ARTARTARTARTFART
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Well, you're right about everything except the ability by which humans can, with an examination of their maxims and by the nature of taste within the contemporary of the creation of said art, judge between various mediums as to which is more artistic and why. Hell, there is an entire field of philosophy dedicated solely to the nature of taste and expression. It's aesthetics. The very literal modern interpretation of the word alone should convey that art as a whole, not singularly divergent upon genre and medium, can be judged meaningfully.
Satre did it with his book 'What is Literature?', whereupon he launched a stinging tirade against poets and writers as being artistic, and the absurd nature of the elevation of poetry and literature as we would a portraiture. Satre was a writer, also, espousing his formerly anarchic-turned-pure existentialist philosophies through the means of telling a tale (my favourite, being "The Age of Reason", I fucking love Daniel in that book ... he's both lovable and despicable at the same time).
At the same time, I'm not going to compare a pretty little tiered, empire-waisted black chiffon one piece and a mini-hat fascinator to a video game. BUT I am going to compare that contemporary gothic lolita exemplar of youth fashion to the era that inspired the modern reinterpretation. Similarly, I am going to compare a game with 18th century aesthetic setting to the historical period in truth of which the game setting is. How is it the same? How is it different?
Games take the plots, story devices, and story structures of books. Film does it also. Plays do it also. Therefore it is wrong to assume that someone with a knowledge of good story structure cannot articulate an elegant and concise reason why a game's story and aesthetic is improper to its mood and pacing. The difference is not so much different types of critics, and more about a greater degree of knowledge concerning basic philosophically aesthetic rationales and applying them to cultural media and expression (Whether it be traditional visual artistry, performing artistry, gaming artistry(?), literary expression, and fashion design).
Satre did it with his book 'What is Literature?', whereupon he launched a stinging tirade against poets and writers as being artistic, and the absurd nature of the elevation of poetry and literature as we would a portraiture. Satre was a writer, also, espousing his formerly anarchic-turned-pure existentialist philosophies through the means of telling a tale (my favourite, being "The Age of Reason", I fucking love Daniel in that book ... he's both lovable and despicable at the same time).
At the same time, I'm not going to compare a pretty little tiered, empire-waisted black chiffon one piece and a mini-hat fascinator to a video game. BUT I am going to compare that contemporary gothic lolita exemplar of youth fashion to the era that inspired the modern reinterpretation. Similarly, I am going to compare a game with 18th century aesthetic setting to the historical period in truth of which the game setting is. How is it the same? How is it different?
Games take the plots, story devices, and story structures of books. Film does it also. Plays do it also. Therefore it is wrong to assume that someone with a knowledge of good story structure cannot articulate an elegant and concise reason why a game's story and aesthetic is improper to its mood and pacing. The difference is not so much different types of critics, and more about a greater degree of knowledge concerning basic philosophically aesthetic rationales and applying them to cultural media and expression (Whether it be traditional visual artistry, performing artistry, gaming artistry(?), literary expression, and fashion design).
Agreeably enough, but then we have the problem of mechanism. Art, philosophy, science ... all of them require forefathers to build upon. An understanding of fundamental laws whereby one makes a concession, redaction of inane/obsolete/fallacious information and style to be inherently creative. I remember a discussion back in Uni, whether a photograph of a painting, was artistic. Arguably, the photograph and whatever artistic expression conveyed could be said to be the photographer's, but is it really the case?mfeff said:
Similarly philosophy has the same, with its fairly rigorous schools of thought, but faces less challenges than those in art and science when confronted with these dilemmas of true creative ownership and licence.
For example; Neverwinter Nights. It had a toolkit used by the developers distributed to those who purchased the game. Arguably meaning that it was producing artistic licence, and thereby whilst being 'artifice' and not 'art', was extending the capacity for people to create art beyong consumer demand. Something to be displayed, something that is targeted to one's tastes and those who download it (usually for free), or to DM when there fellow friends log in to play in the module.
If we want to be more complicated than that. Could perhaps the photograph of the portrait be the same as a video game company using the very coding of game production software? I mean all the code is relatively the same. It's just rearranged and reorganized into a new presentation. Arguably the 'school of art' by which the game company produces is the same as the game production software 'school of art' ... for all the fundamentals of the created game rely upon the fundamentals of the code with the software generating programs made by another.
In essence, it's all the same. An artist may not live by his productions, but there is always a consumer. Indeed, the great architects of the world thrpghout history could be said as creating art for mass consumption. People live in these buildings, eat inside them, raise families, born, live and die inside them ... and yet where do you blur the line between a artistic relief and a wall? If the argument is practicality, I would counter by saying that the artistic impressions in delightfully old buildings have pragmatic purpose, for the elevate the beauty of the building, and the desire for people to be associated with the structure in some way.
Even if the argument is about the nature of consumption, people will be buying copies of Goya's Saturn, or paying for museum entry to see the original, for centuries after even the most popular games of this age fade into total obscurity.
I've Tried Literature and Film, they don't nearly have the kind of structures needed in place to fully discuss things of a Narrative-ly Branching Nature.
With a game you can have a Single Copy tell the same Story a Hundred ways, one where the hero succumbs to Temptation and Becomes the Villain that causes far reaching destruction and the consequences thereof, or one where the Hero chooses the Path of the martyr and Sacrifices themselves for the Greater Good, Or even one where the Hero Defies Fate and Chooses to live AND save the world!
