like definition of primitive denotation; see Devitt 2001; Davidson 2005). Second, given that most classes outside of mathematics are vague, and that the existence of borderline cases is characteristic of vague classes, definitions that take the class of artworks to have borderline cases are preferable to definitions that don't (Davies 1991 and 2006, Stecker 2005).
Whether any definition of art does account for these facts and satisfy these constraints, or could account for these facts and satisfy these constraints, are key questions for the philosophy of art.

2. Traditional Definitions

Traditional definitions, at least as commonly portrayed in contemporary discussions of the definition of art, take artworks to be characterized by a single type of property. The standard candidates are representational properties, expressive properties, and formal properties. So there are representational or mimetic definitions, expressive definitions, and formalist definitions, which hold that artworks are characterized by their possession of, respectively, representational, expressive, and formal properties. It is not difficult to find fault with these simple definitions. For example, possessing representational, expressive, and formal properties cannot be sufficient conditions, since, obviously, instructional manuals are representations, but not typically artworks, human faces and gestures have expressive properties without being works of art, and both natural objects and artifacts produced for the homeliest utilitarian purposes have formal properties but are not artworks.
But the ease of these dismissals serves as a reminder of the fact that traditional definitions of art are not self-contained. Each traditional definition stands in (different) close and complicated relationships to its system's other complexly interwoven parts — epistemology, ontology, value theory, philosophy of mind, etc. For this reason, it is both difficult and somewhat misleading to extract them and consider them in isolation. Two examples of historically influential definitions of art offered by great philosophers will suffice to illustrate. First, Plato holds in the Republic and elsewhere that the arts are representational, or mimetic (sometimes translated “imitative”). Artworks are ontologically dependent on, and inferior to, ordinary physical objects, which in turn are ontologically dependent on, and inferior to, what is most real, the non-physical Forms. Grasped perceptually, artworks present only an appearance of an appearance of what is really real. Consequently, artistic experience cannot yield knowledge. Nor do the makers of artworks work from knowledge. Because artworks engage an unstable, lower part of the soul, art should be subservient to moral realities, which, along with truth, are more metaphysically fundamental and hence more humanly important than beauty. Beauty is not, for Plato, the distinctive province of the arts, and in fact his conception of beauty is extremely wide and metaphysical: there is a Form of Beauty, of which we can have non-perceptual knowledge, but it is more closely related to the erotic than to the arts. (See Janaway, and the entry on Plato on Rhetoric and Poetry.) Second, although Kant has a definition of art, he is for systematic reasons far less concerned with it than with aesthetic judgment. Kant defines art as “a kind of representation that is purposive in itself and, though without an end, nevertheless promotes the cultivation of the mental powers for sociable communication” (Kant, Critique of Judgment, Guyer translation, section 44).) The definition, when fully unpacked, has representational, formalist and expressivist elements. Located conceptually in a much broader discussion of aesthetic judgment and teleology, the definition is one relatively small piece of a hugely ambitious philosophical structure that attempts, famously, to account for, and work out the relationships between, scientific knowledge, morality, and religious faith. (See the entry on Kant's Aesthetics and Teleology.) For treatments of influential definitions of art, inseparable from the complex philosophical systems in which they occur, see, for example, the entries on 18th Century German Aesthetics, Arthur Schopenhauer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Dewey's Aesthetics.

3. Skepticism about Definitions

Skepticism about the possibility and value of a definition of art has been an important part of the discussion in aesthetics since the 1950s on, and though its influence has subsided, uneasiness about the definitional project persists. (See section 4, below, and also Kivy 1997, and Walton 2007).
A common family of arguments, inspired by Wittgenstein's famous remarks about games (Wittgenstein, 1953), has it that the phenomena of art are, by their nature, too diverse to admit of the unification that a satisfactory definition strives for, or that a definition of art, were there to be such a thing, would exert a stifling influence on artistic creativity. One expression of this impulse is Weitz's Open Concept Argument: any concept is open if a case can be imagined which would call for some sort of decision on our part to extend the use of the concept to cover it, or to close the concept and invent a new one to deal with the new case; all open concepts are indefinable; and there are cases calling for a decision about whether to extend or close the concept of art. Hence art is indefinable (Weitz, 1956). Against this it is claimed that change does not, in general, rule out the preservation of identity over time, that decisions about concept-expansion may be principled rather than capricious, and that nothing bars a definition of art from incorporating a novelty requirement.
A second sort of argument, less common today than in the heyday of a certain form of extreme Wittgensteinianism, urges that the concepts that make up the stuff of most definitions of art (expressiveness, form) are embedded in general philosophical theories which incorporate traditional metaphysics and epistemology. But since traditional metaphysics and epistemology are prime instances of language gone on conceptually confused holiday, definitions of art share in the conceptual confusions of traditional philosophy (Tilghman).
A third sort of argument, more historically inflected than the first, takes off from an influential study by the historian of philosophy Paul Kristeller, in which he argued that the modern system of the five major arts [painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and music] which underlies all modern aesthetics … is of comparatively recent origin and did not assume definite shape before the eighteenth century, although it had many ingredients which go back to classical, mediaeval, and Renaissance thought. Since that list of five arts is somewhat arbitrary, and since even those five do not share a single common nature, but rather are united, at best, only by several overlapping features, and since the number of art forms has increased since the eighteenth century, Kristeller's work may be taken to suggest that our concept of art differs from that of the eighteenth century. As a matter of historical fact, there simply is no stable definiendum for a definition of art to capture.
A fourth sort of argument suggests that a definition of art stating individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for a thing to be an artwork, is likely to be discoverable only if cognitive science makes it plausible to think that humans categorize things in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. But, the argument continues, cognitive science actually supports the view that the structure of concepts mirrors the way humans categorize things – which is with respect to their similarity to prototypes (or exemplars), and not in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. So the quest for a definition of art that states individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions is misguided and not likely to succeed (Dean, 2003). Against this it has been urged that psychological theories of concepts like the prototype theory and its relatives can provide at best an account of how people in fact classify things, but not an account of correct classifications of extra-psychological phenomena, and that, even if relevant, prototype theory and other psychological theories of concepts are at present too controversial to draw substantive philosophical morals from (Rey, 1983; Adajian, 2005).
A fifth sort of argument concludes that defining art is philosophically unnecessary, on the grounds that the problem of defining art reduces to a pair of easier sorts of problems: the problem of giving an account of each individual artform, and the problem of defining what it is to be an artform. That is, given definitions of the individual artforms, and a definition of what it is to be an artform, and given, crucially, that every artwork belongs to some artform, a definition of art falls out: x is a work of art if and only if x is a work in activity P, and P is one of the artforms (Lopes, 2008). Every artwork belongs to an artform, on this view, because every artwork either belongs to an existing artwork or else pioneers a new artform. The key claim that every work of art belonging to no extant artform pioneers a new one may be defended on the grounds that any reason to say that a work belonging to no extant artform is an artwork is a reason to say that it pioneers a new artform. In response, it is noted that an activity might be ruled out as an artform on the grounds that no artworks belong to it, and that the question of whether or not a thing belongs to an artform arises only because there is a prior reason for thinking that the thing is an artwork. So determining whether a practice is an artform requires determining that its elements are artworks. Art, therefore, seems conceptually prior to artforms. An account of the complex analysandum artform seems to require an analysis of each component — an analysis of what it is to be an artform no less than an analysis of what it is to be an artform (Adajian, 2012).
A sixth sort of objection rejects the project of defining art as an unwitting (and confused) expression of a harmful ideology. On this view, the search for a definition of art presupposes, wrongly, that the concept of the aesthetic is a creditable one. But since the concept of the aesthetic necessarily involves the equally bankrupt concept of disinterestedness, its deployment advances the illusion that what is most real about things can and should be grasped or contemplated without attending to the social and economic conditions of their production. Definitions of art, consequently, spuriously confer ontological dignity and respectability on social phenomena that probably in fact call more properly for rigorous social criticism and change. Their real function is ideological, not philosophical (Eagleton 1990).
A seventh argument against defining art, with a normative tinge that is psychologistic rather than sociopolitical, takes the fact that there is no philosophical consensus about the definition of art as reason to hold that no unitary concept of art exists. Concepts of art, like all concepts, after all, should be used for the purpose(s) they best serve. But not all concepts of art serve all purposes equally well. So not all art concepts should be used for the same purposes. Art should be defined only if there is a unitary concept of art that serves all of art's various purposes – historical, conventional, aesthetic, appreciative, communicative, and so on. So, since there is no purpose-independent use of the concept of art, art should not be defined (Mag Uidhir and Magnus, 2011; cf. Meskin 2008). In response, it is noted that an account of what makes various concepts of art concepts of art is still required, which leaves open the possibility of important commonalities. The fact (if it is one) that different concepts of art are used for different purposes does not itself imply that they are not connected in systematic, ordered ways. The relation between (say) the historical concept of art and the appreciative concept of art is not an accidental, unsystematic relation, like that between river banks and savings banks, but is something like the relation between Socrates' healthiness and the healthiness of Socrates' diet. That is, it is not evident that there exist a multiplicity of art concepts, constituting an unsystematic patchwork. Perhaps there is a single concept of art with different facets that interlock in an ordered way, or else a multiplicity of concepts that constitute a unity because one is at the core, and the others depend on it, but not conversely. (The last is an instance of core-dependent homonymy; see the entry on Aristotle, section on Essentialism and Homonymy.) Multiplicity alone doesn't entail pluralism.

