Merriam-Webster said:
The conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also : works so produced.
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I read James Mielke's excellent interview with visionary game designer and producer, Hideo Kojima in the February issue of The Official U.S. Playstation Magazine. In the course of their conversation, Mielke and Kojima get into a brief discussion on Roger Ebert's assessment [http://www.joystiq.com/2005/11/30/ebert-video-games-inherently-inferior-to-film-and-literature/] that videogames can never be viewed as art, and Kojima's apparent concession to Ebert's point.
I believe it is instructive to understand Kojima and Ebert's viewpoints. Ebert says that: "...I did indeed consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature. There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control...[T]he nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship [however elegant or sophisticated] to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers... for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic."
In typical Japanese fashion, Kojima is rather elliptical in his reply: "...art is something that radiates the artist, the person who creates that piece of art. If 100 people walk by and a single person is captivated by whatever that piece radiates, it's art. But videogames aren't trying to capture one person. A videogame should make sure that all 100 people that play that game should enjoy the service provided by that videogame. It's something of a service. It's not art. But I guess the way of providing service with that videogame is an artistic style, a form of art."
Ebert's argument falls under the assertion of "authorial control." Regardless, his definition falls down all over the place. Yes, books and movies do walk the experiencer through a narrative that the author controls. But if one attempts to apply this narrow definition to poetry, or even worse, to a painting. A painter may have a certain feeling that he wants to convey, but the affect of all art exists in this tenuous, liminal space between the experiencer, the work, and the artist. In any given work, the reader's own mind exerts dramatic control over their final experience of the work. Whether this happens based on overt choices on the part of the player or simply on how they mull a work over internally is immaterial. The viewer is always an integral part of constructing the final artistic experience. Ebert simply points out how games differ from film and literature, but that doesn't mean that one is art and the other isn't.
Ebert would do well to examine what fellow film critic, Pauline Kael [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Kael] had to say about the old chestnut of what's appropriate to film
versus what's appropriate to stage performance: "What movies share with other arts is perhaps more important than what they may, or may not, have exclusively." I assert, the same can be said of games.
Although I feel that Kojima's thesis differs in significant ways from Ebert's, they share a notion that art is an expression of an individual: an "artist." And that the intention of this expression is intrinsic to the definition of "art." It is unstated, but implied that the artist intends for his or her expression to be rather singular in intent and interpretation. Kojima's thesis seems to argue in part, that since he is trying to make a popular work, it cannot express his authorial vision, and therefore is not art. But Ebert offers the additional claim that the act of playing games holds no inherent value.
Frankly, neither thesis even begins to make sense. Shakespeare wrote plays that needed to be popular, but that in no way means they aren't art. Near the end of his career, Jackson Pollock tried to go back to figurative art, but the art community wouldn't have it: they knew what a Pollock looked like, and this wasn't it. So he went back to doing abstract art because it was more popular. It's still art. Regardless of popularity, there is something unique about Kojima's
corpus of work. While they do not show the same consistency that, say, an author's books would, they do show explore consistent themes in consistent ways. A player can tell that they are playing a Kojima game. There is something unique, something fundamentally
Kojima about his games. This is, in my opinion, equally true of all good designers. His personal biases and artifacts do show through, and that proves that he has put his stamp on a game; it is an expression of his vision, whether he intended it or not. In Kojima's case, he explains that he is merely providing "a canvas and paint and the paintbrushes" as a "service" to the people who play the game; that the expression of the medium is not coming from the creator of the medium, but rather from its participants.
My personal opinion is that Ebert and Kojima both advance a rather narrow definition of art. If you ask a bunch of academics, critics, or artists themselves to provide you with a pithy definition of art -- or perhaps more specifically, fine art -- you will probably get as many answers as respondents. Additionally, Ebert and Kojima's arguments don't even hold up when compared against current, acknowledged media like movies and painting. The point of this is that authorial intent is a very nebulous thing. Indeed, literary critics talk about the Intentional Fallacy, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentional_fallacy] in which it is wrong to assume that the message of a piece is based upon the author's intent. There is, correspondingly, the Affective Fallacy, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affective_fallacy] which says that one can't judge a work simply by how it affects the viewer. All this is really to say: defining art is hard.
