Movements, Messages and Games as Art

[Windcaler]

Ultimately are games art is a flawed question because the definition of art is in a constant state of flux and has evolved over the centuries into something else entirely. Going back to the middle ages art was about learning a set of rules and an artists mastery over those rules. However art in this age (what Ive heard many experts call post modernism) has intentionally put itself outside the bounds of definition making the eyes and mind of the beholder determine if something is or isnt art.

To quote the director of the museum of modern art, William Rubin "There is no single definition of art. The idea of defining art is so remote that I dont think anyone would dare to do it."

There is one definition of art that no one can argue with. That is: a visual object or experience consciously created through an expression of skill or imagination. Obviously this definition easily fits for video games but it also fits for hundreds of other things. The problem with this definition is two fold. The first is it only applies to visual kinds of art and the second is it is a broad definition that covers centuries while art has evolved along the way.

What we should be asking is are video games ready to be considered art and are we ready to accept them as art. As our world changes so does the context within it and as context changes so does meaning. Art in our society today is such an abstract concept that we can no longer say if something is definitively art or not.

The issue we often have today is that many AAA games are made for the masses and are sound games and may have been innovative at one time however as finance becomes the goal creativity is stifled and nothing noteworthy is made. When artistic expression and creativity is jepordized by financial goals it creates a product that is ultimately bad for the industry and for the consumer. The crux of the matter in the AAA side of the industry is games are rarely made to be art but that doesnt stop them from being interpreted as art (exactly like Shakespears work).

Traditionally art has been used to inspire emotion. Games do this. Art has been used to make a unique experience for the beholder. Games do this. Finally, art has been used to comment on society and humanity. Games do this too.

Now to answer the questions that we should be asking...

Are video games ready to be considered art? My answer: Yes. In recent years we have seen a growing number of people using video games as a form of artistic medium to express emotions, social commentary, observations on humanity, political ideals, religious beliefs and more.

Are we ready to accept games as art? My answer: Yes. Not long ago we saw the museum of natural art accept several games in its displays. I dont know why each game was chosen but the fact that they were shows the artistic community beginning to view games in a very different light. The people who are often proponents of games as art cite games in which creativity and artistic expression were not a thought in its design. This shows a general point of ignorance for games that do have deep artistic expressions in them like Dark souls, Bioshock, and journey as well as ignorance for our society's definition of art. However the issue often is they lack the many hours taken to view these games in any detail let alone in their entirety. A paintings emotion or beauty can be expressed and experienced in a moment and movie can be experienced in a few hours. Yet games take days, weeks, months, perhaps even a year to fully explore. So I believe whole heartedly that critics speak out of ignorance

 

[Evil Cabbage]

Wow... I basically just agreed with everything the OP wrote.

 

[DioWallachia]

You know, I was right. I really do like it way more when someone just proposes more meaningful games get made alongside the fun ones.

See, before you came along a lot of art gamer posts looked like this. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.371804-lollipop-Chainsaw-is-a-terrible-idea

I really hate it when people make posts like the one I just linked to, because it implies that all games should be heading in one direction towards some singularity rather than branch out and do what they want to, whether that be COD gun porn or dragon story sandboxes like skyrim or driving and flying games.

Seriously though, this point is much more bearable to read without all the "We must eliminate DOA and Lollipop chainsaw and COD because they're holding us back from being truly mature" bullshit that other posts like the one linked above seem to be obsessed with.

Hell, even something as brainless as COD actually manage to give a social commentary, believe or not:

Spoiler

Maybe we are too too quick to judge something that is the 90% of Michael Bay wet dreams?

 

[deathbydeath]

Dude, video games have been around ~30-40 years, and a lot of art movements are about that long or longer, and we still haven't fully established basic things like general consumer non-apathy, awareness, and in general caring about the medium. Sure, we can have great games with great themes/messages (Deus Ex), but those don't fit as well into the massive niche most publishers have carved out and dug into (Larger budget-better game).

tl;dr: Drop AAA development costs, problem solved.

 

[deathbydeath]

Hell, even something as brainless as COD actually manage to give a social commentary, believe or not:

Spoiler

Maybe we are too too quick to judge something that is the 90% of Michael Bay wet dreams?