3.1 Some descendants

Philosophers influenced by the moderate Wittgensteinian strictures discussed above have offered family resemblance accounts of art, which, as they purport to be non-definitions, may be usefully considered at this point. Two species of family resemblance views will be considered: the resemblance-to-a-paradigm version, and the cluster version.
On the resemblance-to-a-paradigm version, something is, or is identifiable as, an artwork if it resembles, in the right way, certain paradigm artworks, which possess most although not necessarily all of art's typical features. (The “is identifiable” qualification is intended to make the family resemblance view something more epistemological than a definition, although it is unclear that this really avoids a commitment to constitutive claims about art's nature.) Against this view: since things do not resemble each other simpliciter, but only in at least one respect or other, the account is either far too inclusive, since everything resembles everything else in some respect or other, or, if the variety of resemblance is specified, tantamount to a definition, since resemblance in that respect will be either a necessary or sufficient condition for being an artwork. The family resemblance view raises questions, moreover, about the membership and unity of the class of paradigm artworks. If the account lacks an explanation of why some items and not others go on the list of paradigm works, it seems explanatorily deficient. But if it includes a principle that governs membership on the list, or if expertise is required to constitute the list, then the principle, or whatever properties the experts' judgments track, seem to be doing the philosophical work.
The cluster version of the family resemblance view has been defended by a number of philosophers (Gaut 2000, Dissanayake 1990, Dutton 2006). The view typically provides a list of properties, no one of which is a necessary condition for being a work of art, but which are jointly sufficient for being a work of art, and which is such that at least one proper subset thereof is sufficient for being a work of art. Lists offered vary, but overlap considerably. Here is one: (1) possessing positive aesthetic properties; (2) being expressive of emotion; (3) being intellectually challenging; (4) being formally complex and coherent; (5) having the capacity to convey complex meanings; (6) exhibiting an individual point of view; (7) being original; (8) being an artifact or performance which is the product of a high degree of skill; (9) belonging to an established artistic form; (10) being the product of an intention to make a work of art (Gaut 2000). The cluster account has been criticized on several grounds. First, given its logical structure, it is in fact equivalent to a long, complicated, but finite, disjunction, which makes it difficult to see why it isn't a definition (Davies 2006). Second, if the list of properties is incomplete, as some cluster theorists hold, then some justification or principle would be needed for extending it. Third, the inclusion of the ninth property on the list, belonging to an established art form, seems to invite, rather than answer, the definitional question. Finally, it is worth noting that, although cluster theorists stress what they take to be the motley nature of the class of artworks, they tend with surprising regularity to appeal tacitly to a unifying principle that unites the properties they put forward as non-definitional. One cluster theorist, for example, gives a list very similar to the one discussed above (it includes representational properties, expressiveness, creativity, exhibiting a high degree of skill, belonging to an established artform), but omits aesthetic properties on the grounds that it is the combination of the other items on the list which, combined in the experience of the work of art, are precisely the aesthetic qualities of the work (Dutton, 2006). Gaut, whose list is cited above, includes aesthetic properties as a separate item on the list, but construes them very narrowly; the difference between these ways of formulating the cluster view appears to be mainly nominal. And an earlier cluster theorist defines artworks as all and only those things that belong to any instantiation of an artform, offers a list of seven properties all of which together are intended to capture the core of what it is to be an artform, though none is either necessary or sufficient, and then claims that having aesthetic value (of the same sort as mountains, sunsets, mathematical theorems) is “what art is for” (Bond, 1975).

4. Contemporary Definitions

Definitions of art attempt to make sense of two different sorts of facts: art has important historically contingent cultural features, and it also, arguably, has trans-historical, trans-cultural characteristics that point in the direction of a relatively stable aesthetic core. (Theorists who regard art as an invention of eighteenth-century Europe will, of course, regard this way of putting the matter as tendentious, on the grounds that entities produced outside that culturally distinctive institution do not fall under the extension of “art” and hence are irrelevant to the art-defining project (Shiner 2001). Whether the concept of art is precise enough to justify this much confidence about what falls under its extension claim is unclear.) Conventionalist definitions take art's cultural features to be explanatorily fundamental, and attempt to capture the phenomena —revolutionary modern art, the traditional close connection of art with the aesthetic, the possibility of autonomous art traditions, etc. — in social/historical terms. Non-conventionalist or “functionalist” definitions reverse this explanatory order, taking a concept like the aesthetic (or some allied concept like the formal, or the expressive) as basic, and aim to account for the phenomena by working that concept harder, perhaps extending it to non-perceptual properties.

4.1 Conventionalist Definitions: Institutional and Historical

Conventionalist definitions deny that art has essential connection to aesthetic properties, or to formal properties, or to expressive properties, or to any type of property taken by traditional definitions to be essential to art. Conventionalist definitions have been strongly influenced by the emergence, in the twentieth century, of artworks that seem to differ radically from all previous artworks. Avante-garde works like Marcel Duchamp's “ready-mades” – ordinary unaltered objects like snow-shovels (In Advance of the Broken Arm) and bottle-racks — conceptual works like Robert Barry's All the things I know but of which I am not at the moment thinking — 1:36 PM; June 15, 1969, and John Cage's 4′33″, have seemed to many philosophers to lack or even, somehow, repudiate, the traditional properties of art: intended aesthetic interest, artifactuality, even perceivability. Conventionalist definitions have also been strongly influenced by the work of a number of historically-minded philosophers, who have documented the rise and development of modern ideas of the fine arts, the individual arts, the work of art, and the aesthetic (Kristeller, Shiner, Carroll, Goehr, Kivy).
Conventionalist definitions come in two varieties, institutional and historical. Institutionalist conventionalism, or institutionalism, a synchronic view, typically hold that to be a work of art is to be an artifact of a kind created, by an artist, to be presented to an artworld public (Dickie, 1984). Historical conventionalism, a diachronic view, holds that artworks necessarily stand in an art-historical relation to some set of earlier artworks.

