Games +/- Art: Let Slip The Dogs Of War!
Always wanted to head a topic with that line… anyway!
Hey folks, though I do have “Stage 1-2″ of my Games vs. Art discussion, I think I should take time to come back to some responses given on my DeviantArt page. I flagged the article there and got some stirring replies!
The key point of argument was this author’s lack of accuracy and oxymoronic handling of the topic at hand. It was definitely tough to justify why video games would lack the capacity to be art. Likewise, I felt that since this would be a series of articles, then the ideas would be refined and I could afford to be messy at this stage, as long as I clean it up nice at the end. Artistic, no?
I’ll actually be updating this throughout the remaining week and head up next week’s post with a revised Stage 1-2. For now, the biggest highlight from “Duredhel” of Lima, Peru:
“Got to disagree, interactivity has always been an intergral part of art. I do believe much of fine art encourages free interpretation from the viewer in order to make art a personal experience, the only difference is that the packaging has changed and it is difficult at this relatively early stage to recognize it as such. Art is not only the piece hanging in some museum or the lone instalation in some park, it is the conjunction of the experience and the person experiencing it, the concepts put forward by the artist and how our own personal baggage shapes them into feelings or ideas. Same with games, I think the basic logic of the article is flawed, it is assuming that if games were art, the player would be the artist. It is the same as saying the everyone of the piece who appreciate a painting should be in the capacity to paint in. Fact is, most of the times the artist will not be the player, but the developer. Of course most games wouldn’t be art, just as you wouldn’t call TV Guide a piece of fine literature. And just as many artists nowadays are challenging the perceptions of creator and viewer, many games are enabling users to create their own content by giving them developer tools. ALL arts are equivalent to “sandbox gaming”, you have a sandbox or tools, be it your game, your medium, your canvas, whatever, be it in gaming or in arts you are limited by both your tools and your skill.
It would be cool if we could get people blindfolded and just have them go through the louvre smelling the paintings, but it wouldn’t work out well.
The article itself is plagued with oxymorons, the Mona Lisa doesn’t have an end of stage marker but it has a frame, whatever is beyond that frame is up to the obserber’s imagination, be it on a game, painting, sculpture, photograph or novel. And well, I kind of find it ironic the writer uses DuChamp’s urinal (it wasn’t a toilet seat, it was a urinal) to do exactly what DuChamp was trying to criticize, which is categorizing what is and isn’t art.
I believe that as paradigms are broken and we get more familiar with the medium (painting has been around since the dawn of man, Videogames have been around less than a generation),
games will be just as stirring as El Quijote or Picasso’s Guernica. And maybe people will also realize that doing what the writer of the article of the is trying to do, which is to categorize and label human expression is a contradiction to the nature of art itself.”
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And your author’s reply:
“Damn, color me stunned. That’s a brilliant response! You’ve got me planning on a deconstruction post to follow up for this week’s article!
I’m reminded actually, that in taking this stance of “HAH, games aren’t art, are you crazy!?”, that an old teacher once went on a two-hour tirade against video games. That they offended his senses on every level (creatively, culturally, any way that games had influence), and he felt that they were absolutely worthless.
What was kinda sad about that, is that I wish I could be around and see what would happen if he said those things today. I’m sure he’d be lambasted to death, and with MUCH more reasonable evidence.
I personally don’t know if time will be THE deciding factor, though. Faced with a response like this, I’m hard pressed to think of any counterpoints. I’m still playing the hand (hah, playing!) of objectives and motives in a narrative being way outside what is commonly seen in art. I honestly can’t think of any sort of medium that does the same, and wonder what that does to the whole scheme of things.
Still, that’s a blazing reply.
I’ll do better to sharpen up my writing, and create a stronger stance, though — I wish I’d read this a week ago!
Smelling the Louvre though, I’m shocked no one’s tried it yet…”
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More to come, with self-degradation to boot!
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January 24th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Although i’ve never taken the time to think about it - about if games are art or not - i must say they absolutely are. I would be hard pressed to come up with a specific definition of what art ‘is’, but i can mention two essentials:
1-Interactivity, as described above, is essential. Art evokes communication and interpretation. Actively being involved with the game plot, how it’s played, etc certainly fits. Some games are packed with emotion-invoking social commentary - the Grand Theft Auto series comes to mind. How many people demonstrated the effect of that social commentary by lambasting the game’s violence and vice? Sounds like effective art to me.
2- Aesthetics - not all art is ‘beautiful’, but some games give it their best to be feasts for the eyes. Great environments, pretty characters. Others aren’t as ‘pretty’ but they look good by way of just looking cool, or really following a particular aesthetic concept (like Q-Bert’s semi 3-D geometric nightmare).
A popular anti-art argument is that ‘it cannot be commercial’ to be art. I disagree. Personally, as an artist who has to keep from starving to death, most art IS commercial in some way. Someone either paid you to create it specifically (as in video games), and you did a great job and made art, or, you made something and it was recognized as art and you were paid for it (less likely with games, as they require a bit more planning).
Great article!!!
January 25th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I maintain that the game itself as a whole is not art, it is a game. However, that game can certainly CONTAIN art. The game might be considered a structure or a framework within which the artistic direction can be developed. The images on the screen are pretty important to the gameplay, but there is no reason that they can’t be considered artistic creations.
I’d say that the visual images from a game would be like the painting, and the game itself would be like the building it’s hung in.
January 27th, 2008 at 3:27 am
And, naturally, buildings cannot be art; I mean, look at everything Frank Lloyd Wright made. Not art at all.