You're assuming author intent there. Just because the games are "realistic" in their depiction of justice (or the lack thereof) does not mean that they are saying something. If something was explicitly stated by a character about the lack of trials, then I'd be happy to wave your flag, but until then, there's no evidence to support that IW has an explicit point to make, or to deny that they're just being "edgy".

 

[Lilani]

My next suggestion is one I'm pretty sure isn't about, and that's a movement or two. My girlfriend does art history and can tell me all about the tens and hundreds of artistic movements there have been across the ages and cultures, what they were about, how they worked. I'm sure, with little research, I could find the same in movies, and as an occasional student of theatre, I KNOW there are some there too. All of these are recognised art forms, and all have movements. So I say, why not us? Initially, many of you might say (and you're not wrong), that games cost a crapload of money and take up a crapload of time, even with an entire dev-team at your beck and call, so it's not like any small groups of enthusiasts can just band together and make stuff of their own. And my reply to this would be, while it's still true, it is becoming less so. Indie games are becoming more of a thing, there's software packages out there that can help aspiring game-makers who (not unlike myself) have a desperate hunger to tell great stories, and know less than sweet F.A about coding, drawing, animating, voice-acting, and everything else that's needed to make games. With the increasing focus (among certain genres at least) on user-made content and create-your-own-experiences, I think it's only going to get easier for people to get a jump-start into making their own content, and so I think this could be a happening thing. Game movements, I like the term already.

I have also taken many art history classes, and I can tell you the reason games aren't an accepted medium of art yet because the medium is too young to have the respect of the "high arts." That isn't to say they don't deserve their respect, it's just that quite frankly the people who consider themselves to be "in charge" of contemporary art (art buyers, museums, galleries, and critics) are generally a stuffy bunch who don't like stepping out of their comfort zones. They'll buy or house a "daring" body of work that has a lot of messages to tell and a lot of people to shock, but a game of the same nature? Why that's laughable to them. As much as they consider themselves to be avant garde and ahead of the curve, it's always the people who consider themselves to be on the top of the art world that are the very last to accept a new movement or medium.

There are a few exceptions, and sometimes a critic or buyer will take a liking to something new, and that's one of the many ways these movements eventually get legitimized. But quite honestly a lot of film isn't considered to be "high art" yet. Most films that are relatively accepted as "art" are the silent films of Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, and maybe the German expressionist movement. As incredible of an artistic feat as it was, you won't see the art world even consider thinking of the Lord of the Rings as "art" until a century or more from now, if ever at all.

They also have quite a stigma against things made for commercial profit. They're under this impression that unless you made something exclusively as a raw expression of you as an artist, it can't possibly be art. Which yes doesn't make sense because plenty of artists make a living selling their paintings and drawings, but since paintings and drawings are already "high arts" they get free passes.

So there you go. Those who decide what qualifies as "high art" have their heads so far up their asses they really deserve no credibility at all, and have historically been responsible for holding the arts back and trying to fight off new movements and mediums. For them it's not "What art can I discover today?" it's "What can I decide is art today?" Their pleasure in art is their control over it.

 

[DioWallachia]

SNIP

Basically the same conclusion i had in other threads: Elitism.

"This blockbuster fuckest know as Lord of The Rings couldnt possible even BE art!! we would be opening the doors to similar thrash like Trasnformers 2 and Titanic. See how ridiculous your statement is??"

Now that you mention it, isnt there already a work of medium that explores and deconstruct this elitism of the "high art" assholes? you know, since these people LOVE the art that shocks people, how about a work of art that tells them how fucking stupid and rotten they are?

You're assuming author intent there.

While we are on the neighborhood, sometimes, author intent only makes things worse. Specially when they cant get right their own work and what was supposed to be saying.

Case in point: Spec Ops: The Line.
http://theshillinfield.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/spec-ops-the-line-is-a-bad-videogame/
http://theshillinfield.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/spec-ops-the-line-is-still-a-bad-videogame/#more-95

Is this kind of thing that makes other authors and writers go "keep everything high lvl" so the audience does the job for them in guessing what in the hell they just made. And that also ends up going out of hand too...