According to Henry Jenkins: "Let's be clear here. All games are art...In a superficial sense, we could point to examples (of in-game assets) which could be described as professionally competent and well-produced. In a higher sense, we look for works that create new expressive experiences or push a medium to places it hasn't gone before." (from Fatpixels Radio Podcast [http://www.fatpixelsradio.com/index.php?post_id=50739].)
From Ebert and Kojima's perspective, perhaps these goals aren't possible without an artist's embedded intention or narrative. To simply hand over the medium, whether it be canvas and paint, or pixels and input device to an experiencer in their view, removes an essential component of what makes art, "art." Namely, the intrinsic, guiding hand of the artist. Rather than the extrinsic, emergent qualities found in interactive entertainment.
But anyone who thinks that an artist -- any artist -- creates their works without outside influence, springing purely from a singular artistic vision, is closing themselves off from reality. Artists are real people. They get influenced just like anyone else by what their friends say about their piece, what their contemporaries are doing,
etc. Why does it make something non-art if the input comes from an outside party (the player), as opposed to an artist's inner circle?
I acknowledge that we haven't yet seen many examples of the medium which could be generally described as "works of art," at least as understood by a consensus view of what is considered canonical art. But I would like to allow that video and computer games might start to define an emerging notion of a unique kind of commentary or experience, due to the very fact that a participant has more direct input on the experience itself. Particularly in the fields of emergent drama or storytelling or interactive performance with other people. Such as in the case of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, like World of Warcraft.
And even in the case of single-player games, the craft and artistry of the game designer could define a rich and directed experience illuminating the general human condition, the creator's comment on his or her world, or reflective of the medium itself. Professor James Gee views games as being a particular kind of virtually-embodied performance art, where there is a unique interaction between the intention of the game designer providing "a trajectory of choices," and the game player.
In other words, James Gee and Henry Jenkins assert that the interactive experience in itself can be described as artistic, and games as a form of art wholly deserving of inherent value as an experience, in the same manner as film, or novels, or other works that are generally accepted as art. And, I would like to note, as deserving of First Amendment protections as any other form of expression. A point which obviously is lost on many opportunistic politicians, moral reformers, and anti-game crusaders.
As far as the elements that comprise that experience, such as the visual components of 2D and 3D design, animation, music, sound, and storytelling can also be artistic, I do not separate the granular components of the medium from the overall interactive experience. Any more than I would separate the screenplay, cinematography, editorial, musical score, acting, set design, title design, or any other granular component from film. Nor would I make the same qualitative comparisons between, say the style and quality of writing in a screenplay and the prose of a novel.
All parts work in complete communication of an experience unique to the medium they service. In this way, my personal thesis of games as art differs from Kojima's. Kojima makes the analogy of a videogame as being comparable to a museum: "Art is the stuff you find in the museum, whether it be a painting or a statue. What I'm doing, what videogame creators are doing, is running the museum -- how do we light up things, where do we place things, how do we sell tickets? It's basically running the museum for those who come to the museum to look at the art. For better or worse, what I do, Hideo Kojima, myself, is run the museum and also create the art that's displayed in the museum."
It is my opinion that Mr. Kojima sorely understates the importance of his role. In my view, he is not a mere curator. He is an artist. And not just of "the art that's displayed in the museum," but of the holistic experience itself. He is a wonderful game designer, and should acknowledge the significance of his accomplishments as far as he is clearly embracing the weight of his role in creating compelling experiences. I also feel that a very public assertion that games are not art coming from one of our most visionary game designers only serves to hurt the medium. I am sorry he feels that way. I am even sorrier that he broadcasts these feelings to the enthusiast press, his fans, and by extension, the non-gaming world.
This might get to a notion of his humility. Earlier in the interview, he explained that most of the Japanese press call into question the title that most of his fans confer on him. The adoring
otaku refer to him as,
"Kojima-kantoku." The word,
kantoku loosely translates to "director," as in film director. In Japan, film directors such as Akira Kurosawa are regarded as
bona-fide artists. So the question is intended to ask if Kojima, himself thinks of himself as being in the same league as a film director. And by extension, videogames as being in the same league as film. In Japan, as in America, the public consensus is that videogames are an inferior medium compared to film. So I wonder how much of his assertion is deferring to the general view, so as not to appear unduly arrogant. On the point of his humility, there were many great artists, Henri Rousseau comes to mind, who never considered themselves more than "Sunday painters". Rousseau hung out with some real heavyweights, but never considered himself one of them, or really an artist at all. I invite the reader to make the call [http://images.google.com/images?q=Henri+Rousseau].
