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From: gsl2598@trex.oscs.montana.edu (Sean Lambert)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.ascii,alt.ascii-art,alt.binaries.pictures.ascii
Subject: Talk: GIF->ASCII: Is it Art?
Date: 20 Sep 1994 12:23:35 -0500
Organization: Montana State University
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In article <354la3$cja@gagme.wwa.com>, cat@bga.com (Dr. Cat) writes:
>Art is a word that most people disagree on the definition of.  It's 
>pointless to argue "no, no the word art means THIS" because there simply 
>is no consensus.
[cut]
>                               -- Dr. Cat

This seems like a really close discussion to the "Is photography art?"
discussion.  As usual, when any new form of 'art' appears, it is often
rejected as such by the contemporary art establishment.  It looks like
the GIF->ASCII conversions could be criticized by the "true" ASCII
artists in the same way that photography was criticized by the painters
early in its history (and somewhat today).

I took a class last year which spent an entire simester discussing this
topic, and I can see this thread going on for ever, as long as people
maintain interest.  =]  If anyone would like some text references for
articles about photography as art (if you would like to try and apply
them here or something) I can probably dig up some notes.

     Sean Lambert     sum1els@cs.montana.edu