Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Moral Dilemma

Imagine you are at the opening of an art gallery. To commemorate, the gallery is holding an art competition, there are many great works of art up for a modest prize and you are looking at the exhibits with one of the of the judges. There is some contemporary paintings of landscapes, photographs of old people, a jar of toenail clippings, some models and all attending the viewing seem to be in agreement that it is a wide showing of art.

Then you approach a jar of jam with an airline ticket glued to the side. The tag reads "From Hong Kong, symbolising the absurd distance food travels to get to shops". It is obvious that the airplane ticket is unused and that the jam was bought at the local supermarket. The artist is standing next to the exhibit and the judge you are with starts talking to the artist about the pieces and they both seem to agree that indeed food does travel around the world more than it needs to when local produce is just as good. Then judge turns to you and asks if you are in agreement with the piece as a work of art.

Do you?
1) Politely agree
3) Fain ignorance
3) Politely state why their work doesn't deserve to be there
4) Start ripping into the artist at how lame their work is even though they probably bought the airplane ticket for the exhibition