All these choices free to explore however we choose, and experience ALL of them.
Books? Movies? Forget about it, the story is Set in stone, and there is only one True outcome. The Few Movies that Try Branching Causality are limited by their Linear Medium, which often forces the audience to wait through one choice they might not prefer until the choice they want to see the consequences of happens.
And Meanwhile, the amount of Writing needed in a "Choose your own Adventure Book" to make it large enough to fill the same quota of Narrative as a Full Length Novel in any given story Branch is going to make the book so Astronomically Big that you'd be Surprised if you could Pick the Damned thing Up!
Games are the Only Medium Truly suited for Branching Causality.
...And Interestingly... What is the one Concept everyone is Fascinated by that often Relies on Branching Causality for the Story to be Told?
TIME TRAVEL!
So Games are the Medium Best suited... For Discussing Time Travel... And I even have a Game around here that allows Time-Travel to be used as a Mechanic, and although its hard at times... Its still Amazingly better at explaining matters of Causality than anything I've ever seen.
With a game you can have a Single Copy tell the same Story a Hundred ways, one where the hero succumbs to Temptation and Becomes the Villain that causes far reaching destruction and the consequences thereof, or one where the Hero chooses the Path of the martyr and Sacrifices themselves for the Greater Good, Or even one where the Hero Defies Fate and Chooses to live AND save the world!
All these choices free to explore however we choose, and experience ALL of them.
Books? Movies? Forget about it, the story is Set in stone, and there is only one True outcome. The Few Movies that Try Branching Causality are limited by their Linear Medium, which often forces the audience to wait through one choice they might not prefer until the choice they want to see the consequences of happens.
And Meanwhile, the amount of Writing needed in a "Choose your own Adventure Book" to make it large enough to fill the same quota of Narrative as a Full Length Novel in any given story Branch is going to make the book so Astronomically Big that you'd be Surprised if you could Pick the Damned thing Up!
Games are the Only Medium Truly suited for Branching Causality.
...And Interestingly... What is the one Concept everyone is Fascinated by that often Relies on Branching Causality for the Story to be Told?
TIME TRAVEL!
So Games are the Medium Best suited... For Discussing Time Travel... And I even have a Game around here that allows Time-Travel to be used as a Mechanic, and although its hard at times... Its still Amazingly better at explaining matters of Causality than anything I've ever seen.
Meh. Time travel is a pretty bad story theme unless it is entirely comedic. Red Dwarf, for example, made the best story concerning time travel. you can't take Time Travel seriously without broaching the question of meaningless. If you can travel back in time to give yourself the winning lottery numbers, then you invalidate all character development to that point. It becomes trite, barring an examination of the human creature's lusts for wealth and possibly a look into the concept of self-realization being the ultimate form of transformation. But even those two themes become watered down when you tie it to the central theme of ... "you are human" "You have infinite power over everything ever".ZexionSephiroth said:
The only way to foreseeably make it a generally interesting story is to make it a comedy. Make it funny. I mean, you take moves like Looper. A gritty take on the nature of time travel and causality. And honestly it wasn't as interesting or as immersive as Back to the Future trilogy.
All I got from Looper is that both characters, past and present, are arseholes disinterested in anything beyond selfish motivations. Money, finding the love of your life, etc. Which is all fine and good, but I don't see how you could make a Time Travel game actually be more than a very insular character melodrama, or appropriately handled, a delightful parody of travelling back in time for frivolity, curiosity, and adventure.
Thank you for the response. Normally I wouldn't bother with a "Critical Miss", but I did find this one interesting with respect to what you have pointed out.Requia said:
That for as much as the academic is a characterature on one's T-Shirt; the non-academic is a characterature on the academics T-Shirt.
You mention standards, and I think that is a great place to start.
Why don't you detail some of the standards of the so called video game medium?
Providing a standard begins going down the road of an objective aesthetic which does begin a rescue of the discussion from relativism. Tragically, on the other hand, more than likely it leaves one with an incredibly arduous task of justifying the standard to the constant relativistic undermining process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_theory#In_social_theory
Two leftist polemics are simply not going to provide an adequate answer, which was never its purpose.
My very very very limited treatment of this subject in my previous post was not meant to argue it one way or another, just begin (and I mean "begin") the discussion as to why it will never be answered using the current approach or as-is-ing with a statement followed with a contextualization.
Consequently at the end of the text, written by the comic strip creator, lies a submission that the literary skill of the "video game writer" is dubious.
Is this the beginning of the establishment of a standard?
No this is a borrowed standard from the very academic field that was called into question thus the comic becomes somewhat conflated by the narrative provided by the comics creator.
Not me who conflated the comic, it is the creator of the comic that conflated themselves, I just pointed it out now we will take it to its conclusion.
That standard for which "arcs" would be treated is not one for a video game treatise but from a literary treatise.
As you said yourself "applying standards that were made for different medium", while still borrowing a standard from a different medium while never giving a standard for the medium in question and stating that the "as-is" stands by any "reasonable" account.
This is very nearly a classical example of a disjunctive syllogism.
As I mentioned in that "long winded post" the syllogistic troubles of the dada movement are alive and well in its current medium form.
Thing is, these writers are very much aware of what a character arc is; it is the production pipeline of design that obfuscates the literary contribution to the work. Consequently writing has nothing to do with a game design.
