WTFA

one thing i’ve been thinking about a lot is what i’ve thought of as “what-the-fuck art”

that is, those artworks that are so weird and so confusing that you can’t help but go “what the fuck, why is this… like this? what series of decisions and beliefs led the artist to think these make sense together?”

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i suppose any good art becomes what-the-fuck art after a while, after enough consideration from the audience

like a frustrated socratic dialogue with a dead author who will never talk back.

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i suppose what-the-fuck art is also a form of insecurity, of wanting attention

since being inscrutable and shocking are easy ways to live rent free in people’s heads, couch surfing in the attention economy

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although

is there anything really wrong with that?

like actually tho

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another way too look at what-the-fuck art is that they tend to be the unfiltered output of ids let loose to do whatever they want

stuff that feels uncomfortably raw

stuff that feels like it came out of an unhealthy mind, or a healthy mind playing with unhealthy thoughts

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i suppose that’s what play is, in the first place: trying stuff that you haven’t tried before as a way of learning about the world and yourself

and unhealthy thoughts are an important part of both the world and ourselves

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idk i don’t have much of a conclusion

well, after all, this is an exercise in exploratory thought

and exploration, by definition, shouldn’t have a predefined end goal