4.2 Institutional Definitions

The groundwork for institutional definitions was laid by Arthur Danto, better known to non-philosophers as the long-time influential art critic for the Nation. Danto coined the term “artworld”, by which he meant “an atmosphere of art theory.” Danto's definition has been glossed as follows: something is a work of art if and only if (i) it has a subject (ii) about which it projects some attitude or point of view (has a style) (iii) by means of rhetorical ellipsis (usually metaphorical) which ellipsis engages audience participation in filling in what is missing, and (iv) where the work in question and the interpretations thereof require an art historical context (Danto, Carroll). Clause (iv) is what makes the definition institutionalist. The view has been criticized for entailing that art criticism written in a highly rhetorical style is art, lacking but requiring an independent account of what makes a context art historical, and for not applying to music.
The most prominent and influential institutionalism is that of George Dickie. Dickie's institutionalism has evolved over time. According to an early version, a work of art is an artifact upon which some person(s) acting on behalf of the artworld has conferred the status of candidate for appreciation (Dickie 1971). The most recent version consists of an interlocking set of five definitions: (1) An artist is a person who participates with understanding in the making of a work of art. (2) A work of art is an artifact of a kind created to be presented to an artworld public. (3) A public is a set of persons the members of which are prepared in some degree to understand an object which is presented to them. (4) The artworld is the totality of all artworld systems. (5) An artworld system is a framework for the presentation of a work of art by an artist to an artworld public (Dickie, 1984). Both versions have been widely criticized. Philosophers have objected that art created outside any institution seems possible, although the definition rules it out, and that the artworld, like any institution, seems capable of error. It has also been urged that the definition's obvious circularity is vicious, and that, given the inter-definition of the key concepts (artwork, artworld system, artist, artworld public) it lacks any informative way of distinguishing art institutions systems from other, structurally similar, social institutions (D. Davies, 2004, pp. 248–249, mentions the “commerceworld”). Early on, Dickie claimed that anyone who sees herself as a member of the artworld is a member of the artworld: if this is true, then unless there are constraints on the kinds of things the artworld can put forward as artworks or candidate artworks, any entity can be an artwork (though not all are). Finally, Matravers has helpfully distinguished strong and weak institutionalism. Strong institutionalism holds that there is some reason that is always the reason the art institution has for saying that something is a work of art. Weak institutionalism holds that, for every work of art, there is some reason or other that the institution has for saying that it is a work of art (Matravers 2000). Weak institutionalism, in particular, raises questions about art's unity: if nothing unifies the reasons that the artworld gives for designating entities as artworks, the unity of the class of artworks is vanishingly small.

4.3 Historical Definitions

Historical definitions hold that what characterizes artworks is standing in some specified art-historical relation to some specified earlier artworks, and disavow any commitment to a trans-historical concept of art, or the “artish.” Historical definitions come in several varieties. All of them are, or resemble, inductive definitions: they claim that certain entities belong unconditionally to the class of artworks, while others do so because they stand in the appropriate relations thereto. According to the best known version, Levinson's intentional-historical definition, an artwork is a thing that has been seriously intended for regard in any way preexisting or prior artworks are or were correctly regarded (Levinson 1990). A second version, historical functionalism says that an item is an artwork at time t, where t is not earlier than the time at which the item is made, if and only if it is in one of the central art forms at t and is made with the intention of fulfilling a function art has at t or it is an artifact that achieves excellence in achieving such a function (Stecker 2005). A third version, historical narrativism, comes in several varieties. On one, a sufficient but not necessary condition for the identification of a candidate as a work of art is the construction of a true historical narrative according to which the candidate was created by an artist in an artistic context with a recognized and live artistic motivation, and as a result of being so created, it resembles at least one acknowledged artwork (Carroll 1993). On another, more ambitious and overtly nominalistic version of historical narrativism, something is an artwork if and only if (1) there are internal historical relations between it and already established artworks; (2) these relations are correctly identified in a narrative; and (3) that narrative is accepted by the relevant experts. The experts do not detect that certain entities are artworks; rather, the fact that the experts assert that certain properties are significant in particular cases is constitutive of art (Stock, 2003).
The similarity of these views to institutionalism is obvious, and the criticisms offered parallel those urged against institutionalism. First, historical definitions appear to require, but lack, any informative characterization of art traditions (art functions, artistic contexts, etc.) and hence any way of informatively distinguishing them (and likewise art functions, or artistic predecessors) from non-art traditions (non-art functions, non-artistic predecessors). Correlatively, non-Western art, or alien, autonomous art of any kind appears to pose a problem for historical views: any autonomous art tradition or artworks — terrestrial, extra-terrestrial, or merely possible — causally isolated from our art tradition, is either ruled out by the definition, which seems to be a reductio, or included, which concedes the existence of a supra-historical concept of art. So, too, there could be entities that for adventitious reasons are not correctly identified in historical narratives, although in actual fact they stand in relations to established artworks that make them correctly describable in narratives of the appropriate sort. Historical definitions entail that such entities aren't artworks, but it seems more plausible to say that they are artworks that are unidentified as such. Second, historical definitions also require, but do not provide a satisfactory, informative account of the basis case – the first artworks, or ur-artworks, in the case of the intentional-historical definitions, or the first or central art-forms, in the case of historical functionalism. Third, nominalistic historical definitions seem to face a version of the Euthyphro dilemma. For either such definitions include substantive characterizations of what it is to be an expert, or they don't. If, on one hand, they include no characterization of what it is to be an expert, and hence no explanation as to why the list of experts contains the people it does, then they imply that what makes things artworks is inexplicable. On the other hand, suppose that the status of experts is substantively grounded, so that to be an expert is to possess some ability lacked by non-experts (taste, say) in virtue of the possession of which they are able to discern historical connections between established artworks and candidate artworks. Then the definition's claim to be interestingly historical is questionable, because it makes art status a function of whatever ability it is that permits experts to discern the art-making properties.
Defenders of historical definitions have replies. First, as regards autonomous art traditions, it can be held that anything we would recognize as an art tradition or an artistic practice would display aesthetic concerns, because aesthetic concerns have been central from the start, and persisted centrally for thousands of years, in the Western art tradition. Hence it is an historical, not a conceptual truth that anything we recognize as an art practice will centrally involve the aesthetic; it is just that aesthetic concerns that have always dominated our art tradition (Levinson 2002). The idea here is that if the reason that anything we'd take to be a Φ-tradition would have Ψ-concerns is that our Φ-tradition has focused on Ψ-concerns since its inception, then it is not essential to Φ-traditions that they have Ψ-concerns, and Φ is a purely historical concept. But this principle entails, implausibly, that every concept is purely historical. Suppose that we discovered a new civilization whose inhabitants could predict how the physical world works with great precision, on the basis of a substantial body of empirically acquired knowledge that they had accumulated over centuries. The reason we would credit them with having a scientific tradition might well be that our own scientific tradition has since its inception focused on explaining things. It does not seem to follow that science is a purely historical concept with no essential connection to explanatory aims. (Other theorists hold that it is historically necessary that art begins with the aesthetic, but deny that art's nature is to be defined in terms of its historical unfolding (Davies 1997).) Second, as to the first artworks, or the central art-forms or functions, some theorists hold that an account of them can only take the form of an enumeration. Stecker takes this approach: he says that the account of what makes something a central art form at a given time is, at its core, institutional, and that the central artforms can only be listed (Stecker, 1997, and 2005). Whether relocating the list at a different, albeit deeper, level in the definition renders the definition sufficiently perspicuous is an open question. Third, as to the Euthyphro-style dilemma, it might be held that the categorial distinction between artworks and “mere real things” (Danto, 1981) explains the distinction between experts and non-experts. Experts are able, it is said, to create new categories of art. When created, new categories bring with them new universes of discourse. New universes of discourse in turn make reasons available that otherwise would not be available. Hence, on this view, it is both the case that the experts' say-so alone suffices to make mere real things into artworks, and also true that experts' conferrals of art-status have reasons (McFee, 2011).

