What is art? What is artistic? What is good art? No matter how hard we try to give a relevant answer to all these questions we will always end up with a definition which could only be subjective and be a matter of personal opinion. The value of art as we know it is subjective. The fact that some artists and some artworks are valued more than some others doesn't at all mean that there is some purely objective reason for that. It's simply a result of some subjective opinions that apparently mattered more than all those which might disagreed with them.

Who is the greatest artist of all time? What is the most wonderful artwork of all time? How is that determined? By the number of exhibitions one had? By the level of his popularity? By the price that an artwork is sold for? Again it's all subjective.

Of course one could simply say that indeed the value of art is subjective but that's simply because being subjective is what makes art be art in the first place. But I would argue that art is art because it's subjective. Being subjective doesn't make art be art it just makes it be subjective. Saying art is art because it's subjective is again just an opinion and as such it is subjective and not a fact. Art can be objective too. And not only it can be but the today's approaches in contemporary art are even forcing art to try to avoid subjectivity in order to preserve this new artistic value that is trying to establish by expanding to areas that had nothing to do with art before.

In the last decades art has been expanding to fields of interest that are not traditionally artistic. That also means that more and more things or actions can be art and less and less things or actions can be something which is not art. In the past visual arts could be defined easily by naming a few actions that were supposed to lead to an artwork. Like painting on canvas or like making a sculpture. But in today's reality we can see that art can also be growing grass or making a robot and much more.

One important aspect of this redefinition of art is also the necessity to redefine the artist as well. If you want to paint a human face of course you need to have some knowledge of painting. But at the same time from the artistic point of view the value of this knowledge is purely subjective. You can paint the face very realistically or you can do it in a very expressive manner as any child could do and yet that alone wouldn't make it less artistically valuable.

But how about when it comes to building up a robot that could talk for example? For that you need to have some specific knowledge. You can't build up a robot by being "expressive" but by following the exact rules of how things in electronics work. If not the robot won't work and as such it couldn't be an artwork in what it was designed to be.

This expanding of art into fields of expertise which are not traditionally artistic also makes me wonder why couldn't that turn everything that was produced on that field into art as well. So, if there are people who call themselves artists and what they do is recognized as art then why all those people who do the same things are not artists as well? Of course one could name a few reasons for that but that's not what would really make a big difference in how things work.

Lets take for example an artist who claims that artificially growing human hair is an artistic achievement. Then for example lets take some people who would try to artificially grow human organs. Their work would be much more complex, difficult, would require more knowledge, more efforts and would by all means have an overall greater impact on our society. But of course they'd not call themselves artists which would be the only real difference between the two. Shouldn't they be though? Couldn't they be? And aren't they actually? And even much better artists than that self acclaimed artist who claims growing human hair is art? Of course growing human hair can be art. Thing is that as soon as we accept that we also accept a set of rules by which such an artwork actually stands on its feet. And then we can compare it to other works which are based on the same set of rules without being really concerned if those works are considered as art by the authors since in the end that's pretty much irrelevant. Because by doing so we would actually deny the existence of art within the same field we are trying to make art in. If one paints on canvas wouldn't he always considered to be an artist? Not necessarily a good artist but what else could we call him? A carpenter? And in the same sense if art can be doing scientific experiments then why wouldn't be any scientific experiments considered art as well? What would they lack? The intention of making art? But what does the intention really change? If you land on the moon you just land on the moon despite what your intention may be. So, the intention argument doesn't really sound all that convincing in the end. And instead of applying artistic values to non artistic actions why not apply non artistic values to artistic actions or ideas as well?

This is where art becomes objective.

As soon as art stepped into the world in which things exist as facts, as rules, as laws, as something objective then it's value can not be subjective anymore. Everyone can be a self-proclaimed artist or can be considered an artist by other people too. But can one be a self-proclaimed potato producer? To be that you need to actually produce potatoes and producing potatoes is always just producing potatoes. You can't produce potatoes in an "expressive" or "artistic" way but you need to follow some strict actions which would get you there. While to be an artist you can simply say I am an artist and my artwork is "to do nothing" or say "whatever I do is art". Of course most of the people could think that's simply not a valid way to be an artist but that's simply their personal opinion considering the fact that we could see that similar things to this idea are indeed considered as art by all major art institutions. Like a person puts his shit in a can and that's art. And again for some it might be not while for some others it is. But when one produces potatoes then he can only be seen as a potato producer. You can't have a different opinion about that and disagree that he's indeed a potato producer and that what he produces is indeed potato.

And all this is explored and achieved in the project called the "Basketball art" in which a basketball player becomes an artist doing art and in which everything that is required for a basketball player to do what he is supposed to do as good as it gets becomes an artistic value. And this artistic value is purely objective. Better score means better artistic value as well. Scoring 10 times is less good than scoring 20 times. We can't have an opinion about that because it's something that exists as a fact. 20 is more than 10. So, the more he scores the highest value his artwork has. If an artist can do anything claiming he's doing art then a basketball player can play basketball claiming he's doing art too. If an artist can do something that is not considered to be always artistic yet claiming he's doing art then a non artist can as well claim he's doing something artistic even if he's doing something that is not always artistic. If an artist can step inside a non artistic field and exist there as an artist then a basketball player can also step inside the filed of art and exist there as a basketball player. The fact that the contemporary art is more and more removing the line between those actions that can be artistic and those which may be not also means that in the final stage of such development everything will be just art and everyone will be an artist.

The "Basketball art" project simply defines art as a very specific set of rules which in turn makes so that nothing exists as subjective. This happens when a person decides to do something which for what it is has nothing to do with art yet it claims it's art. There are many people who play basketball and don't call themselves artists nor they believe what they do is art. But as soon as you want to do art by doing something that it has a built in value already then you are forced to adopt that value when doing art as well. In a basketball game it is already defined what is a value and what is not - scoring is, missing is not. And when you use basketball as art you can't ignore these values. That means that if you want to do art in this way and do it successfully you actually have to be a good basketball player in the first place. In this way we can easily answer such questions as what is art or what is good art. Art becomes objective. And further more art becomes not art. Like in this case art becomes playing basketball.

The look of the "Basketball art" artworks is determined by how well or bad does the player/artist score. There are 30 shots available for every artwork which means that the maximum score is 30. The shots are made from two different distances. One is from the so called free throws line and the second is from the 3 points line. Of course the shots from 3 points line are more valuable than the ones from the free throws line because they are made from a greater distance and as such are more difficult to score and require better skills. If all 30 shots were scored the artwork would have images of a basketballs ball showing in 6 rows and 5 columns. For every missed shot the image of the basketball ball in the position of the missed shot is removed. If for example the shot number 12 was missed then the basketball ball in the second column of the third row will be missing. In this way a certain pattern, shape is created depending on which shots were scored and which were missed.