I always appreciate a carefully thought out response, thank you for that.Gorrath said:
By critical analysis one would have to be clear as to what one is talking. What is being analyzed and by what criteria. Now reading a little into your post, I have taken some of these courses, both liberal such as philosophy and art appreciation as well as art history courses. Further as a matter of my post graduate work which hails from an objective engineering and or rigorous mathematical approach to applied game theory courses. I have found this background highly useful in these and other more technical discussions.
I also never said video games would not be considered art, but I will discuss that as I respond to your post further in.
Hardly into this and where already hitting what looks like a no true Scotsman. I don't dispute that there are classes that are leveraged towards that endeavor however the ones that I am familiar with all conduct those courses under various titles of time based art, art installations, and digital art forms. The "video game art" class (to my knowledge) simply does not exist as you have described it.
This course work generally explores the narrative and plays (as performed) elements and has little to nothing to do with a game. In actuality it is much closer to the stage direction of a play or drama. As an example Ken Levine's academic degree is in the liberal arts specifically in drama. It is not a technical degree or management degree, and certainly not an "art history" degree. If we are looking at coursework which includes readings from Ian Bogost his two post graduate degrees are in literature, and are not technical or technically "art history" degrees.
To go a little bit further on that, yes, in many ways they are faffing about my opinion anyways, transparently given.
A digital artist today is much better served by availing themselves to a Calculus course or color theory course, and completely abandoning many of these narrative courses altogether. The courses usually include a very heavy reading of various texts that are written on the subject by academics in the literary arts, not systems analysis, or anything else particularly useful when designing a simulation.
The concept of "game" in these courses is often times as euphemistic as it is in the public discourse, the instructors have little to no experience in pipeline design, and the students are in for a rude awakening if they ever manage to land a job.
It isn't run like a democracy and unless one is a major part of the development staff, one doesn't have a say. As such it is painfully redundant to go over any of that nonsense. The two year trade schools certainly don't bother with it, software engineering doesn't trouble itself with it.
There is a lot of misdirection in this part of your response.
First off, "Can you name the artist?" is not an argument, it is a question. A perfectly valid question considering that this isn't an anthropology course but a discussion of works that are available today with the credits of said works freely available and often printed on the very box at retail or in the products description.
You seem to be attempting to turn the question back onto itself, fine. Go ahead.
I never contested the status of so called video games as "art", I stated that they are kitsch and camp are a part of the dada art movement and will add, ALL of them existential. As composition they fail a high art or "Art" status as "works of art".
There are several reasons for this, maybe I will get around to covering them.
It is a relevant question when 11.6 or so million copies of a call of duty are sold and a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of those purchasers and consumers are capable of naming a single member on staff of this products production.
We are not talking about some bit of clay dug up out of the ground or oil located in a back of some room lacking a name to go with a work, as you said; such an assertion would be absurd. Try to give me just a "little" more credit than that.
I even went so far as to categorize the art movement that they belong as being dada.
Now explain to me how I can place "video games" in an art movement and then say that they are not "art". You may have been able to have pinned me down for using art and artifice interchangeably, because I do, but I am not sure that is a crime.
As such I stand by what I said in the original post, "made by the hard working indigenous people of wherever". As in, the "art of the spear from the Brazilian rain forest", art sure enough, artifacts no problem, works of art by an artist as an artistic endeavor?
No. They are purpose built products.
Seems like you're going to make a run at a slippery slope to me, but let's see where it is going.
A little backward, but my point was to illustrate a tactic not necessarily utilize the tactic myself. The academic or seasoned linguistic tactician limits the opponent's options hoping that the unseasoned poorly reasoned person engages in a flurry of examples. This specifically will open the door for the value argument.
This works because it strips out a standard from which any particular work is able to be judged and is effective because the person attempting to make the case is the one that does the door opening.
This reveals that they never had a standard from which they were working to begin with, and as such demonstrates a type of meaninglessness to the terminology. It is a way of draining the meaning out of terminology by undermining the ground or footing, eliminating a subject and object relationship.
Once the word or words being used have no meaning, it is easy to dismiss the entire affair as intellectually bankrupt. This concept has its root in theological discourse; it is known as theological non-cognitivism.
An example is if I cause someone to argue the existence of a deity, and continue to force the other person to define their terms specifically, eventually someone may say "God is everything".
It's all over but the fat lady singing, as now all one has to do is say, "So God is mass genocide of people so that another group of people may take their resources?"
Everything means everything, and as such further utilizing the concept of a deity as the source of moral absolutes or even artistic expression is linguistically and cognitively impossible. This is known as the "problem of evil".
As soon as someone says "All video games are Art", then one is quickly able to say, So RapeLay is art, and this Mattel toy from 1977 is art?
I don't actually have the burden of proof to prove that they are "not high art", I simply need to demonstrate that the person who created this comic doesn't have a clue and is certainly in no position to even begin to scale the heights to get get one.
Now I am able to engage in a series of begging of the questions.
What was your epistemology for coming to this knowledge?
"Well any reasonable review of art as standard reveals it as such."
Didn't you just say that the conventional standards where not applicable to the evaluation of the so called medium?
It becomes intellectually bankrupt as this is clearly a case of "it is whatever one needs it to be when one needs it to be it". Good ole moving of the goalpost or using an initial statement and falling into a infinite regress or circular reasoning.
