For numerous reasons, a difficult word to define without starting endless argument! Many definitions have been proposed. At least art involves a degree of human involvement -- through manual skills or thought -- as with the word "artificial," meaning made by humans instead of by nature. Definitions vary in how they divide all that is artificial into what is and isn't art. The most common means is to rely upon the estimations of art experts and institutions.

Artists, museum curators, art patrons, art educators, art critics, art historians, and others involved with art change their ideas about it over time. Early in the twentieth century, for instance, artists expanded the definition of art to include such things as abstraction, collage, and readymades. Even in the second half of the twentieth century, the artworld expanded its definition of art to include textiles, costumes, jewelry, photography, video, concepts, and performances as art. Only in the last ten or twenty years works of various native peoples have come to be considered art rather than artifacts.

Although it is very obvious that there is crossover in the above definitions, it is sometimes not as apparent how co-dependent these elements are on one another.
Technology has long been thought of as the product or artifact used as a tool for the ideas of science. Art, however, has also benefited from the products of technology. The tools and materials that have allowed artists to express themselves throughout history have all derived as a product of technology. From the earliest example of the development of paint to the advent of today's electronic media, artists have and will continue to make use of technology. Technology might then be considered the shared resource between the scientific and artistic worlds.