Paul
and Jessica, children of a conductor David,
designed a pop-up book on a computer using
orchestra website with artists’ photographs. Little Jessica
was playing on David’s PowerBook with software allowing for writing scores
and composing music. She created a composition that was random and chaotic
but rhythmical, and saved it on David’s
desktop. This file was accidentally sent for a competition and accepted by
a jury. Submissions were sent as blind files and nobody knew it was a child
play but not a serious music. Now jurors Aaron, Al, Jan,
Kirk and Todd have
to defend their choice and resist the objections of three music critics, the
triplets Monique, Miranda, and Michelle who
call themselves M.J. They wrote a sarcastic
article entitled “What is an artwork and what is not an artwork?” The
question arose, whether or not art can be defined, and how. The jurors Aaron,
Al, Jan, Kirk, and Todd reminded an opinion
of an art critic Morris Weitz presented in his paper “The Role of
Theory in Aesthetics” that artists and aestheticians failed to define
the nature of art because there is no essence that would be common to all
artworks and restricted only to artworks, so there is no property that would
be intrinsic to all artworks. The jurors have also mentioned a statement
written by Raymond Lauzzana and Denise Penrose in an "A 21st Century
Manifesto,” “That
which is made by humans is art. Everything that is not, is not. No natural
things are art." Aaron, Al, Jan, Kirk, and Todd defended
their selection of Jessica’s composition by arguing
that a “blind jury” was aimed to choose an artwork on a basis
of its quality and not other personal reasons. David,
despite his busy schedule, decided to coach a ThinkQuest
team with his children participating. There are points for the international
nature of the team. They invite Waiaka's son
to participate.