Basically it is the forcing of an error simply because the person making the original assertions do not have access to enough information, have not done enough homework, or are operating with dubious intentions coupled with piss poor information.
Maybe they are just lazy?
Maybe they are simply talking out of their ass? Maybe they are quoting someone that is talking out of their ass?
One cannot use the standard in which one is satirizing as being limited to make the case that what one is talking about meets the criteria of that standard. Simply it is a double standard.
This is why I included the video of the cargo cult, as this closely borders on a post hoc fallacy. Rest assured just like creationist religion, video game religion has no shortage of apologetics.
I take opposition to the notion that Kojima works are used in the context of the art game while the man himself has stated that he isn't pursuing an artistic endeavor. I will need it carefully explained to me, as if I were a child, why the man is wrong to himself. I am not extrapolating my example beyond the man and his works. Specifically the Metal Gear series, he is saying are not artistic endeavors, so I need you to explain why the lead designer is incorrect as it relates to his own work.
If video games are art, I assume Metal Gear is a video game, he is saying it isn't an artistic endeavor, but it is art, where the fuck are we at?
See I have no more work cut out for me than to simply demonstrate that the statement video games = art, is a dubious claim at best, and total nonsense at worse. Doesn't have to be right or wrong, just demonstrate that the person making the claim doesn't know or is at present incapable of actually demonstrating evidence for that statement to be true.
It is an appeal to authority, but it is not an appeal to an unqualified authority or an entitlement to an authority. Especially considering his works are and have been used many times on the "art" side of these types of discussions and debates, post 2006 when he made his statement.
Appropriating the work without contextualizing the artist of the work with the work is very strange.
Then again dada and appropriation go hand in hand.
I have said it before and I will say it again, I didn't say it wasn't artistic that it wasn't at the level of a ready-made, that it wasn't an example of the popular culture such as with artifice. I said they were not works of art, and that as composition they failed anything remotely approaching a "high art" status.
Pay close attention, even the harshest of critiques never state that there is "no art" in the products. In fact some of these products are very artful and I don't personally have a problem calling some of them "art installations", or "interactive art".
I do have issues calling some of these products "games" but that is nothing new, as we proceed further into the conversation we begin to get rather technical and often find that "video games" as a "medium" is an oxymoron.
There are a considerable amount of layers to the works of Shakespeare. Unfortunately this part of your response lacks that subtlety.
This looks like another straw man, utilizing a literary standard to attempt an ad hominem attack on my character as being pretentious, as I have REPEATEDLY noted that I have NOT called into question the basic art status of "video games", I have called into question the "high art" or "compositional" art status as them being "works of art" or "artistic endeavors".
Don't be such a pussy and make an argument. The next guy has a good show'n, be like him.
Considering that Shakespeare is a benchmark of the theater, and is studied academically, please reference me the analog as it relates to a "video game medium".
Additionally, the point as it has been pointed out to me, was utilizing standards not appropriate for video games as a medium to make arguments as they relate to video games as an artistic medium. You yourself, have CLEARLY utilized another medium and it's literary standing to launch a rather pathetic counter assault, which conflates the comic but corresponds to the comics own written inconsistency and double standard.
"Shakespeare" is CLEARLY the name of an artist and as such you have subsequently contradicted yourself within your own discourse, so synonymous is the name of the artist with the art that you DID NOT offer a particular title of his work only HIS NAME. I would be willing to bet that out of 11.6 million people throughout history that have participated as an audience during a performance of one of his plays the majority KNEW it was SHAKESPEARE's FUCKING PLAY.
You JUST got done saying it was absurd to associate the art to the artist!
No need to apologize, the point of my treatise was to stir the pot and ultimately reveal the problems of the discussion which are syllogistic, euphemistic, and definitional to name a few.
Predictably you simply offered a couple counter points that where debunked within your own treatment of your counter points.
Imagine the wall you would encounter with someone that holds a terminal degree in art history that also has 30 + years of video game experience or has working experience within the industry or is a close personal friend of someone who is a systems engineer.
For people that love games so much there is a distinct lack of understanding as it relates to one's opponent.
At this juncture it couldn't hurt if you guys and girls supplicated yourself to Saint Jude, the patron Saint of Lost Causes.
Go on.PaulH said:
Good example, in this instance one may look at auteur theory and others as it relates to film specifically. The theory is reasonable and expandable as it relates to collaboration or collaborative efforts. In the case of video games one is either looking at the lead director or developer or in the case of the narrative the lead writer for the overall arc, or character writers for the characters proper. As far as the game systems themselves, they are almost all but off the shelf and rarely ever designed in house. Generally the technical skill required is simply far too rare for a small time studio to keep on staff; so much of the technical work including much of the design concepts are outsourced.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-04-18-capcom-excessive-outsourcing-has-resulted-in-a-decline-in-quality
Much of what passes for the visual art of video games falls into a category of design known as hard surface production design, with a smattering of illustration. Huge amounts of the art assets are simply lifted from photographs, perspective, textures, so on and so forth. Narratively many of these games (especially modern games) lift elements from other works, but again this notion of ready-made and "found art" is not uncommon in dada.