4.4 Functional (mainly aesthetic) definitions

Functional definitions take some function(s) or intended function(s) to be definitive of artworks. Here only aesthetic definitions, which connect art essentially with the aesthetic — aesthetic judgments, experience, or properties – will be considered. Different aesthetic definitions incorporate different views of aesthetic properties and judgments. See the entry on aesthetic judgment.
As noted above, some philosophers lean heavily on a distinction between aesthetic properties and artistic properties, taking the former to be perceptually striking qualities that can be directly perceived in works, without knowledge of their origin and purpose, and the latter to be relational properties that works possess in virtue of their relations to art history, art genres, etc. It is also, of course, possible to hold a less restrictive view of aesthetic properties, on which aesthetic properties need not be perceptual; on this broader view, it is unnecessary to deny that abstracta like mathematical entities and scientific laws possess aesthetic properties.)
Monroe Beardsley's definition holds that an artwork: “either an arrangement of conditions intended to be capable of affording an experience with marked aesthetic character or (incidentally) an arrangement belonging to a class or type of arrangements that is typically intended to have this capacity” (Beardsley, 1982, p. 299). For more on Beardsley, see SEP, Beardsley's Aesthetics)Beardsley's conception of aesthetic experience is Deweyan: aesthetic experiences are experiences that are complete, unified, intense experiences of the way things appear to us, and are, moreover, experiences which are controlled by the things experienced (see the entry on Dewey's aesthetics). Zangwill's aesthetic definition of art says that something is a work of art if and only if someone had an insight that certain aesthetic properties would be determined by certain nonaesthetic properties, and for this reason the thing was intentionally endowed with the aesthetic properties in virtue of the nonaesthetic properties as envisaged in the insight (Zangwill, 1995). Aesthetic properties for Zangwill are those judgments that are the subject of “verdictive aesthetic judgments” (judgements of beauty and ugliness) and “substantive aesthetic judgements” (e.g., of daintiness, elegance, delicacy, etc.). The latter are ways of being beautiful or ugly; aesthetic in virtue of a special close relation to verdictive judgments, which are subjectively universal. Other aesthetic definitions are easily obtained, by grafting on a different account of the aesthetic. For example, one might define aesthetic properties as those having an evaluative component, whose perception involves the perception of certain formal base properties, such as shape and color (De Clercq 2002).
Views which combine features of institutional and aesthetic definitions also exist. Iseminger, for example, builds a definition on an account of appreciation, on which to appreciate a thing's being F is to find experiencing its being F to be valuable in itself, and an account of aesthetic communication (which it is the function of the artworld to promote) (Iseminger, 2004). Another definition that combines features of institutional and aesthetic definitions is David Davies'. Davies adopts Nelson Goodman's account of symbolic functions that are aesthetic (a symbol functions aesthetically when it is syntactically dense, semantically dense, syntactically replete, and characterized by multiple and complex reference, which he takes to clarify the conditions under which a practice of making is a practice of artistic making (Davies 2004, Goodman 1968).
Aesthetic definitions have been criticized for being both too narrow and too broad. They are held to be too narrow because they are unable to cover influential modern works like Duchamp's ready-mades and conceptual works like Robert Barry's All the things I know but of which I am not at the moment thinking — 1:36 PM; June 15, 1969, which appear to lack aesthetic properties. (Duchamp famously asserted that his urinal, Fountain, was selected for its lack of aesthetic features.) Aesthetic definitions are held to be too broad because beautifully designed automobiles, neatly manicured lawns, and products of commercial design are often created with the intention of being objects of aesthetic appreciation, but are not artworks. Moreover, aesthetic views have been held to have trouble making sense of bad art. (see Dickie 2001, and S. Davies 2006, p. 37) Finally, more radical doubts about aesthetic definitions center on the intelligibility and usefulness of the aesthetic. Beardsley's view, for example, has been criticized by Dickie, who has also offered influential criticisms of the idea of an aesthetic attitude (Dickie 1965, Cohen 1973, Kivy 1975).
To these criticisms several responses have been offered. First, the less restrictive conception of aesthetic properties mentioned above, on which they may be based on non-perceptual formal properties, can be deployed. On this view, conceptual works would have aesthetic features, much the same way that mathematical entities are often claimed to (Shelley 2003, Carroll 2004). Second, a distinction may be drawn between time-sensitive properties, whose standard observation conditions include an essential reference to temporal location of the observer, and non-time-sensitive properties, which do not. Higher-order aesthetic properties like drama, humor, and irony, which account for a significant part of the appeal of Duchamp's and Cage's works, on this view, would derive from time-sensitive properties (Zemach 1997). Third, it might be held that it is the creative act of presenting something that is in the relevant sense unfamiliar, into a new context, the artworld, which has aesthetic properties. Or, fourth, it might be held that (Zangwill's “second-order” strategy) works like ready-mades lack aesthetic functions, but are parasitic upon, because meant to be considered in the context of, works that do have aesthetic functions, and therefore constitute mere borderline cases. Finally, it can be flatly denied that the ready-mades were works of art (Beardsley 1982).
As to the over-inclusiveness of aesthetic definitions, a distinction might be drawn between primary and secondary functions. Or it may be maintained that some cars, lawns, and products of industrial design are on the art/non-art borderline, and so don't constitute clear and decisive counter-examples. Or, if the claim that aesthetic theories fail to account for bad art depends on holding that some works have absolutely no aesthetic value whatsoever, as opposed to some non-zero amount, however infinitesimal, it may be wondered what justifies that assumption.

5. Conclusion

Conventionalist definitions account well for modern art, but have difficulty accounting for art's universality – especially the fact that there can be art disconnected from “our” (Western) institutions and traditions, and our species. They also struggle to account for the fact that the same aesthetic terms are routinely applied to artworks, natural objects, humans, and abstracta. Aesthetic definitions do better accounting for art's traditional, universal features, but less well, at least according to their critics, with revolutionary modern art; their further defense requires an account of the aesthetic which can be extended in a principled way to conceptual and other radical art. (An aesthetic definition and a conventionalist one could simply be conjoined. But that would merely raise, without answering, the fundamental question of the unity or disunity of the class of artworks.) Which defect is the more serious one depends on which explananda are the more important. Arguments at this level are hard to come by, because positions are hard to motivate in ways that do not depend on prior conventionalist and functionalist sympathies. If list-like definitions are flawed because uninformative, then so are conventionalist definitions, whether institutional or historical. Of course, if the class of artworks is a mere chaotic heap, lacking any genuine unity, then enumerative definitions cannot be faulted for being uninformative: they do all the explaining that it is possible to do, because they capture all the unity that there is to capture. In that case the worry articulated by one prominent aesthetician, who wrote earlier of the “bloated, unwieldy” concept of art which institutional definitions aim to capture, needs to be taken seriously, even if it turns out to be ungrounded: “It is not at all clear that these words – ‘What is art?’ – express anything like a single question, to which competing answers are given, or whether philosophers proposing answers are even engaged in the same debate…. The sheer variety of proposed definitions should give us pause. One cannot help wondering whether there is any sense in which they are attempts to … clarify the same cultural practices, or address the same issue.” (Walton, 1977, 2007)

