[HN Gopher] Fifteen years of Ringo Starr's computer art
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       Fifteen years of Ringo Starr's computer art
        
       Author : kuhewa
       Score  : 45 points
       Date   : 2022-01-08 11:18 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.ringostarrart.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.ringostarrart.com)
        
       | mwattsun wrote:
       | Ringo was a much better drummer than I appreciated as
       | demonstrated by Grahame The Drummer. I realized that the stylings
       | of Ringo made me love these songs as much as anything else
       | 
       | https://www.tiktok.com/@grahamethedrummer/video/702419516832...
        
         | tejohnso wrote:
         | Can we say that Ringo's professionalism and artistic choices
         | were at a higher level than his technical skill? It seems as
         | though he made great choices, but I get the sense that he's
         | nowhere near the level of a Bonham or Peart technically.
        
           | tasha0663 wrote:
           | I feel like that's comparing apples, oranges, and bananas.
        
           | 2bitencryption wrote:
           | no one would argue that Ringo was a technically skilled
           | drummer. George Martin said "Ringo hit good and hard and used
           | the tom-tom well, even though he couldn't do a roll to save
           | his life".
           | 
           | and yet he's one of the most beloved and influential drummers
           | of all time, and for good reason. Ask Bonham or Peart to
           | create fills as emotional as those in "A Day in the Life".
        
             | mbg721 wrote:
             | I guess Paul McCartney probably had the most prolific post-
             | Beatles career of any of them, but it was close. Ringo's no
             | slouch of a musician.
        
           | jason0597 wrote:
           | At the end, The Beatles weren't a masterfully technical band.
           | It wasn't being the greatest at the guitar or the bass or the
           | drums that made them great. It was being creative that made
           | them great.
           | 
           | Hey Jude is an incredibly simple and easy to play song yet it
           | is infamous
        
             | hericium wrote:
             | The pace at which they were releasing new albums was also
             | unrealistic.
        
             | saghm wrote:
             | I've always considered songwriting to be an independent
             | skill playing music. Some musicians are just so good at
             | writing songs that it almost doesn't matter whether or not
             | they're above average in their musicianship. I don't think
             | anyone would rate Bob Dylan as an exceptional singer or
             | guitarist, but he's unquestionably one of the most prolific
             | musicians of the 20th century. I'm probably an even worse
             | singer and guitarist than Dylan, but if I could write
             | something as good as Like a Rolling Stone, there's no
             | question I would try to perform it myself and have it
             | released before giving the song to someone else.
        
               | asveikau wrote:
               | And yet Dylan's vocal delivery is still very good in its
               | way. It seems very personal and authentic.
               | 
               | If you listen to early 70s Dylan (his tracks on Concert
               | for Bangladesh come to mind) he sounds a bit better
               | vocally in that period. I read that it was because he
               | quit smoking.
        
               | MajesticHobo2 wrote:
               | You can listen to tapes from his teenage years in the
               | late 50s, where he's singing in almost that exact early
               | 70s croon. But his voice throughout most of the 60s was
               | very different and, for the most part, intentionally so.
        
               | ppod wrote:
               | Dylan occasionally produced exceptional vocal
               | performances https://youtu.be/pxr22ih0r9A?t=19
        
               | MrsPeaches wrote:
               | Ironically Bob Dylan is also on their roster:
               | http://artcelebs.com/bob-dylan/
        
       | egypturnash wrote:
       | Those thumbnails are like, the platonic ideal of what I was
       | expecting when I clicked on that link. Wow.
       | 
       | I would say "don't give up your day job, Ringo" but the fact that
       | he is already insanely famous means that he will probably sell
       | some of these things for more than I will ever make with my art
       | in my lifetime.
        
         | Blackthorn wrote:
         | I'm absolute garbage at visual art, and I think your take is
         | super unfair.
         | 
         | They're all super weird but, notably the newer ones, also
         | really competent in a way that this newbie would never be able
         | to replicate. Kind of like the work he's actually famous for,
         | now that I think about it.
        
           | SV_BubbleTime wrote:
           | > They're all super weird
           | 
           | I made it as far down as the revolver tied in a knot with
           | IMAGINE written on the barrel. I'm not sure you could come up
           | with a more uniformly ham-fisted image of "peace" if it was
           | plastered over a peace sign...
           | 
           | So I'm not knocking the art or technical ability or anything.
           | I don't care. But I personally wouldn't describe anything
           | there "super weird".
        
             | Blackthorn wrote:
             | > I'm not sure you could come up with a more uniformly ham-
             | fisted image of "peace" if it was plastered over a peace
             | sign...
             | 
             | It's Ringo Starr! He might as well have invented this
             | cliche.
        
             | bitwize wrote:
             | Look again.
             | 
             | It WAS plastered over a peace sign.
             | 
             | Never change, Ringo.
        
         | stemlord wrote:
         | Well he did do the work of helping to make The Beatles what it
         | became, so it's not entirely unfair.
        
         | 2bitencryption wrote:
         | I think part of this art is the story behind it.
         | 
         | I'm sitting here trying to imagine Ringo Starr on a computer in
         | MS Paint (or whatever he used) drawing blobby spacemen, and
         | that alone makes me want to have one hanging on my wall.
        