What is uncommon in dada are high art works, the entire movement and its close association with distribution or art for profit is in many ways, the modern definition of kitsch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsch
Philosophy only seems to have fewer challenges than art and science when it is approached as if it is inferior to the art and sciences. Certain philosophies contain such subtleties that they may take years of life lived experience to begin to unravel. This is especially true when one has a secondary academic degree or terminal degree in the literary fields of mathematics and or applied sciences and engineering.
It is not so much a matter of regurgitating information but coming to an understanding of the fundamental processes behind the towers of knowledge and work.
One is said to be able to paint as Leonardo once one has grasped the mind of Leonardo. This is a classical education, and is unavailable or out of reach for most, not due to elitism but personal laziness.
The differences in the modern arts especially in the video game specialty schools are that fundamental art skills are simply not taught. Tooling is taught, shortcuts are taught, how to lift things and appropriate things are taught. The reasoning behind this is to generate personal to work within the industry, as the industry itself has a very high turnover rate.
I am very familiar with the aurora toolkit.
Large sections of that toolkit where never released due to the creators of said tools where not bio ware, it was sub leased, like all bio ware engines. You don?t have to purchase the game to get the toolkit it has long since been open source. I have used it for all sorts of shit that has nothing to do with NWN. I am more familiar with the mod community than I really care to go into.
Need to be careful in the use of the word art and design. If you mean, texture wrap a cube in space and toss some stats on it, I follow you. That isn't art though, that is an art asset which is rooted in design. Art generally uses the fundamentals of art while being creative with principles of design. Design uses the principles of design and plays with some elements of art to visually communicate some idea. Art tends to be much for free and expressive than design due to rigorous limits, constraints, on and on.
These are very very different concepts.
The quick and dirty is how obliged the worker is to stay within forms. In the terms of simulation software, the answer is "extremely obliged". If one is limited to a certain amount of vertices, that is what it is. It is not open to debate. It is not a paint brush problem, it is an engineering problem.
This is actually a very good observation, software used to be copyright under the same conditions as works of literature, however, considering that software operates using mostly the same code base, and many many software packages are all sub leased anyway, issues arose as to who actually owned what.
What is copyright today as it relates to video games are the characters and elements of scenarios, especially as it relates to the brand, not the code work, that's all subleased. I cannot create a game using the crytek engine and copyright the crytek engine. I may be able to copyright a title or work as it is arranged, or as sweat of the brow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow
Even though I never actually drew the first fire arm, light source, recorded the first audio file, nothing, nothing in the work is original. This lack of original or "authenticity" is an ongoing complaint of many writers in the industry.
This is known as assemblage and isn't anything particularly new in postmodern art. Unfortunately for the writer they are as much of a tool of the machine as any other low skill worker. A writer at a good studio may be able to direct some story, a writer at a traditional study, will be forced to write dialog for a cut scene that has already been motion capped and make it work in the product.
That is typical. This is a major issue when one is attempting to apply auteur theory to a game production.
So where is the artistic endeavor again? Cause I missed that part.
I see appropriation and dressing up a military simulation with an aesthetic paintjob to contextualize the same game design in some really vague way. Assume just for a moment that I may actually own a game or 2, explain to me where the artistic endeavor is?
This is clearly design not art, for the purposes of visual communication not artistic expression. I do appreciate that you have made these observations and rightfully so, however, this does not address the kitsch and camp status of these works.
A great example is the insect like characteristics of a lot of modern ?alien? science fiction ships. This is not due to an artistic expression; this is due to insect design being studied in commercial design schools due to the hard surface, nature of the study, and ease of halves. That is that one only has to render half and animate half of the structure and then mirror it over. This is done due to the expedient nature of the design and is quick and easy to do in pipeline production.
Art works or design in this case for an art asset done as an expedient is artifice.
Precisely why this stuff gets kicked right the fuck back as low art, because it is low art.
This is JUST the visual elements; we have not even started down the path of the question is a game art?
That discussion alone has a lot of problems.
If one cannot argue this as a work of art and provide a strait forward reasoning you are totally fucked when it is transformed from one medium to another.
The discussion didn't change.
Getting awfully close to the one drop rule, but let's finish it up.
Generally when there is a handy dandy plaque next to the relief detailing something about the work on the wall. Else it is simply architecture, which has a word to describe it, it's called architecture.
Architecture in video game design is called a "level designer". Then there are set dressers placing the objects within the cubes in space, rigorously designed, sometimes with a little art flare, but typically following the rule of cool.
Re-contextualizing it as practicality sure, but now it is the original position fallacy, or a confirmation bias dependent on where one would find oneself within a value judgement. (We all tend to do this by degrees so it isn't here or there)
In some ways I do not have a problem with this. Now there is going to be a sticking point and that is art as commentary of its medium, and art as a commentary upon its medium. In the case of buildings, architecture, a high performance exotic car, or a weapon from a faraway land, these artifacts are often treasured and carry with them a considerable amount of cultural significance. They are no matter how it is sliced a commentary upon itself and its own medium, not a commentary of its medium upon another subject.
Although I do think there is some very interesting architecture that challenges that, again that is architecture not some asset in a toy.
The issue here as it relates to games and video games is that they are games and video games.
The Mattel football game is a video game, please use your treatise concerning architecture to describe to me why it is a work of art.
Well I actually like where you took this even though it was a funky non sequitur.
The trouble with "video games" is manifold.
