140: Programming as Art?

[Thorin Klosowski]

Programming as Art?

"'It's not hanging a urinal and calling it art,' Flores says. 'More like painting the urinal and still pissing in it everyday.' ... His future projects include an MMOG in which players are tasked with 'setting off on a quest, only to find out you were duped by some crazed homeless guy that you mistook for a wizard, and he sent you to Tulsa to get a can of beans,' Flores says. 'Or maybe you have to battle a huge group of tricycle-riding bears and clowns with nothing more than a herring.' Also on the brink is Atomic Combat, a game that operates similarly to Battleship but has a difficult time defining any clear winner."


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[TheWickerPopstar]

"We are still left with the question - a question often pondered by Intro to Philosophy students and parents of art majors - what is art?"

Including the parents was a very, very funny turn. Well done.

In the following, forgive me for neglecting classic aesthetic treaties by philosophers such as Kant or Hume, but this doesn't quite seem to be the place to debate stuffy modern philosophy.

The notion of art merely being something that we have pleasure in is certainly compelling, but breaks down when we are then forced to call something like potato chips art. They are certainly pleasurable, and there is definitely a craft involved in creating them, but a potato chip in and of itself doesn't seem, to me at least, to suggest something artistically beautiful (beautiful being the loaded word that typically gets thrown around in this kind of talk). Art makes a statement and, like the author intelligently states, is something that reflects on the endeavors and existence of humankind.

To me, that axiom suggests that the judgment of art is reflexive, that is, it is not possible to create something and have it immediately be universally referred to as art. Since art becomes so by being perceived as impressively or interestingly commenting on humanity, it seems that humans must be the ones to declare it so (this most certainly invites relativism into the picture, so I apologize to those who fight against it).

Bringing Flores's creations into the picture, as well as any similar electronic creations, it seems that such products have the potential to be referred to as art. Such work brings questions such as the purpose of computing, how humans derive pleasure, or even the nature of affection between something called a "mouse" and a lobster (I'll admit, that last one is a stretch). Another great example: artistically analyze the popular death clock that floats around the internet. That thing is ripe with reflection.

The point is, the impact of these programs do potentially exist, but their wealth is unknown to our time. I think that programming for the sake of programming will definitely become a maxim of the art-grammer and that such projects cannot remain unnoticed in the age of computers.

 

[devilondemand]

I just want to play Lobster Petting...

 

[TheWickerPopstar]

I just want to play Lobster Petting...

Um...yeah. Me too... Sounds cool.

 

[KypFisto]

Art is creation with a purpose, I suppose. I personally consider programming and gaming an art in itself like film, photography, and painting.

 

[GuybrushND]

Thorin, there's a long-running and increasingly visible real-time computer art subculture. Start here:
http://demoscene.info/

Download some demos and watch them, or search on youtube for 'demoscene' and watch a bunch. Read some diskmags, come to some parties. There are a couple in NA this year, and there's at least one every weekend, somewhere in europe. The 20 thousand or so of us worldwide welcome you to it. : D

the thesis on hacker demo history: http://www.scheib.net/play/demos/what/borzyskowski/index.html

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Art is creation with a purpose, I suppose. I personally consider programming and gaming an art in itself like film, photography, and painting.

You never met dysfunctional artists >>
===========================================
anyway

IMO art is is a medium that can touch emotion, pictures paintings musics ect,ect,ect


Acting can as well, can games only in its whole parts(visual/written/music/sound) yes, in code......this becomes a problem because not everyone "understands" the code and when seen just sees a brick wall of text....
I am not saying code can not be art, but like certain things int he art world only the fancy pance snobs of that niche can apericate it

 

[pingnak]

This is what I've said before about 'programming is art' articles. Nobody appreciates it. At best it's invisible, and otherwise it has annoying bugs. You can make it 'open source', but nobody will look, because the only people interested in the code write code themselves, and most of them 'reinvent the wheel' with unconscionable frequency, so they're only checking to see how you did something in particular, if anything at all.

I tend to see programming as a wonderful puzzle game with no borders, and no rules other than 'it works' at the end. How to make your game fit into a tiny ROM with 8K of RAM for its stack and all of its state? Heck, I started with 8K of RAM for all of that and the code, too, and never had a problem. What's fun or rewarding about the game? That's up you, and it's a personal experience that doesn't map particularly well to other people.

 

[Johnty]

To many art is something that sparks an emotion, but its down to the individuals tastes as to what creates that. I am a programmer and a problem solver at heart, and I'm certainly no artist in the traditional sense, but at the same time I am creative and inspired by my love of maths. When I create something I feel proud of my achievement, and makes me very happy to see the project pull together to create the final product. However I am still relativity new to the game so I don't expect others to share my point of view as this is a personal thing. If you take a look at what the can be created it's a whole different story.

Not long ago I went out on a night with my friends and when we got back we played some music on the computer and chilled out chatting and watching the visualisation program on his Mac and I was in awe. As I sat there watching it run to the music I could almost see the maths running behind it and was genuinely swept away by it. To me that is art

Many of my friends are 3D artists, working in the games industry creating levels and characters, and as the name suggests they are artists, but many of them don't see themselves that way. Is a model of a character in the standard pose art? Is sparks no emotion and yet it is aesthetically pleasing. However if an animator then takes that model and makes it do something, it then can instil emotion.

Art can come in many forms, some more obvious than others. The bottom line is that like beauty, art is in the eye of the beholder and as there are many people out there that think programming is art. Therefore it is to those who perceive it in this way such as myself and nobody has the right to tell me or anybody else any different.

 

[Bato]

Art is the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of something.
Anything can be art, as long as it is you using your creativity to produce it.