 

[bananafishtoday]

Now, on to the topic.
Lots of people are suggesting that games are not respected enough as an art form, not mature enough, not successful enough (in this endeavour I mean, not in general) and that we ought to be trying to make the industry more progressive, more mature, more nuanced, and that all of this would add to the legitimacy of the claim that video games are art, and I agree with this. I also think I know of a way in which this could happen.

Just to address the "respect" thing from an angle that too many people approach it from (I know you're not making these arguments, but others do)...

The whole idea that a lot of people hold of video games being "respected" as an art form is wrapped up in notions of high art vs. low art. Fact is, things are only deemed "high art" in retrospect. Practically everything we revere nowadays was considered vulgar and degenerate in its time. Shakespeare's plays essentially threw all the "proper" genre conventions of the day in the garbage, and the Globe was basically his age's equivalent of a trashy drive-in movie theater. (Also, dick jokes. So many dick jokes.) Caravaggio's emphasis on theatricality and emotion in his paintings was considered brutish in comparison to the highly refined Mannerism that dominated art. Manet's depiction of naked (rather than "nude") women was horrifying in his time. Etc.

Practically all of art history moves in cycles Artists rebel against the status quo, their work is considered "not real art," then avant garde, then the new status quo that someone else inevitably rebels against. It's actually fascinating how quickly it happens in some time periods... impressionism went from "sucks, not art, gtfo" to "clearly the art of our era" to "sucks, too mainstream, gtfo" inside like 40 years.

Essentially what I'm saying is I don't think we need to worry about respect. To put on my hipster hat for a second, Duchamp, Warhol, and postmodern lit murdered the high art/low art distinction, and modern technology buried the body. It's not relevant in an age when everyone has equal access to all art, as opposed to when "high" art was too expensive for anyone but social elites to see or experience. Those who decide what art is "high" art are anachronisms, and besides, our medium won't get respect from them until decades after we've demonstrated we deserve it. We shouldn't concern ourselves with what the "art world" thinks. Instead, we should be making, supporting, and discussing what we think is important. Film critics and gallery organizers won't "legitimize" gaming. It'll be people who get into the avant garde in their 20s who legitimize it when they're in their 40s. (Then our kids will think it's fine and conventional and our grandkids will think it's stuffy and old-timey!)

Ok rant over...

What I'm thinking is that games need two essential things in order to help their integration into the artistic community. The first is games with messages. Now, let me say that first I'm not such a big consumer of indie games as I probably should be (especially given putting this suggestion in a positive light). I'm perfectly willing to accept that some, if not many indie games are out there to put forward a message. But it seems to me, in my inexperienced opinion, that we tend to be an all-or-nothing bunch. Either we're making a gloriously fun and ludicrously shallow gaming experience that's all about surface entertainment, or we're putting together one that's so unnecessarily deep that you'd expect to encounter anglerfish and so on before you get halfway down, and any ultimate meaning is lost in the ocean of vague, half-defined, open-to-interpretation possibilities about what it MIGHT be trying to say. What I think is needed is more of a middle ground; depth and complexity, but not snobbish disdain of actually having fun and intermediate goals and story-telling. An example of this would be the Path. I bought it, played it, was told about how open to interpretation and artistic it was, but to be honest.... I got nothing from it. To me it seemed like a bunch of different girls walking slowly around a forest occasionally encountering random collections of items with snippets of impressive-sounding words and not much else. I say (and I'm happy to both be corrected and to take suggestions for titles I should look for in this area, thanks to all willing to help) we need to stop with the one camp or the other, and try for a little mixing between the two.

Definitely agree on the middle ground. (Well really it's a spectrum, but we're on the same page.) The industrial processes that define how most games are made make analogies to film really applicable imo. Essentially we have our Michael Bays and our David Lynches, but we're sorely lacking Lucases or Spielbergs. I think it'll come in time. The problem is we have tons of people with vision and no resources, and tons of people with resources and no vision.

The shitfest that is the AAA industry right now reminds me a lot of the death throes of Hollywood's studio system, and that's really exciting to me. If, God willing, we follow the same trajectory, we'll see AAA dev continue to stagnate. Then a AAA house with foresight will pull some indie devs in and give them medium-sized budgets and a lot of creative control. From there it's just follow the leader. This is essentially how American New Wave played out, taking us from empty 50's shlock to Coppola, Kubrick, Woody Allen, etc, all because every studio wanted to put out the next Bonnie and Clyde.