Bibliography

Adajian, Thomas, 2005, “On the Prototype Theory of Concepts and the Definition of Art,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 63: 231–236.
–––, 2012, “Defining Art,” in A. Ribeiro (ed.) 2012, pp. 39–56.
Beardsley, Monroe, 1982, The Aesthetic Point of View, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
Bond, E. J., 1975, “The Essential Nature of Art.” American Philosophical Quarterly, 12: 177–183.
Carroll, Noel, 2001, Beyond Aesthetics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
–––, 2004, “Non-Perceptual Aesthetic Properties.” British Journal of Aesthetics, 44: 413–423.
Carroll, Noel (ed.), 2000, Theories of Art Today, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Danto, Arthur, 1981, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Davies, David, 2003, Art as Performance, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Davies, Stephen, 1991, Definitions of Art, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
–––, 1997, “First Art and Art's Definition,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, 35: 19–34
–––, 2000, “Non-Western Art and Art's Definition,” in Carroll (ed.), Theories of Art Today, pp. 199–217 .
–––, 2006, The Philosophy of Art, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Davies, Stephen, and Sukla, Ananta, 2003, Art and Essence, Westport, CT: Praeger.
Dean, Jeffery, 2003, “The Nature of Concepts and the Definition of Art,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 61: 29–35.
Devitt, Michael, 2001, “The Metaphysics of Truth,” in Michael Lynch (ed.), The Nature of Truth. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 579–611.
DeClerq, Rafael, 2002, “The Concept of an Aesthetic Property,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 60: 167–172.
Dickie, George, 1984, The Art Circle, New York: Haven.
–––, 2001, Art and Value, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Dissanayake, Ellen, 1990, What is Art For?, Bellingham: University of Washington Press.
Dutton, Denis, 2006, “A Naturalist Definition of Art,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 64: 367–377.
–––, 2008, The Art Instinct, New York: Bloomsbury Press.
Eagleton, Terry, 1990,The Ideology of the Aesthetic, London: Basil Blackwell.
Gaut, Berys, 2000, “The Cluster Account of Art,” in Carroll 2000, pp. 25–45.
Goehr, Lydia, 1994, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Goldman, Alan, 1995, Aesthetic Value, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Goodman, Nelson, 1968, Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols, Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
Iseminger, Gary, 2004, The Aesthetic Function of Art, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Janaway, Christopher, 1998, Images of Excellence: Plato's Critique of the Arts, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kant, Immanuel, 2000, Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kivy, Peter, 1997, Philosophies of the Arts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kristeller, Paul, 1951, “The Modern System of the Arts,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 12: 496–527.
Levinson, Jerrold, 1990, Music, Art, and Metaphysics, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
–––, 2005, “What Are Aesthetic Properties?” Proceedings of the Arisotelian Society, 79: 191–210.
Lopes, D.M., 2008,“Nobody Needs a Theory of Art” Journal of Philosophy, 105: 109 –127.
McFee, Graham, 2011, Artistic Judgment: A Framework for Philosophical Aesthetics, London: Springer.
Mag Uidhir, C. and Magnus, P. D., 2011, “Art Concept Pluralism” Metaphilosophy, 42: 183–97.
Matravers, Derek, 2000, “The Institutional Theory: A Protean Creature,” British Journal of Aesthetics, 40: 242–250.
Meskin, Aaron, 2008,“From Defining Art to Defining the Individual Arts: The Role of Theory in the Philosophies of Arts” in Stock and Thomson-Jones (eds.), New Waves in Aesthetics, pp. 125–150.
Plato, 1997, Complete Works, John M. Cooper (ed.), Indianapolis: Hackett.
Rey, Georges, 1983, “Concepts and Stereotypes,” Cognition, 15: 237–262.
Ribeiro, Anna Christina (ed.), 2012, Continuum Companion to Aesthetics, London: Continuum.
Shelley, James, 2003, “The Problem of Non-Perceptual Art.” British Journal of Aesthetics, 43: 363–378.
Sibley, Frank, 1959, “Aesthetic Concepts,” Philosophical Review, 74: 135–159.
Shiner, Larry, 2001, The Invention of Art, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
–––, 2003, “Western and Non-Western Concepts of Art: Universality and Authenticity” in Davies and Sukla (eds.), Art and Essence, pp. 143–157.
Stecker, Robert, 1997, Artworks: Definition, Meaning, Value, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
–––, 2005, Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Stock, Kathleen, and Thomson-Jones, Katherine, 2008, New Waves in Aesthetics, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tilghman, Benjamin, 1984, But Is It Art?, Oxford: Blackwell.
Walton, Kendall, 1997, “Review of Art and the Aesthetic,” Philosophical Review, 86: 97–101.
–––, 2007, “Aesthetics—What?, Why?, and Wherefore?” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 65: 147–162.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 1968, Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Blackwell.
Weitz, Morris, 1956, “The Role of Theory in Aesthetics,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 15: 27–35.
Zangwill, Nick, 1995a, “Groundrules in the Philosophy of Art,” Philosophy, 70: 533–544.
–––, 1995b, “The Creative Theory of Art,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 32: 315–332
–––, 2001, The Metaphysics of Beauty, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Zemach, Eddy, 1997, Real Beauty, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.


Source: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/art-definition/

Creation Imagination

Fearful people are artists. At least to me. Creating their own fears, a very strange art just the way musicians make their sounds creating abnormal melodies that other people hear but most the times don't understand. That way every person's fears are their own creations that scare them, even terrify them, the same way a painting with a dreadful theme can make you sad. Stupid people running away from their own creations because they can never see their greatness.
That's why people that are never in condition of facing their fears irritate me. I hate how weak people are. That they never change.
On the other hand there is a much worse kind person. A person fearless that has never created any fear. In other words, a gray person with no imagination.. I can never understand how these people lead the others when they are so plan and dull. In reality I personal pity them. Truth is, when people have no imagination how can they live? How can anybody live like this. If I was at that condition, I would hate myself.

Zoey

Friday, September 27, 2013

What Would Vcay Do If...?

...being forced to change from a bit insane horror-lover wallflower to a proper lady by four guys?
I would be cooperative. At the end I wouldn't have so much blood left in my veins though. (Too much hotness, too much nose bleeding).

...She had witnessed 9/11?
I'd start a band and name them My Chemical Romance-Ok, I stop. I don't know. Really. I'd be shocked. Or course. But I honestly have no idea more than that. I've never experienced something familiar, thank God.
 

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Drawing Anime Eyes-Basic

by Zoey

STEP 1
Get coffee.



STEP 2
Draw little shape like half a leaf or something, with a snake's tongue on one edge, like I did below.
 
STEP 3
Draw a little curve at the bottom. Make sure to look like the curve and the one you draw below look like they are connected, but they should not, like below. Yes, I know I suck at this.

 
STEP 4
Draw an egg-shaped thing but leave a small space somewhere in the middle of the lines, the one a bit higher than the other.

 
STEP 5
Draw a little circle in the middle to make the pupil. Then make two little thingies I did below if you want your eye to look more realistic.

 
STEP 6
Shade your eye at the two corners, or something. Like below.

 
STEP 7
Color your eye and put two small curves above your eye.

 
STEP 8
Draw an eyebrow, if you wish.

 
 
 
 
The End.
 
 
 
 
Zoey
 
 
Vcay: This is our 400th post! :D 

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Piano, Stress and Talking

Sequel of 'Piano, Stress and Biology"

So I talked to my dad about all the crap I wrote yesterday, about me wanting to quit the piano class. And now I feel horrible. He tried to convince me otherwise and I just keep saying 'no' but in the end....
I don't know. Really. I feel like the most awful person alive right now. Maybe because things change and I am the one who is causing the change. And I hate change so much, I hate change more than I hate the bitches at my school. That is the conversation:
Me: Dad i want to quit piano class.
Dad: What? Why?
Me: I know that i am not going to study for it, I mean I hardly did last year, you know that.
Dad: We can ask for your teacher to loosen it up a little bit.[Me thinking: That's never going to happen.] And if you don't have time to practice, it's all right.
Me: Well, dad, the point is I feel awful every time I step in the class and just say that i didn't study at all. I cant stand the fact that all year round, I'll do this every Thursday.
Dad: Why?
Me: i don't know dad, it's just me. And besides, i know that i need to spend a lot of time in order to study a track. And i don't think i'll do that. No, i know i wont do it.
*After more arguing about how music can make people calmer and stuff."
Dad: As you wish, im not going to push you.

What i said was all true. And now? Dad is ok, the teacher is not going to mind...
Oh yeah, i forgot.
Im such a coward i just cant go to the teacher and say "Hey! Nice to see you again! I will not have piano classes this year because...."
Because what?

THINGS I CAN SAY

A. "...I will not have the time to study for your piano class"
Teacher: But you can study for relaxation!
Me:...awkward silence due to my awkwardness and sadness and coward-ness I will be forced to agree to one more year of piano lessons and pretty much hate myself after this*
B:"...I don't like piano."
It's not happening i love playing and i don't have the guts anyway.
C."....I know i will not study for your piano class i mean i hardly studied last year."
Teacher: It doesn't matter to me! [It does matter to her after one week she will forget what we said]
Me:...*awkward silence due to my awkwardness and sadness and coward-ness I will be forced to agree to one more year of piano lessons and pretty much hate myself after this*


Or i could just continue the piano classes like dad said, we could loosen up a bit.

THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF BOTH OPTIONS

ADVANTAGES OF QUITTING
More time
No stress (except the one that already existed)
No bed feelings because i didn't study
Music wont be something i am forced to do and i will play whenever i want, whatever i want.