First off, the medium is not "video games" it is software.
There is no such thing as "video games" as medium.
All software programs in which a person interfaces through a graphical user interface and a control scheme is a simulation.
All simulations in a digital space operate in a defined logical area using linear mathematics and matrices. All games are simulations, although not all simulations are games.
All simulations are existential by their very nature. So concepts such as ?breaking the fourth wall? are ultimately redundant when discussing video games, the act of interfacing with a virtual space breaks the fourth wall as a course of interaction.
If you type on a forum, you have already broken the forth wall. Typing a letter in word, again, simulating a typewriter in a digital space, as you type it, you see it, interaction with a virtual space.
Simulations model something and they are designed to, not "discovered" as many of the liberal arts courses lay out.
Games systematize rules to play under a bounded rationality. All games in a finite system are capable of being analyzed using known game theory concepts and has states which account for the win loss condition of the play at any time.
A product without states or a win loss condition is not a game.
Due to the win loss condition of games the art of a game is said to be in it's play.
"Video Games" as a so called medium are not interested in game theory or games proper, it is leveraging the contextualization or "dressing up" of an already existing game or simulation model.
That is what it is.
Software is the medium, simulation, mixed media audio, visual, and maybe some "game type"; are vehicles in which something will be simulated in an interactive space. The term video game is redundant and inaccurate with some simulation products which have exhibited no game. Dear Esther is a perfect example of a product that is marketed as a video game under the syllogistic hijack "not game", as a form of medium "expansion" within video games.
Total rubbish. The term game or rather its definition has had several euphemism lumped onto it over the years in an attempt to persuade the audience to accept and pay for software specifically designed as a work of art. The trick is that a game by definition allows a player to win or loose and change game states during the play of the game, and as such, the artist expression or communication is subject to varied interpretations.
That is 10 players may have 10 different experiences. As such the "game" element is stripped away or is cleverly masked over so that the product has the aesthetic appearance of a game, without actually having a game system. There is a strong correlation suggesting that the more agency a player has (audience ability to change the play) the lower amount of artistic value or artistic endeavor will be conveyed to that audience.
Thus, the more game there is, the less art, by definition. So even getting past the kitsch one still has to deal with this, and it is a pretty big headache who are enthusiastic as to achieving an art status with games.
Personally I think one would have a better chance of arguing Sesame Street, Frank Frazetta, or straight up hard core porn as high art than video games, but a lot of folks play this shit and really like it... which is fine, cause that is what it is engineered to do, be liked utilizing the least common denominator.
For the most part they do the job they are engineered to do, extract wealth from an audience in exchange for some very surface level entertainment, usually extremely violent and or pornographic. Those two pathways into the mind disable critical thinking and reasoning centers of the brain.
They are very efficient at what they are designed to do.
Art with a capitol A? Uh, nah... lowbrow.
Why does it matter if games are considered art? Because of things like this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121539-Apple-If-You-Want-To-Criticize-Religion-Write-a-Book], this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/90759-Six-Days-in-Fallujah-Triggers-Outrage] and this [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122830-App-Store-Rejects-Uncomfortable-Sweatshop-Game].
It looks like sensibility finally won out.
The late Ebert's comment struck a nerve with a lot of people, but all I ever saw it was the thrashings and mewlings of a community struggling with their own insecurity.
The late Ebert's comment struck a nerve with a lot of people, but all I ever saw it was the thrashings and mewlings of a community struggling with their own insecurity.
I took one such course and it was not like what you've described. It focused on how traditional forms of narrative, art and performance were coupled with human interactivity (gameplay, if you will) to form a new medium for artistic communication. I felt it was quite a good course of study but that is personal opinion so I don't expect you to take my word for it. Interestingly, the professor for this course was also the art history professor, which I find intriguing given the seeming divide between your and his opinion about games as art. I am not an art history major myself, as I'm sure is obvious, so my comments on that subject will be limited to that understanding.mfeff said:
I'll take your word for all of this, as my course on the subject wasn't like what you've described and, as you pointed out, the guy who draws the pretty digital mountains doesn't get much say in deciding aspects of narration. Even the course I took would have no use in the practical work life of a digital artist or a sounds effects engineer. It was a study of theory and overview of how all elements that make up the simulation can come together to create a piece of art. Mileage in such courses are bound to vary.
I intended no misdirection. The point that I was trying to make is that the name of the creator of a piece of art is of little, if any, relevancy to the piece's status as "art" or "high art" or whatever term you want to use. You are right that it isn't an argument, but the question seems to imply that you think knowing who the artist is, is an important part of the examination of a thing's status as art or not. I would argue that it is not of any particular importance to know who the creator of a piece of art is, whether such information is lost to the sands of time or scrawled in burnt umber at the edge of the canvas. Now that is not to suggest that knowing an artist cannot provide insight into his or her creation, that much is obvious and I don't want anyone to think that I'm arguing that that is the case.
I would very much like to read your reasons for considering all video games kitsch and camp, I believe it would be an interesting discussion. As far as their composition failing to meet a standard that would set them as "high art" I would need you to provide me with the criteria involved for making this distinction. As for the bit about anthropological discoveries of art, that's not what I was referencing either. Only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of people can name the director of "The Godfather," but I don't see how that is relevant. I am not denying any credit to you, I simply fail to see your point in asking the question.
