L. N. Tolstoy and art in IT

    L. N. TolstoyEach of us wants to be a creator. Everyone wants to create masterpieces. But not everyone can break away from the routine, their typical tasks and begin to create. Perhaps in order to somehow justify this, people began to give sublime, in the sense of craft activity, elevated meaning. Because of this, today we often hear about the "art of programming", the "art of project management", as well as other "arts". If you directly ask the authors of such teachings and manuals, they are unlikely to be able to answer the question, what is this “art”, and why is it not a “science” or even some kind of “Tao” (which is also often found in book titles )

    Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, being primarily a writer, was interested in other forms of what is commonly called “art” in the broad sense of the word. As a result, he got a small note “ On Art ” and a large monograph “ What is art?” "

    I will try to state what art is in Lev Nikolaevich’s opinion, what is necessary for art to be such, and what are the signs of fake art (the latter has been transferred to a separate note). All this, as far as possible, is set forth in relation to IT and illustrated with examples.

    (Just in case, I ask readers firstDo not criticize the stated position, but try to find a rational kernel in the concept that will be stated. On my own I will say that I do not completely agree with all the conclusions of L. N. Tolstoy, but I find his conclusions, nonetheless, extremely interesting. I also note that for the sake of brevity I omit many thoughts - perhaps sometimes skipping logical connectives as well.)

    First of all, Tolstoy talks about what art is not and has nothing to do with it. Art has nothing to do with beauty.All philosophical definitions of beauty can be reduced to two main views: 1) beauty is a manifestation of something metaphysical and absolutely perfect (God, will, idea, etc.) and 2) beauty is a certain kind of pleasure we receive. In principle, a metaphysical definition, claiming to be an objectification of beauty, is nonetheless subjective. That is, both types of definitions subjectivize beauty, making it dependent on the perceiver. Taste, writes Tolstoy, does not play a role. It is useless for determining the meaning of art. This conclusion can be argued, but we will move on.

    “What is art, if we discard the concept of beauty, which is completely confusing?”, Writes Lev Nikolaevich. He sets the task to determine the purpose of art. Casting aside pleasure, he seeksits purpose in the life of man and humanity .

    Art, Tolstoy concludes, is a means of transmitting feelings from one person to another . As a word conveys thought , a unit of knowledge, so art must convey feeling .

    “To evoke a once-experienced feeling in yourself and, having called it in yourself, through movements, lines, colors, sounds, images, expressed in words, to convey this feeling so that others experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art. Art is a human activity, consisting in the fact that one person consciously knows external signs conveys the feelings he feels, while other people become infected with these feelings and experience them. ”

    Let's move away a little from Tolstoy and think - where do we convey the feeling in our computer activities ? Are we passing it on? When you program another form for accounting, is there a place for feeling, that is, art?

    I conclude that the term user experience is today the most important in the context of art . I note that usability (often paired with the indicated term) comes from a pure mind, and should not convey feelings . And so let’s look at what user experience is .

    Unfortunately, I do not know enough developed terminology to reason about this more or less scientifically. Therefore, I will try to describe with examples what I mean when I use the wordexperience .

    Five software products with almost exactly identical functionality can bring together five different audiences, depending on how they are perceived by users. This happens today most often in the field of so-called. web 2.0, where software goes beyond functionality and goes into the social field .

    Somehow I had to develop a service design, the central functionality of which was the community engine. There were many examples where to draw from: starting with LiveJournal, Ning (general-purpose networks), continuing with forum systems (PhpBB, IPB) and ending with the same Habrahabr or DeviantArt. Considering the design of all these communities, I came to the conclusion that, having the same functionality, they all convey different feelings of presence.

    Livejournal is a set of private rooms (blogs) with small areas (communities) where people come to to watch a little, if you have time, for the spectacle. Each Ning site is one large supermarket, where everything is laid out on the main window, beyond which everything is quite scarce. HabrahabrPreviously, there was (and remains to a certain extent now) a large trading area where everyone flies to quickly take what they need (well, or at least something ), react if there is something, and run away further about their business. (Recent changes have turned the Habrahabr for me into a sort of stone that everyone twirls for himself and perceives his own facets).

    At the time, I needed a mechanism for a sort of policy - a small town, for the life of which it is important to recognize the community of all citizens, but where, at the same time, grouping into groups / communities is stimulated; leaving in personal space is not encouraged. The result was a kind of large central square, where general issues are discussed, and places of gathering "on interests". And although the functionality is the same — tapes, notes, photos, comments, the “join the community” button, I had to draw and design my own embodiment of this functionality to make the idea “play”.

    The transmission of this feeling - a cozy room, a market square or an official office is the very user experience. And in this sense, this is art, because the designer here conveys his feelings to the audience.

    So, we decided on what art is. And what is good art?

    Real art, according to Lev Nikolaevich, should have the following features.

    1) The work must be new and important to society.
    2) It must be outstanding in the beauty of form.
    3) It must express the true need of the soul of the artist and in this sense be sincere (i.e. sincere) and truthful.

    Regarding the first rule, I will quote: “In order for what the artist says to be completely new and important, it is necessary that the artist be a morally enlightened person, and therefore would not live an exclusively selfish life, but be a participant in the general life of mankind”. Perhaps here, speaking of IT, we will go into the field of mission and business goals. And, perhaps, we must understand that the object of art in this case grows from a pure user experience, capturing the entire project from the very beginning (when we answer the question why this project is needed) and until the implementation.

    About the second rule, Tolstoy writes the following: “In order for what the artist says to be expressed quite well, it is necessary for the artist to master his skills so that, while working, he thinks as little about the rules of this skill as a person thinks little about the rules mechanics when walking . "

    If we learned how to fulfill the first and second rules at the very least, then the third most often has problems.“In order for the artist to express the inner need of the soul and therefore would say with all his heart what he is saying, he must, first of all, not deal with many trifles that interfere with truly loving what is peculiar to love, but secondly, to love yourself, with your heart, and not a stranger, not to pretend that you love what others recognize or consider worthy of love . Probably, speaking about the practice of IT, and more precisely, all web 2.0 communities, we can equate this rule with the following: an abstract machine called “company” will not launch a product and will not build a community worthy to be called art. The founder’s personal contribution is always great. And all the really good communities I know are alwayshad (at least at first) a leader who, with his personal attraction, worked to create an atmosphere - or, in other words, conveyed his feelings to community members.

    (However, this idea is by no means new in the field of building communities - I recommend, for example, the video lecture “ What to do if you are a shampoo ”, where exactly the same idea is said directly in the introduction.)

    * * *

    This is how Leo defined the concept of “art” Nikolaevich Tolstoy in the century before last. It seems to me that many of his conclusions are applicable today. At least, you can think: are we really doing art where we would like to do it?

    In continuationThis article, which I will publish a little later, we will consider what methods are used by modern "creators" to give their offspring the form of a work of art when it is not.

    Those who wish can familiarize themselves with the original manuscripts - of course, much broader than could be covered in this article: “ On Art ”, “ What is Art ”.

    I wish readers real inspiration and true art!

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