While nobody seems quite confident enough to pin down what ‘Art’ is in less than 20, 000 words these days, I’ve been happy to adopt the outlook of one of my university philosophy lecturers for the last few years. He summed up artistic worth quicker and clearer than I am about to retell, but hopefully you’ll catch his meaning through my awkward filter.

He argued ‘Art’ is composed of three elements: idea, execution and technique; in that order of importance.

Firstly the idea. Good art facilitates (not forces) me to see the world, or an object, or a thought or myself in a new or different way by presenting some kind of idea. This might be through magnifying a tiny element of an object to reveal something about the bigger picture you’d never perceived before or by representing a scene in such a different way as to give it new meaning or significance or by juxtaposing stuff that normally doesn’t sit together.

The better the idea the more likely the art will move me forward in thinking. On this basis a straight watercolour landscape painting looking to recreate as faithfully as possible a real-life scene is less artistically worthy than an idea-rich impressionist sunflower that emphasises different elements of what a sunflower is and in doing so perhaps allows me to look at sunflowers in a new way.

This is offset by the idea’s execution (the better the execution the more effective the artist is at conveying – or deliberately partially obscuring – his point) and finally the artist’s technique, on which the effectiveness of that execution often rests. Technique is important as, after all, different artists might represent the same idea in different ways, and technique is the modifier that makes one more effective in communicating that idea than the other.

So good art is a complex mixture of these three interrelated factors.

I like this definition as it helps me to critically pin down quality in any creative medium.

It also helps hone the question of what is/ isn’t art by broadening the pool to encompass all human creative endeavour (anything that takes and idea and presents it) while clearly drawing the line between what is good creative expression and what is vacuous. So instead of asking the mostly useless question ‘Are videogames Art’ we’re now inclined to ask ‘Which videogames are art and what do they say to us’.

The best artistic videogames combine a good idea (by this I don’t mean a gameplay mechanism but an new angle on some aspect of life) with exquisite execution and competent technique. Some major on one of these factors but the greats demonstrate all of them.

Banksy, the graffiti artist with a head full of subversion and an eye for the macro canvas is always entertaining. His work on the West Bank last year is awe-inspiring (he was allegedly threatened at gunpoint numerous times during the exercise) and the stone carving of a caveman pushing a shopping trolley he planted in the British Museum lasted three days before being removed (and then absorbed by the museum as an artefact).

His latest idea isn’t nearly as good as these. Banksy has replaced Paris Hilton’s new album with a doctored version of his own remixes all with new titles such as Why am I Famous?, What Have I Done? and What Am I For?

He has also changed pictures of her on the CD sleeve to show the US socialite topless and with a dog’s head. A spokeswoman for Banksy said he had doctored 500 copies of her debut album Paris in 48 record shops across the UK.

She told the BBC News website: “He switched the CDs in store, so he took the old ones out and put his version in but left the original barcode so people could buy the CD without realising it had been interfered with”. HMV and Virgin as well as independent record stores.He visited cities including Bristol, Brighton, Birmingham, Newcastle, Glasgow and London, she added.

Now, as an idea this is a little weaker than the usual stuff – it’s hardly the most original point and, as Popjustice maliciously point out: “Banksy’s profile is never AT ALL dependant on press attention from riding on the coat-tails of other people’s work in an unimaginative retread of a tradition which is at least 50 years old”.

What is fun is the response of HMV and Virgin’s spokespeople – who both responded like good little post-modern multinationals. “It’s not the type of behaviour you’d want to see happening very often,” said the HMV Man.

“I guess you can give an individual such as Banksy a little bit of leeway for his own particular brand of artistic engagement.

“Often people might have a view on something but feel they can’t always express it, but it’s down to the likes of Banksy to say often what people think about things. And it might be that there will be some people who agree with his views on the Paris Hilton album.”

Whether that was said through gritted teeth or not I’m not sure – but still, hats off for playing things intelligently.

So now the hunt is on for Banksy’s Paris Hilton project – limited to 500 copies. Banksy’s works sell for a lot of money and already the ones that have cropped up on ebay (and have now all been removed by the website) are/ were demanding top prices.

But, desirability and value aside, using the parameters set out at the start: Art?

You can buy Banksy’s fantastic book Wall and Piece here for the very low price of £13.20 (at time of writing)