Recent comments in /f/todayilearned

-domi- t1_j7zk3m3 wrote

Reply to comment by roox911 in TIL that CBS offered actress Candice Bergen to work as a journalist after "Murphy Brown". She declined, not wanting to blur between actor and journalist. by DragonTonguePunch

Lmaoooo, what do you mean doubling down? I asked a question, and got an answer. Never once did i double anything. I've had to deal with a fair few of you who are mad that asking questions works, for some reason? But that's a small price to pay.

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TheCervus t1_j7zgdm9 wrote

Reply to TIL an abstract painting called "New York City I" has been accidentally displayed upside down since 1980 by Specialist_Check

I paint abstract art and I've sold a few paintings. I literally tell my buyers: "It's abstract. There's no top or bottom. Hang it whichever direction you like best." I sign them on the back for that reason.

As long as I've painted something that I like, I'm happy. If other people like it too, that's just a bonus. My abstract art is about evoking a mood or vibe. Or at the very least, something that makes you think "That's kinda cool" even if you don't have the vocabulary to express why you like it.

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-domi- t1_j7zd1uq wrote

Reply to comment by PeregrineC in TIL that CBS offered actress Candice Bergen to work as a journalist after "Murphy Brown". She declined, not wanting to blur between actor and journalist. by DragonTonguePunch

Yeah, when you know this, it's super easy to google around and find what you know. Exactly why i asked people who knew this background knowledge to chime in. I can't tell if you're mad cause it worked, or if you're trying to prove to me that what obviously worked didn't work. I asked a question and got an answer. Why do you have a problem with it?

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PeregrineC t1_j7zayg9 wrote

Reply to comment by -domi- in TIL that CBS offered actress Candice Bergen to work as a journalist after "Murphy Brown". She declined, not wanting to blur between actor and journalist. by DragonTonguePunch

Try: "Candice Bergen" "Murphy Brown", which would be the two obvious key phrases.

Top hit gets the Wikipedia page, and literally the first sentence displayed on Google -- without needing to click through -- gets "The series stars Candice Bergen as the eponymous Murphy Brown, a famous investigative journalist and news anchor".

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-domi- t1_j7zag7y wrote

Reply to comment by PeregrineC in TIL that CBS offered actress Candice Bergen to work as a journalist after "Murphy Brown". She declined, not wanting to blur between actor and journalist. by DragonTonguePunch

Yeah, that's exactly what i was asking for. Anyone who knew that information would have been able to provide it in a sentence. And if you didn't _know_ that beforehand, it would be difficult to google your way to receiving that information boiled down into a sentence.

Murphy is a stereotypically male name, which adds further confusion, unless you have this knowledge ahead of time. You see how this worked - i ask a question, i receive an answer in a sentence. That's what makes reddit awesome.

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Sololololololol t1_j7z61vn wrote

Reply to comment by V6Ga in TIL an abstract painting called "New York City I" has been accidentally displayed upside down since 1980 by Specialist_Check

So I don’t really think it’s an “either or” kind of thing. Death of the author has its value and in many ways it’s just an inevitability because when you put your artwork out there you have very limited control over how that is seen. But understanding that fact doesn’t change the reality that the artist more likely than not created that work with a specific vision, generally speaking an artist doesn’t make work with a “oh well it means whatever you think it means” as that would be considered an especially lazy approach and would likely be cause for their work to be dismissed.

If you treat death of the author as a sort of inevitable aspect of art it’s a good useful thing to be aware of, but if you treat it as an approach to intentionally advocate for you can start to run into some problems. For example, death of the author came out at around the same time that the wider art world started becoming much more accepting of artists who weren’t strictly white straight males. You had artists from diverse walks of life who hadn’t previously had representation now making art and telling their stories… and being told that “oh well your identity doesn’t matter art should be more just good art” and it was kinda bs.

So you might be thinking “well sure, what about all the artists who make very general abstract work?” And id say it’s no different, you might be surprised to learn that even most abstract artists approach their work with very specific political and social and ideological angles to their work even if it doesn’t seem like it. There are of course exceptions, but it’s still more likely that those abstract artists have a very specific perspective they’re coming from and trying to convey.

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