It's not a perfect analogy... I don't know that game dev has a singular position comparable to a movie director than can deliver a singular vision, and Hollywood was in dire straits b/c TV crowded them out of their "mindless entertainment" niche, while gaming has no real competition. (Perhaps mobile gaming will be the TV to console/PC gaming's film? Who knows.) Plus the dev/publisher model is... less than ideal, to say the least. But I think it's a realistic prospect, even strictly from a business POV. Everything now is about huge budgets and spectacle. I think it'll be a goldmine for the first AAA who goes for medium budgets and soul. If you can sell half as many units of a game made at a third of the cost, that's a pretty nice profit. Great writing and great design require way, way fewer manhours than great graphics... but they require vision, while graphics only require time and money.

And if you get people raving about how your games are pushing the medium forward, that's a good chunk of your marketing for free. Especially if they get the branding right--the whole "gotta build a franchise" problem can be fixed if you change the convo from "can't wait for the next ____ game" to "can't wait for the next game by ____."

If Activision had tied a "creator" to CoD 4, they'd be able to sell anything with that creator's name instead. And if they just wanted to build franchises anyway, that name would be a franchise-creating machine. I don't buy the argument that "average" gamers wouldn't notice those things. Everyone knows who Spielberg is, because he was marketed. Game creators aren't.

Incidentally, we already have a model for how this would work: Ken Levine. (Not that his name gets any marketing either, but y'know. It should. Put it in the ads and on the box and then name recognition will move units of future games for free.) Rather, Ken Levine is exactly how you can take AAA resources and combine them with a visionary creator to get games with mass-market appeal and artistic merit. We'll always have "popcorn games" like the CoDs and Maddens, and we'll always have our "arthouse" games too. And that's a good thing; they all serve their own niches. But I honestly think we're one step away from a hell of a lot more Bioshocks.

My next suggestion is one I'm pretty sure isn't about, and that's a movement or two. My girlfriend does art history and can tell me all about the tens and hundreds of artistic movements there have been across the ages and cultures, what they were about, how they worked. I'm sure, with little research, I could find the same in movies, and as an occasional student of theatre, I KNOW there are some there too. All of these are recognised art forms, and all have movements. So I say, why not us? Initially, many of you might say (and you're not wrong), that games cost a crapload of money and take up a crapload of time, even with an entire dev-team at your beck and call, so it's not like any small groups of enthusiasts can just band together and make stuff of their own. And my reply to this would be, while it's still true, it is becoming less so. Indie games are becoming more of a thing, there's software packages out there that can help aspiring game-makers who (not unlike myself) have a desperate hunger to tell great stories, and know less than sweet F.A about coding, drawing, animating, voice-acting, and everything else that's needed to make games. With the increasing focus (among certain genres at least) on user-made content and create-your-own-experiences, I think it's only going to get easier for people to get a jump-start into making their own content, and so I think this could be a happening thing. Game movements, I like the term already.

This is something I'd love to see in gaming as well, but I haven't really thought on how it'd come about. (Obv "big" genres come and go, but more like styles.) So can't really opine on it.

ANYWAY. As you can prolly tell, this is something I care a lot about.

Edit: Rereading, I notice I say "dev" a lot when I should prolly say "publisher," specifically re: dumb business practices. Not my intention to misplace blame. I tend to think of publisher-owned devs and publishers themselves as one unit, and I don't know enough about the industry to judge whether that's a fair assessment or not.

 

[undeadexistentialist]

snip

Thanks for weighing in, I really enjoyed reading your post and it gave me some hope for the future of gaming - quite an important thing because I tend to be more of a pessimist about these things. Also;

Edit: Rereading, I notice I say "dev" a lot when I should prolly say "publisher," specifically re: dumb business practices. Not my intention to misplace blame. I tend to think of publisher-owned devs and publishers themselves as one unit, and I don't know enough about the industry to judge whether that's a fair assessment or not.

that's alright, I do the same thing, and I'm pretty sure I did it also in the OP