2/2

> You see, the art should make people stop and think. You stopped and thought about the rocks. I'd guess... I cannot know obviously, but still I'd dare to guess, that you missed the opportunity to reflect on your feelings triggered by those caged rocks? Why you was annoyed? Maybe because people spend resources inefficiently, as you say, but maybe the inefficiency is just your rationalization hiding the real cause of annoyance?

I didn't even stop as there was nothing to look at. If I stopped, it was to see if there was something I've missed, but there wasn't - poorly made metal cage with random stones inside. But apart from being annoyed at how public resources are spent, I got annoyed at other things, too:

* at the priorities people have in general, how they're seemingly blissfully unaware of anything that's not in their field of vision,

* at the fact that some pretentious fuck graduated with this as one of their biggest achievements (compared to people who actually try to advance science (hard or soft) or math or try to become better teachers or movie directors or nurses,

* at how some other pretentious fuck is going to pretend they admire this,

* at all the obvious things missing in the park or around it (yes, the "public resources" annoyance, but more concrete) - the poor state of the sidewalks, the lack of public toilets (or the state the existing ones are in), how poorly parking is handled, how no one helps the homeless people or animals and so on. Even if you live in the best city in the world, I bet there are similar things you get annoyed at. My city is far from the best one.

And so on, and so on. But I get annoyed at these things whenever I see someone sick or poor on the street, whenever I see some idiot that parks their car and takes up the whole sidewalk, whenever I can't even safely walk on the sidewalk even if there are no cars because it's so uneven and hasn't been maintained for decades (imagine an old person or someone with a disibility or someone with a stroller trying to walk there) and because the municipality decides "we'll have a themed fest/gathering/show" that costs a few thousand $currency just to set up the lighting. So the stones in a cage weren't that special in that regard. Maybe I get annoyed too much, but I think most people get annoyed too little. They shrug off most things and sheepishly say "well, things are shitty, but whatchagonnado?". And they vote for the same people who did nothing during their previous term.

> I dug into similar annoyance in myself, and I've found that I was annoyed because people do not share my understanding of art. I had some theories that people are mistaken because they do not try to think what is art and what is just plain crap, they just follow fashion. And for some reason it annoyed me a lot. What is this reason, I'm not sure, I think it has something to do with a social status or something like. Like, society I belong to ignores my opinion and goes into a direction I do not approve. It kinda make me a less important member of the society? I can't explain it clearly, because I do not understand it myself. But it is a very interesting observation, and I guess those rocks might become your opportunity to make this observation or maybe some to learn something else about yourself. Though I may be gravely mistaken of course. I can't just look into your head and explore your feelings and their causes, these things can be done only by you.

I thought a few minutes about whether that could be it for me, but I doubt it. I don't mind people listening to generic radio top 20 pop music. I just feel a bit sorry for them as they've never really explored other genres, but I don't mind their tastes. I don't mind people reading or watching cheesy romantic stuff even though it's the farthest from what I like. I may get annoyed at someone intensely staring at a black square in a gallery but not because they genuinely like it - it's because they got the scarf and the glass of wine and they're trying to pretend to like it. I love it when someone goes to something I don't care about, like a toaster exhibit or a museum of 19th century bottle caps or something. Or if they genuinely like art I don't care for. I have a friend who could talk to you for hours about random painters from the past. Is he pretentious? Maybe a bit. But mostly he likes the styles, he likes reading about them, about the history of that art. I get that, I like it and respect it even though I couldn't care less about Monet or Manet or whatever myself.

> > You have Michelangelo's David where you can admire the Michelangelo's skills, the time and care he took to sculpt it...

> Well... With Michelangelo I'm an example of what you said about the subjectivity of art. I don't see the point of drawing things on a canvas or shape rocks into a form of a muscular guy. I kinda can see the appeal of paintings before the photography was invented, but now they are useless.

Definitely, realism is boring to me, too. I meant to compare the skill, the attention to detail and the time spent making David, not whether we can make better 3D models than David in seconds in whatever software. And even if the stones in a cage were to compare to David wrt skill and time spent, it would still be worse than dealing with infrastructure or poverty or animals or whatever. The counterargument is "we'll never fully deal with these" which is a valid one (it's been used against lots of things I support, such as space exploration or animal welfare) - we can't spend all our time on a few issues and neglect everything else. But art with public money on public property is a giant "FUCK YOU" when we haven't dealt with these things even in the slightest.

But maybe the stones in a cage and the train sonification sparked up this conversation and that's enough; they did what they were supposed to do. Probably not, but who knows.

Edit: That art is forced down on us like poetry and prose was in school. I always thought we could grasp the social issues better by just talking about them or seeing pictures of bad things instead of reading fiction or poetry. Maybe that's part of my dislike towards art I'm forced to interact with? I think Frank from Raymond (I watched it a loong time ago) said something like "Poetry? Get to the point!" which resonated with me.