DISADVANTAGES OF QUITTING
Not more than 10 minutes of awkward talk with my teacher
I may not be able to play any other tracks without any help


ADVANTAGES OF CONTINUING
Possibly one or two tracks i will learn and i will like

DISADVANTAGES OF CONTINUING
Less time
More stress
Bad feelings because i didn't study
Music will be something i am forced to do

British guy:Taking everything mentioned above in consideration, I believe that Vcay should definitely choose to quit her piano classes due to the fact that the advantages of this option far outweigh the disadvantages.

Hell yeah, i agree with this random British guy I don't even know where he came from!
I will do it. I will quit piano class and after the awkward conversation with the teacher is over, i;m going to be so proud of myself im going to eat some chocolate.

Doctor: DONT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!

Fine, I'll just be proud of myself.
See ya. And if i end up alive( aka without piano classes) after this I'm going to post it. And you will congratulate me.

British guy: That's an order.

Exactly.

Vcay

P.S. Sorry for all the "i"s that are not capitalized i was just so bored to correct them after i wrote the post.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Άβυσσος η ψυχή της γυναίκας...


1. Οι γυναίκες μπορούν να συγχωρήσουν έναν άντρα που εκμεταλλεύτηκε την ευκαιρία, ποτέ όμως κάποιον που την έχασε.
Charles Maurice de talleyrand
2. Η γυναίκα που κλείνει τα μάτια της όταν φιλάει έναν άντρα, συνήθως προσπαθεί να θυμηθεί το όνομα του.
Evan Esar ...
3. Τι αρέσει στις γυναίκες, έχει 16 cm μήκος και αρχίζει από Π;
Το πενηντάευρο
4. Ξέρεις τι σημαίνει να γυρίζεις σπίτι το βράδυ σε μία γυναίκα που σου προσφέρει αγάπη, ζεστασιά και τρυφερότητα; Σημαίνει οτι είσαι σε λάθος σπίτι.
Henny Youngman
5. Ποτέ μην εμπιστεύεσαι τις γυναίκες που λένε την πραγματική τους ηλικία. Αφού μπορούν να πουν αυτό, μπορούν να πουν τα πάντα.
Oscar Wilde
6. Μια γυναίκα που διαβάζει το Playboy αισθάνεται σαν Εβραίος που διαβάζει προπαγανδιστικό φυλλάδιο των Ναζί.
Gloria Steinem
7. Όταν ένας άντρας λέει πρόστυχα λόγια σε μια γυναίκα, είναι σεξουαλική παρενόχληση. Όταν μια γυναίκα λέει πρόστυχα λόγια σ' έναν άντρα, είναι 1,19 ευρώ το λεπτό.
Steven Wright
8. Μόνο τα καλά κορίτσια κρατούν ημερολόγιο. Τα κακά δεν έχουν χρόνο.
Tallulah Bankhead
9. Το μόνο καλύτερο από μια γυμνή γυναίκα είναι δυο γυμνές γυναίκες.
Hugh Hefner
10. Ποιά είναι τα τέσσερα ζώα που θέλει να έχει μια γυναίκα; Μια jaguar στο γκαράζ της, μια αλεπού στη ντουλάπα της, ένα τίγρη στο κρεβάτι της και ένα βόδι για να πληρώνει τα παραπάνω!
11. Οι γυναίκες είναι όπως τα πούρα: οι πρώτες ρουφηξιές είναι οι καλύτερες.
Georges Wolinski
12. Εάν θέλετε να παντρευτείτε όμορφη, έξυπνη και πλούσια, θα πρέπει να παντρευτείτε τρεις φορές.
Ανώνυμος
13. Όταν ένας άντρας ανοίγει την πόρτα του αυτοκινήτου στην σύζυγό του, δύο πράγματα μπορεί να συμβαίνουν: ή είναι καινούρια σύζυγος ή είναι καινούριο το αυτοκίνητο
14. Eίπα στη γυναίκα μου την αλήθεια। Της είπα πως βλέπω ψυχίατρο. Μετά μου είπε την αλήθεια:βλέπει ψυχίατρο, δυο υδραυλικούς και έναν μπάρμαν
15. Αν θέλετε πραγματικά η γυναίκα σας να σας ακούει όταν μιλάτε, να μιλάτε στον ύπνο σας.
Rita Rudner
16. Εύκολη: αντρικός όρος που χαρακτηρίζει τις γυναίκες που έχουν τη σεξουαλική ηθική του άντρα
17. -Μπορεί μια γυναίκα να κάνει έναν άντρα εκατομμυριούχο?
  -Αν ήταν δισεκατομμυριούχος
18. Καμιά γυναίκα δεν αντέχει ένα χαρτοπαίκτη σύζυγο, εκτός αν κερδίζει συνέχεια.
Thomas Dewar
19. Υπάρχουν διάφορα μηχανήματα που διεγείρουν σεξουαλικά, ειδικά τις γυναίκες. Το καλύτερο είναι μια Mercedes-Benz SLR.
Λιν Λαβνέρ
20. Κάποτε έκοψα το ποτό και τις γυναίκες. Ήταν τα χειρότερα 20 λεπτά της ζωής μου.
George Best
21. Για τις γυναίκες το καλύτερο αφροδισιακό είναι οι λέξεις. Το σημείο G είναι στα αυτιά. Όποιος ψάχνει πιο κάτω χάνει το χρόνο του.
Ιζαμπέλ Αλιέντε
22. Για να ντυθεί μια γυναίκα, γδύνονται δυο ζώα: ένα που δίνει τη γούνα κι ένα που την πληρώνει
23. Το μεγαλύτερο πλεονέκτημα του να είσαι γυναίκα, είναι ότι μπορείς να δείχνεις περισσότερο ηλίθια από ότι πραγματικά είσαι και κανείς να μην εκπλήσσεται.
Freya Stark
24. Μπορεί οι γυναίκες να προσποιούνται οργασμούς, αλλά οι άντρες προσποιούνται ολόκληρες σχέσεις.
Σάρον Στόουν
25. Οι γυναίκες είναι σαν το τσιγάρο. Όσο και να καπνίσεις πάντα κάτι μένει.
by Gorginaaa...!

Σπιτική μερέντα με ζαχαρούχο....

Υλικά
200 γρ. κουβερτούρα 50 - 55% κακάο, ψιλοκομμένη
400 γρ. ζαχαρούχο γάλα
100 γρ. φουντούκια, αποφλοιωμένα
250 γρ. βούτυρο αγελάδος, λιωμένο ελαφρώς
Μερίδες για 950 γρ.
Προετοιμασία 10΄
Διαδικασία
Λιώνουμε την κουβερτούρα σε μπεν μαρί (σε μεταλλικό μπολ που έχουμε βάλει σε κατσαρόλα με νερό που βράζει). Παράλληλα, ζεσταίνουμε ελαφρώς το ζαχαρούχο γάλα. Κατεβάζουμε την κουβερτούρα από τη φωτιά, ρίχνουμε σε αυτή το ζαχαρούχο γάλα και ανακατεύουμε με μια κουτάλα. Πολτοποιούμε στο μπλέντερ, όσο καλύτερα μπορούμε, το φουντούκι, έτσι ώστε να «βγάλει» το λάδι του και να γίνει ένα μείγμα σαν πολτός και το ρίχνουμε μέσα στο μείγμα της σοκολάτας. Προσθέτουμε και το βούτυρο. Ανακατεύουμε πολύ καλά να αναμειχθούν καλά τα υλικά και γεμίζουμε βάζα. Διατηρούμε την κρέμα στο ψυγείο και, όταν πρόκειται να την καταναλώσουμε, τη βγάζουμε από την ψύξη και την αφήνουμε να αποκτήσει θερμοκρασία δωματίου.

ΚΑΛΗ ΟΡΕΞΗ...!! By Gorgina..! 

Monday's Excuses

So you are with your friends and stupid douche comes over and you hate his guts. You need an excuse. What the hell do you do? With Zoey and Vcay.
No this is not about cutting him into pieces with a little knife.
Some are stupid, some actually work and some are just.....whatever.

EXCUSE #1

My bff called me. Her cat's on labor, sorry I have to go.