I'm not going to go all slippery slope on you actually. I agree with you that art and artifice are in some ways interchangeable, in the sense that all art is artifice but not all artifice is art. If art were not artifice, I don't know that we could form any standards to judge it. I am fully with you on the idea that not just anything at all can be 'art' and that there is a question of skill and craftsmanship involved that elevates the effectiveness of a piece. This is where the artifice is involved. As for all games being dada though, I'd need you to qualify that. You've already said they are kitsch and camp but since I don't agree we would have to tear into the subject in more detail. AS I mentioned, I am not an art history major or expert. I do know a bit about dadaism and from what I do know I wouldn't classify all games in that movement.
Oh I know you weren't engaged in the tactic, hence my response being firmly rooted in the same theoretical debate as yours was. But since I would not argue that 'all games are art' this particular tactic would not work anyway. I don't need to fall back on a 'value' argument or engage in meaninglessly broad definitions. I'm not certain of the context for your last sentence here. If you are going to claim as fact that no games meet the necessary criteria to be considered 'high art', a term which itself would need qualification for the purpose of discussion, then you would be making a positive claim that would need to be defended and would have a burden of proof.
I can't say what the comic intended for certain, but I would say that while parts of a game can be evaluated using existing criteria in the relevant fields, a game as a whole delves into a new aspect, namely gameplay, and thus as a whole the game cannot be judged solely on existing criteria in other, more well established arts. Just as narrative structure or character arcs in movies can be judged from a literary perspective, so too can the same aspects of a game be judged. However, we would not necessarily trust the literary critic to also make critical assessment of a film's cinematography. Cinematography, like gameplay, is a mechanic unique to its medium and needs to be judged that way. We cannot asses "The Godfather" as "high art" or not without assessment of its cinematography and no study of its literary, or even theatric merit can asses it's cinematography. This is the very reason why we have film critics and film classes instead of simply lumping it in with existing forms of artistic endeavor. I think this is the point to be made here, whether the comic intended to convey what I just wrote or not.
Video game religion? I'd need an explanation of this idea, unless you intend it as clever hyperbole. Being an avid study of comparative religion, I am quite aware of the arguments, apologetics and fallacies of various religions. Suffice it to say I am an atheist and an agnostic.
I can't answer why some might claim his endeavor was art when he himself said it was not, but I am not contesting his claims about his own work, I am contesting his extrapolation to the entire industry. There are individuals who work on canvas and with paint who's entire endeavor is for the sake of money, but I'd not agree with them if they claimed that that was all everyone else was in it for too. It is plainly clear that Kojima's claim that all games are created with their highest ideal being maximum player satisfaction is provably wrong. Many games are created for nothing but profit, and so it is the same with every other medium of art.
It is an appeal to an unqualified authority because Kojima is unqualified to state what every other person working in the industry's motivations are. He is also completely unqualified to tell anyone, factually, what the highest ideal of a game is. He can opine on these things all he likes, but I disagree with his opinions and so do other people working in and outside the industry. Whether some people claim his works are art or use them in debates isn't important to me because I am not making those claims myself.
As for you calling into question the dubious nature of "games = art" we'd once again need to hash out the criteria with witch to make this judgment. I believe they are because my understanding of the definition of art allows for games to exist as art, and I have played some games that I think meet that criteria. I'll grant you outright though that you can easily dismiss me as unqualified to make that assessment, given that I am not an art expert even if I've taken university level coursework that deals with various artistic medium. This exists as my opinion, to be reinforced or demolished as new information arises.
Once again though, without definitions of "high art" or an examination of of the criteria for meeting its standard, we can't possibly discuss this. I have no rebuttal for things which are not defined. What you want to call "art," "Art," "High Art," "Artsy," "Artistic," ect. isn't much for me to go on. I'm not even certain I care whether games are "art," or "high art," as to me it seems that the distinction between the two might very well be superfluous. I cannot really form that opinion until I know what your differentiation between the two things is.
This is not a straw man, as it directly addresses the argument (not necessarily your argument) that a thing created for a mass market is automatically disqualified as being art or even high art. Secondly, I did not call you pretentious, I said that the idea that a thing is disqualified as art or high art based on who its audience is pretentious and logically flawed. This is not an ad hominem, as it is not an attack on your character. In fact, what I was talking about there was in response to what Kojima said, not what you said. The part about naming the video game analogue of Shakespeare is the same as asking for the video game version of "Citizen Kane" it is a logical fallacy based on analogy. Jim of the Jimquisition covered this topic. There need not be a video game analogue to either thing, as both films and theater existed as art before either of those two things existed in their own medium. I'll take your "pussy" charge as a light-hearted jibe and hope that I've cleared up any confusion you may have had to the actual point I was making.
I most certainly did NOT claim that associating art with an artist was absurd. I said that making a judgment about a piece of art's status based on whether you could name the artist was absurd. These are two completely different claims. A painting being "art" or "high art" "compositionally art" or "not art" isn't based on who the artist is or whether you can name them. Even if we had not one clue who Shakespeare was it wouldn't somehow render his works any less compelling or worthy of critical praise. I must say I feel as if my point has been rather badly misconstrued here. As for the comic's double standard, I already addressed that in my earlier paragraph.
