Today I for the first time saw the movie Dogville. It must be one of the best stories that I have ever seen in a movie or read in a book.
The comments and criticism that I have found on the web make me think of something a Belgian art guy once said on the radio during an interview. I forgot who and I forgot the exact words. I’m probably not good at repeating what he said (and my translation makes it even worse). But it came down to this: art can be art if it achieves in getting different people to have a strong pro and a strong contra opinion about it. In other words, if all people (100%) agree the thing is beautiful, it’s probably just beautiful. Same for “ugly”. However, if 50% of the people think the thing absolutely is art and the other 50% think the thing absolutely is not art, it’s art. Or maybe .. it’s not art, but it at least created discussion. Which by itself is an achievement.
Therefore it is my opinion that this movie is art. Thanks for sharing it with the world, Lars von Trier.
But then again, I’m not at all somebody who knows something about art. I’m just somebody who likes the story of the film a lot :-). I’ll quote from one of the comments that I found: “The movie gives you a lot to think about.”
If creating a discussion is an achievement, the author of the first “vi vs Emacs” flame must be a great artist.
I wouldn’t say that the first flame starter is an artist. However, both the vi and Emacs authors certainly put passion in their creations.
It probably depends on who you ask, but some people might view (the code of or the application itself) vi and Emacs as art. :-)