EXCUSE #2

Now that you're here the number of people is odd which is bad luck. I have to leave, before we all die.

EXCUSE #3

I forgot to study. For this test. That we don't have. But you cant know that.

EXCUSE #4

My little brother fell from the window and I have to be in the hospital.

EXCUSE #5

My favorite show is on TV right now I have to go watch it.

EXCUSE #6

I just noticed that this place has bad spiritual energy. I really have to leave.

EXCUSE #7

I need to tell you something really important about me. I am a unicorn. We have the official unicorn minute in five minutes and I really have to be there.

EXCUSE #8

It's late. If I don't leave and be and bad kid and return home late, Santa won't give me a present.

EXCUSE #9

I have to pee. *gets out of the window*

EXCUSE #10

I have a cat. I forgot that. I'll go home. To feed my dad. Before he starts barking at the neighbors. (If you think 'Whaaat' it's exactly what we're thinking as well.)

That's it. Bye.

Zoey
Vcay

Piano, Stress and Biology.

I think writing here will calm me down a bit.
And no , I am not procrastinating. I have to study Biology and I love Biology so why would I procrastinate?
Anyway, I just learnt that I'm going to start piano classes in some days. I'm supposed to be excited, right? Well, I'm not.
I'm not the kind of person who can keep up with school, extra French and Spanish classes AND piano lessons. I love playing the piano and I will learn a lot of tracks I like this year, but I don't think I will have the time to do it. As a born procrastinator (not right now) I will need at least FIVE whole hours to actually study for school.
People tell me to see piano like a hobby, or a stress-reliever or something. The point is that I cannot sit down and play for more than fifteen minutes without feel like I am forced to. And fifteen minutes is obviously not enough.
And then there is my piano teacher, who constantly pushes me to have a piano degree and as a result to work harder than I am supposed to. Guess what. I don't want to.
So what? Am I going to stop? I don't want to quit and never play the piano again, but I cannot learn new tracks without a teacher yet, but I obviously don't want to continue like last year.
God, I am already stressed and I haven't even started yet.
I really want to improve at school this year and I will not be able to keep up. I know that. I know myself and I know I m not made for things like that.
 
Vcay


Saturday, September 21, 2013

Downton Abbey-Tv Series Review

Contains Spoilers
 
I have watched all three seasons and haven't missed one episode. I have the two first seasons on DVD and I watch them again and again. I just love Downton Abbey. My favorite? I really cannot decide. Of course I just adore Violet (Maggie Smith). Who doesn't? I always liked Mary(Michelle Dockery), even when she's acting...well, the way she does. Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay) was one of my favorites from the start; I knew she was going to have a story like this. And of course, Edith, the one I could mostly relate to. If I was one person from there, I would be Edith (Laura Carmichael) and I'd like to be Edith. I even named one of my cat's kittens after her. Let's not forget Daisy, who, I have to be honest, broke on my nerves when she wasn't sure if she should marry William. She didn't even try to look happy. William was dying and she was like 'I'm needed in the kitchen'. She pissed me off. Cora was the nether-hot-or-cold character. Sometimes I liked her, sometimes not, but mostly ignored her. Mrs Hughes is a character like that, though I never found times I didn't like her.
Now for the gentlemen. Robert was nice, cool, ok, but that's it. I remember one scene that pissed me off though. When Matthew was injured, and the doctor said that he could have children; Robert seemed to care more for that than for Matthew's health. But, to be honest, that would be what I would care for. However, I can be a heartless bitch at times. Matthew Crawley. Is. An. Obsession. I loved him the first time I saw him and adored the love story with Mary. They would be my favorite couple in the series if it wasn't for...But let me continue with the characters. Mr. Carson is also a character I think Downton Abbey will be horrible without.
Tomas Barrow. For and unexplained reason, all teenage girls today are OBSESSED with homosexual guys. And I am no exception to the rule. (Why does it happen? No idea.) When Tomas kisses Jamie after that BITCH !$#^#^*$^ *hmm* *hmm* miss O'Bryan made him have false hopes about it, I really wanted Jamie to kiss back. And I wish he will find someone later on. I don't think i'll be able to stand the fact that he will end up alone in the end.
And now I want to be that heartless bitch I mentioned. Anna and John Bates.
I hate them.
I wish they didn't exist.
Sure, the story is quite interesting with the whole evil-ex-wife thingy but it gets boring when Mrs. Bates No1 strikes once, twice, three times....I just found it too cliché?? I don't know, but every time it was Anna and John I wished I wouldn't have to watch it and just skip it. They got married, happily ever after we will see Anna with a little baby next season blah blah blah...
For the finale, Tom Branson and lady Sybil Crawley. Their story is awesome. It may seem like an ordinary I-will-marry-him-dad-I-love-him but in the end, no one really hates anyone. Robert doesn't hate Sybil, he may does have some feelings like hate for Tom, but I am sure they are not hate, everyone else doesn't seem to have a problem with it and in the end Tom ends up living with little Sybil in Downton, which was the best ending. For me, at least. Of course, Sybil's death was shoking, but- I really hate myself for that- I ruined the ending for me, when I googled 'Downton abbey lady Sybil' and end up with her death. So, I pretty much knew it.
Just a thought: Am I the only one who thinks that Matthew and Marry's son will marry Sybi? Not, like, in the next season, but if we think too far in the future maybe? It's the ideal couple. That's what the family will think obviously.
Don't rush., Vcay.
I haven't talked about everyone of course, I may do a better review in the future, including as many characters as possible.
 
Vcay

Friday, September 20, 2013

Dedications 2

So I am on the mood for some dedications...Not much, just a bunch. (Hey that rhymed) just because I'm really happy Zoey and I finally added a music player here :)



Zoey-Our Lady of Sorrows BY My Chemical Romance
Gorgina-Gettin' Lucky by Draft Punk
Katherine- I'm Just a Kid by Simple Plan
Vaso-Jet Lag by Simple Plan
Georgia-I Feel Like Dancin' by All Time Low
Theodora-Welcome to my Life by Simple Plan
Every high school student ever-High School Never Ends by Bowling for Soup and Grow up by Simple Plan
To All Of You-Every Snowflake is Different Just Like You by My Chemical Romance and The World is Ugly by My Chemical Romance as well!

That's it guys. Bye!

Vcay
 

What Would Vcay Do If...?

...She got flashed down the toilet and ended up in the Demon World and being announced that she is the Demon Queen, in the world of the anime Kyo Kara Maoh?
I'd slap Wolfram. And i'd just say yes to everything Conrart and Gwendal say. But mainly, I'd slap Wolfram.

...Sebastian Michaelis wanted to make a contract with her?
That's not how it goes. I must be the one to call Sebastian. But whatever. I wouldn't make a contract. I want my life. I know Sebastian's awesome but is it worth to die in like five years tops just because you want to spend time with him?

...She got flashed down the toilet and ended up in the Demon World and being announced that she is the Demon Queen, in the world of the anime Kyo Kara Maoh?
I'd slap Wolfram. And i'd just say yes to everything Conrart and Gwendal say. But mainly, I'd slap Wolfram.

...Sebastian Michaelis wanted to make a contract with her?
That's not how it goes. I must be the one to call Sebastian. But whatever. I wouldn't make a contract. I want my life. I know Sebastian's awesome but is it worth to die in like five years tops just because you want to spend time with him?

...Claude Faustus wanted to make a contract with her?
My soul when the person who killed Alois Trancy dies. Claude killed him so he'll die and I'll live and get my revenge >:)

...Stumbling upon a Host Club while searching for a quiet place to study, then braking a vase and be forced to attend the club to pay for the vase even though she is a girl?
I'd love it! :) Spending everyday with Tamaki, Kyoya, The Hitachiins, Honey and Mori? Where do I sign?
 