Your grandiose posturing aside, you could do with the same apology offered me as I offered you, given that you horribly mangled several of my points so badly that they cried out for any saint but that which you posted. The only time my points countered themselves where when they were completely misunderstood, which I'll grant may be as much my own fault as yours. Language, like art, is a two way street and we both bear a burden in communicative exchange. I'll close with offering that my fiancé is an artist by trade working in fine arts and illustration. She has a deep academic knowledge gained from years of study at a rather prestigious art school. And she thinks your totally wrong about a lot of what you've said about games and dadaism. I don't expect you to believe me of course, I'd not be so foolish as to think that you'd give any merit to my claim here, just figured I'd toss that out since I've a great wall before me and a wrecking ball behind. You'll excuse me if I trust the person I know and admire over the random internet person who called me a pussy after they misunderstood a point I was making.
This argument never did make much sense to me. If all of the components of something are art, how can the result not be art? Literature, film, paintings, and music can all be art. They may not be the specific art you had in mind, but they were still art. All of those are components in video games, and components from the very genesis of our medium. Ours even adds things to the formula--interactivity and choice--that are absent from the others. I am making the choices for Odysseus against a Van Gogh backdrop while an elegy of my loss plays discordantly in the background.
That said, while all games have art elements, so does a bucket of paint, and that alone is hardly art. No one praises the terribly written, self-insertive epics (except Dante's works, but he gets off on a technicality that his work is apparently now canon for the church), much like anyone with even a small amount of exposure can tell the difference between a musician's greater works and their less refined counterparts. No one is arguing Portal isn't art, because we can see the dedication that went into it's making. Every aspect of it was taken and polished until it either shined or glistened (this being a destructive science facility playground we're talking about), and it stands. But, while it shares a similar set of components, no one is going to praise Daikatana or Too Human for being the same kind of wholly conspicuous and readily apparent kind quality as what was displayed in Portal. They might be art in and of themselves (we can have beautiful cinematography of destruction, or something as psychotically broken as Requiem for a Dream as art, after all), but I'm not going to praise them both as art just because of that.
That said, while all games have art elements, so does a bucket of paint, and that alone is hardly art. No one praises the terribly written, self-insertive epics (except Dante's works, but he gets off on a technicality that his work is apparently now canon for the church), much like anyone with even a small amount of exposure can tell the difference between a musician's greater works and their less refined counterparts. No one is arguing Portal isn't art, because we can see the dedication that went into it's making. Every aspect of it was taken and polished until it either shined or glistened (this being a destructive science facility playground we're talking about), and it stands. But, while it shares a similar set of components, no one is going to praise Daikatana or Too Human for being the same kind of wholly conspicuous and readily apparent kind quality as what was displayed in Portal. They might be art in and of themselves (we can have beautiful cinematography of destruction, or something as psychotically broken as Requiem for a Dream as art, after all), but I'm not going to praise them both as art just because of that.
Old thread is old. Anyway, I thought I'd comment on this real quick.Archangel357 said:
We don't really think about silent film much, but as someone who has taken time to study film, silent films are the building blocks of modern cinema. Silent Film may have done more to innovate film than any other period of cinema, but only because they were excessively limited in what they could do.
I bring this up, because I point out that we are not far off that innovation in games, and to bring up why some old gamers are frustrated at new games. It isn't necessarily imply an elitist attitude as seeing something missing from something loved. Old Gamers who attack CoD players are kind of being Dickish, but it's because CoD freaking hurts. The same way sports games hurt before that.
I can give you a large list of games that one could consider art, and SOME are mainstream. Just because we ignore some of them by letting CoD overshadow are view doesn't mean they don't exist. Maybe they aren't the equivalent of a Lars von Trier film, but alot of games manage to get past "Michael Bay" and maybe hit James Cameron levels of speech and poignancy. Some are just good.
Consider:
Final Fantasy X: Not even the best in the series for this argument, and yet it had a lot to say on the nature of reality, sacrifice, and legacy. It was definitely a story full of symbolism, that pushed it's message forward more than it's need to be popular. The creatures even stated that Titus was meant to come off annoying and loud, because he is the embodiment of Naivete.
Jet Set Radio, and Jet Set Radio Future: These games could be seen as pointless fun, but they are pure post-modern nuggets of joy, combining aesthetics from multiple cultures and fitting them into a weird little world to make some statements about rebellion and conformity.
Spec Ops, The Line: Can we forget about video game's version of "Apocalypse Now" in the face of CoD? I don't think we can. I love how this game used subtle hints to signal your decent into madness,(like the fade to white/black being about the duality of madness vs. reality) and if you managed to play it before someone spoiled what was going on? Killer ending.(or endings, although they all kind of have the same message in different ways)
Katamari Damacy: Weird and quirky sure, and also surreal as hell. I could see someone trying very hard to say that there is nothing to this game as art, it is just a game where you roll things up.
However, it also forces an observation on anyone who plays it. An observation of starting small enough that everything is a threat to you, but in minutes growing to huge proportions and becoming the threat to those smaller than you. As you progress you get larger and larger views of the worlds your rolling up, and the game surprises at every turn with tons of pop culture references and jokes that only work in the context of the argument the game presents. It is like Picasso, simply offering a completely different way to look at things.
I can bring up many more, but I was careful to not bring up any indie games. There are plenty of games that manage to be art. That said I do agree with you, a video game CAN be art, but Video Games as a whole aren't necessarily art.