           | nine_k wrote:
           | I would say that this is what sets apart "classical art" and
           | "modern art".
           | 
           | "Classical art" is a technical feat that produces emotions in
           | you through its execution, through the beauty of the "art
           | piece" itself. Beatles' songs were closer to "classical art";
           | I want to hear "Yesterday" because of its melody.
           | 
           | "Modern art" is an otherwise uninteresting material piece
           | with a large bunch of metainfo attached: the author's
           | personality and connections, the stories behind its creation
           | / exhibition / resale, being in the circle of those who know
           | about this particular piece or author, a practical joke or an
           | ironic reference that the art piece or its metainfo
           | comprises, etc. This metainfo is what produces the emotions,
           | not the object which formally is the "art piece". Ringo's
           | gallery items are firmly in the "modern art" category.
        
             | tessierashpool wrote:
             | except anyone with the slightest background in art history
             | can tell you that those metadata mattered immensely for
             | "classical art" pieces at the time that those pieces were
             | made. and indeed even today two pieces of equivalent beauty
             | and craftsmanship will not sell for the same price if one
             | is a Michaelangelo and the other comes from a less famous
             | artist.
             | 
             | I'm sorry, because I'm sure you didn't realize this, but
             | your taxonomy breaks down to "pieces I like, for which the
             | metadata is old," and "pieces I dislike, for which the
             | metadata is recent."
             | 
             |  _edit_ -- or, at best,  "pieces I like, with a continuous
             | aesthetic tradition, which made quality easy to evaluate,
             | for which the metadata is old," vs "pieces I dislike,
             | created after that continuity disintegrated, which made
             | quality very subjective, for which the metadata is recent."
             | because there was a massive break in that continuity, and
             | there is a real distinction between modern and "classical"
             | art (at least in the European/Western tradition), but it
             | just doesn't have anything to do with the metadata.
        
               | nine_k wrote:
               | I do not say that the metadata for old pieces does not
               | play a role! It very much does, beginning from the very
               | age of an old piece. A lot of primitive ancient art
               | coveted by museums or collectors is not aesthetically
               | notable. The auction price of an old painting changes
               | drastically depending on whether it's considered "genuine
               | <insert a famous name>" or not.
               | 
               | The difference I'm trying to make is that in "modern art"
               | (not all art produced in modern times, but the kind that
               | inherits from what Duchamp invented) the metadata is
               | basically _all_ that 's interesting, and the art is
               | _produced_ with this assumption in mind. A  "classical"
               | piece of art usually had to also work without the
               | metadata being known.
        
             | nerdponx wrote:
             | I've heard this summarized before as "product" versus
             | "process".
        
             | j4yav wrote:
             | All that exact same metadata is there and evaluated in the
             | price of the piece for classical art as well, and whether
             | something is interesting to you or not is in the end
             | subjective. There are plenty of people who find pieces of
             | modern art interesting even without knowing the metadata.
             | I'm not sure there is a meaningful concrete distinction
             | here.
             | 
             | I.e., have you just said that the fundamental difference
             | between modern art and classical art is that you personally
             | find classical art more interesting?
        
               | nine_k wrote:
               | Not I personally.
               | 
               | Take 100 pieces of "classical art" and show them to
               | somebody who does not have a context of it at all (a
               | faraway country, Amazon jungles, kids these days); the
               | reaction would mostly be "wow" or "hmm", because the
               | pieces are usually _technically_ interesting, without any
               | metainfo attached.
               | 
               | Do the same with 100 pieces of "modern art" like this
               | [1], and the reaction will mostly be "wtf", because there
               | is nothing to appreciate without the metainfo, like "this
               | is a piece of art by X sold for $YM".
               | 
               | [1]: https://www.cnn.com/style/article/banana-artwork-
               | eaten-scli-...
               | 
               | BTW, by this measure, Dali produced "classical" art.
        
               | gilleain wrote:
               | All art is a mixture of craft and marketing. There's just
               | a lot more marketing to modern art than classical art.
        
             | bobthechef wrote:
        
         | filoeleven wrote:
         | I agree about the art, especially at those prices, but I will
         | also note that all proceeds from sales are donated to a
         | charitable foundation.
        
       | tasha0663 wrote:
       | These make rounds every once and a while, and I've dunked on his
       | art before, so I clicked around a little more and landed on this
       | one that had some pictures of Ringo actual holding a print of it.
       | 
       | https://www.ringostarrart.com/product/eye-lidded-man/
       | 
       | Scale and viewing conditions matter, and that'd look fine hanging
       | in a music room. It's obviously not for everyone, but at $1600 to
       | have a signed Ringo it's not bad. Definitely a conversation
       | starter.
       | 
       | No idea what the vaguely defined Lotus Foundation is, what it
       | does, or how well, but he's not pocketing the money, so there's
       | that.
        
       | oksurewhynot wrote:
       | How long before these get minted as NFTs?
        
       | peanut_worm wrote:
       | Classic. Yer Baby and Bad Finger are my favorites.
        
       | MrsPeaches wrote:
       | Bob Dylan as well: http://artcelebs.com/bob-dylan/
       | 
       | Seem to be a few run by the same company/gallery:
       | http://artcelebs.com/art/
        
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       (page generated 2022-01-09 23:01 UTC)