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Andrei Chikatilo & and other Things

So the other day I was playing one of these games in which you have to guess in the guy on the picture is a criminal or a programmer or something. And I stumbled upon Andrei Chikatilo...
According to Wikipedia he was a Soviet serial killer, nicknames the Butcher of Rostov, Red Ripper and the Rostov Ripper, who committed the sexual assault, murder and mutilation of a minimum of 52 women and children between 1978 and 1990 in the Russian SFSR. Chikatilo confessed to a total of 56 murders and was tried for 53 of these killings in April 1992. He was convicted and sentenced to death for 52 of these murders in October 1992 and subsequently executed in February 1994.
My first thought was why don't I know him? Or at least heard of him? He committed 56 murders for God's sake.
Some would think something like "If he was American or something, we would know him." Well, I learnt about Virginia Tech Massacre two months ago. I bet that if I ask anyone on my country, there will be only a small number of people who would know about it. Virginia is in the USA. We don't know of it.
I really don't know what is the subject of this post, I honestly have no idea. Maybe the fact that we are unaware of what is really going on out there? Maybe that we think we are safe just because we live in a small country? Well Russia is not that far.
A lot of people here think that everything bad happens to the US. Bullshit. It happens everywhere. Just because US is a bigger country and we learn things that happen there more often, doesn't mean that there aren't serial killers in Greece.
That's it. Bye.

Vcay

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

How To Stop Being A Bystander

If you expect those really good usefull advise you should better leave.To be honest I haven't really figured this one out myself but truthfully this update is for me just as much as it is to you.So don't judge or do that I don't really care I'm just trying to  help those people that are as invisible I am to fit in a little better(I'm not implying this will help at all..)

1 Make sure people realize you are there (scream at them-this will definately work)

2 Stalk the popular kids and start acting like them you might end up acting like a cunt but who cares since fake people will pretend that they like you :)

3 Violate their personal space people love it when you do that because they feel wanted(continue no matter what, even if they repeatedly tell you to leave them alone)

4 Share every little detail of your personal life with the internet. No wait you brobably are doing that already.

5 Lie about yourself. Seriously who wants to hear about your boring life.Be somebody else.Be creative.

6 Act like you don't care about anything this will make you look 'cool' to the others.

7 Get a dinosaur. Dinosaurs are cool as fuck and that way people will like you.

8 Always wear sunglasses no matter the time and the wheather this not only will it make you look like a complete douche but will also hide your eyes but will also make you look more mysterious.

9 Dye your hair a non-natural colour (green , blue, pink) even though you mignt not like it this is what cool people do so it is bound to look cool on you too, right?

Those are my advise.I can't see what can go wrong because they are awesome but to be sure if you don't want every single person at your school to be jealous of your greatness be carefull with those very precious pieces of advice.

Zoey


The Touble with Fate-Leigh Evans Book Review

I adored it. I read it long ago and I don't remember lots of details, but I recall that I couldn't stop until I reach the end. I bought it while we were on three-day school trip and to be honest, I didn't really pay too much attention to it then. I left it aside for a while and I started reading it again after two months after or so. And I loved it. It was too well written, making me feel like I was the same person with Hedi/Helen, the main character. It was humorous and graphic, but not too graphic. What make me love the book more was the fact that the characters weren't only good or only bad. When I read books like this, with like one hero who is always right and honest and everything versus and evil person who is...evil and bad and everything I want to tear the pages out and burn them in the fireplace in winter. I know it's not the first one but I don't know how to buy the second of the series-obviously, I cannot buy it from anywhere in my town.
Favorite character? Robson Trowbridge. *SPOILER* I mean, Hedi loved him and throughout the book I related too much with her that I ended up loving Trowbridge. (?)*SPOILER*
Totally looking forward to the second one.
Lastly, the fact that it wasn't cliché- it was a story with faes and werewolves, with a plot I don't think it's similar to anything I read before and with no plot twists that made me hate it or something.

Vcay

DANGER DAYS:THE TRUE LIVES OF THE FABULOUS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Basically, what do I think of high school so far.
It's not like we had the chance to actually start lessons or anything.
First thing's first: School started on 9/11. Irony? Probably.
So I went to my new school with Zoey and Georgia (not Gorgina, another friend of ours). In my country, students sit with another student instead of sitting alone in a small desk during class. It would be the first time me and Zoey wouldn't share a desk since ever. Also, the teachers change classes not the students and the latter sit in one classroom the whole day and year. Fun.
So I sat alone in a desk on the first day. I knew kids at my class, but there were kids I didn't obviously.
So they gave us our books and we left. The point is, the teachers are on a strike and we hardly did anything four days now.
Since no one from my class breaks on my nerves and the teachers seem better than last year, im going to say that high school seems OK so far. I'm 21489302% sure this is going to change. But that's fine. I mean, I don't think I'll have time to worry about it or anything. I really want to study harder this year so I'll try not to care. Which is pretty hard, but I'll do what I can.
So that's it. Bye.
 
Vcay

My First Time-with Vcay and Zoey

MY FIRST TWEET

Vcay: "Just Watched Zombieland. Amazing!"
Zoey: "And now what?"Yes I ws really bored.
Vcay: The fact that you just remembered it and I had to scroll for like two hours makes me feel sad.
Zoey: WE SCROLLED FOR 4 HOURS FOR THAT?


MY FIRST KISS

Zoe: George. Don't wanna talk about it.
Vcay:Not yet to come.

MY FIRST WORD

Vcay:Probably 'mum' or something.
Zoey: Exciting. I said "where is it". I was probably talking about the demon that possessed my brother. He's still possessed.
Vcay: Sure. Of course. The doctor says to always tell you "yes".
Zoey: It might have been a demon book.
Vcay: That makes more sense. Right.

MY FIRST ALCOHOLIC DRINK

Zoey: Beer.
Vcay." Probably beer. I don't drink.
Zoey: We're so interesting. Like leaves in autumn.

MY FIRST TEXT TODAY

Vcay: From my phone company. For free texts and calls and stuff.
Zoey: Mine too.

MY FIRST FRIEND

Vcay: Gorgina!!! When I was like three years old.
Zoey:Like an actual friend? *smiles awkwardly* Vcay was my friend, not a backstabbing twat that thought was my friend.
Vcay: *whispers* I wish she's not talking about me.

FIRST THING YOU DO WHEN YOU GET HOME

Vcay: Wear my pajamas and lie in bed with my laptop.
Zoey: Twitter.

FIRST POST ON THE BLOG

Vcay: A post about a bitch on school.
Zoey: I think it's a poem.

FIRST FOLLOWER ON TWITTER

Vcay: The first one unfollowed me and -obviously- I don't remember. So....*evilly* I KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND I WILL FOUND YOU.
Zoey: I'm not going to scroll for that. I think it was bitch who unfollowed me later. I remember that the whole background was pink.
*UPDATE*
Vcay: So I was super boredand checked my first follower. It's someone called Mark Tomic (@SmileeMonster). I don't know him, but thanks! :)
FIST LOVE

Vcay: Chocolate.
Zoey:Coffee.
Creepy Monster from Vcay's Wardrobe: That doesn't count.
Zoey: Tea? Jasmine Tea?
Vcay: Milk?
Creepy Monster from Vcay's Wardrobe: That doesn't count either.
Vcay: Oh I remembered. Your dad.
Zoey: And your mum.
Creepy Monster from Vcay's Wardrobe:*Gets back in the closet slowly, embarrassed and sobbing*

MY FIRST NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE

Zoey: I have like 5 every freaking day. I don't remember the first one. Maybe when I spilled boiling water all over me and I had blisters for months. *creepy happy voice*What about you?
Vcay: I suck at this game. I cannot remember. Maybe I was going to fell from somewhere.

MY FIRST PET

Zoey: I had a little turtle.
Vcay: It died.
Zoey: No it didn't! :( It moved. To Japan. Flying with his unicorn. That's what happened. Shut the hell up. It send me a letter.
Vcay: Yeah, that was me. Your parents told me to pretend to be the turtle.
Zoey: You're a fucking liar and I'll kill your cat.
Vcay. Yeah yeah. My first pet was a canary.

THAT'S IT. GO BACK TO YOUR MISERABLY LIFE NOW. LOVE YOU.

Zoey: Hey! We forgot the first time we had sex!
Vcay: Probably because it never happened.
Zoey: Oh. You mean Tina didn't count?
Vcay: *faacepalm*