What even is art?

The Oxford Library defines art as "An expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, [...] producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power."

So with that, here's the requirements for something to be an artform:

• Production: Something has to be produced.
• Creative: Said product has to be something new (or at least it should have a new spin to it).
• Skill: Producing the product involves an ability one must first attain through some sort of training.
• Human: It's made by someone with at least some level of self-awareness, emotional capability and – most importantly – intent.

So is every website a work of art?

No. And they're not supposed to. One thing that's so great about websites is that they're not bound to one singular purpose. A site can be a digital business card, a means of entertainment, a collection of images or just plain text. Not all websites are art – probably most of them aren't – because that's not their purpose. It's not their intent.

So when does a website become art then?

Well, the first question once the site is built is: Is this creative? Is this new? There might be nothing new under the sun. Everything's a derivative. But choosing one of ten squarespace-templates is not art.

The next question is that of skill. A site that's just plain text isn't art (though the text itself might be). There's no skill involved. It's trivial. It's not art.

The final question is that of intent...

And where does that leave sites generated by AI?

... This is where intent comes in. LLMs are trained word guessers. Very well trained word guessers, but still just good at guessing words. There's no self-awareness or emotional capability, but – more important – there's no intent. And art without artistic intent is not art. It's babbling.

Why does this matter?

Because it's not too late. The internet is probably one of mankinds greatest inventions: A globe-spanning instant communication technology that's uncontrollable, ungovernable and free.

But that's not its current state, is it? Meta, ByteDance and others swallow up the space, AIs churn out the ever-same sites assembly-line-style, and Google SEO-policies dictate how a site should look and work and feel. And the true internet is hidden away in dark corners and crevasses.

This current state is not the purpose of the internet. It isn't it's intent.

And it's not irreversable.

So build a website. Write your name on that ever-changing canvas. Be creative. Be new.

Thanks for reading.