In games, I propose that developers and game designers have an obligation to explore the medium's unique interactive elements, and to strive to understand the aesthetics and push the limits of those components. And apply what they learn toward the question of why they are creating the game in the first place. If the medium is to move forward, developers and designers should start to ask themselves these questions of intent, and regard what they are creating as worthy of the effort.
Kojima himself comes up with an interesting example: an unbeatable videogame: "Maybe let's say there's a game out there where there's a boss that you cannot defeat. It's made that way. Normally, when you beat the boss in a game, there's a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, but if you can't beat the boss at all, if what you're left with is a sense of loss, then maybe that could be defined as art." But, he goes on to caveat his example by saying: "That's why you want to think about art and videogames. I think the lousiest videogames can be considered art. Because bad games with no fun aren't really games, by definition."
Again, I would disagree. For now, our notion of games might require that they perform as consumer artifacts; as lightweight, escapist pieces of entertainment. As toys at best and misguided violence simulators at worst. But if we were to expand the range of what is considered a worthwhile experience in playing a game, the measure of mere commercial success as a defining precondition of "quality" for a game may no longer need apply. People might not aesthetically appreciate the atonal music of Philip Glass, but few would say that atonal music is completely without merit simply because the experience itself isn't widely accessible.
Don't get me wrong. I still understand that we're talking about
games, here. But that might be part of the problem. Right now, almost any interactive piece that runs with the assistance of a computer or console is called a "game." With that moniker comes the assumption that the work is merely a trifle -- an amusement.
I don't propose that we add a new description to the lexicon which would only serve to confuse people and make the game industry appear overly full of itself. (Maybe I have a little empathy for Kojima's humility, after all.) Witness the comic book industry trying to re-brand their work as "sequential art" in the "graphic novel" format. Though I have the highest respect for the fine artists who have contributed to that field such as Will Eisner and Frank Miller, their PR efforts didn't work. And comics remain a niche medium in the States. It is my opinion that, at least in America, the video and computer game industry have already achieved more mainstream status than the comic book industry. But we still have a ways to go. Cultural awareness does not necessarily confer respect.
For now, we might as well keep the appellation and strive to improve the inherent worth of the experiences. After all, the term, "rock and roll" was originally a pejorative description of the form. The Impressionists got their name from a derisive article that said Monet's new exhibit didn't feature paintings, but "impressions" of paintings. The Fauves, a school known for their violent, primary colors, were named after wild beasts (that's what
fauve means in French), because it was said their works weren't the art of men, but the scribbling of beasts.
As in rock music, film, or other forms of popular mass media that are generally accepted as art, it is my opinion that it may be much more difficult to create a work that has universal appeal, and that can also be generally regarded as having high artistic merit. As opposed to creating something that is a fascinating piece of art, but that only appeals to a limited set of individuals. I'm just saying that I might play a game -- experience an interactive work of art -- and "get something out of it" that is worthy of the experience, but that might not be described purely in terms of "fun factor." Just like I might find it difficult to read the prose of James Joyce's
Ulysses, but still find the experience valuable enough to re-read the novel in spite of my initial discomfort.
New York artist, Cory Arcangel [http://www.beigerecords.com/cory/] has already mounted a few interactive exhibits, one of which fits Kojima's bill. By changing a few bits of GameBoy code, Archangel created the agonizing, nearly unplayable, "Super Slow Tetris." Archangel's pieces rely on the penetration of Nintendo's classic 8-bit era properties into cultural consciousness to create a referential kind of art that comments on the fact that videogames have officially entered Post-modernity. Even if one isn't a gamer, some of Arcangel's pieces, such as "Super Mario Clouds" have a certain aesthetic elegance and an almost impressionistic effect on the viewer.
Incidentally, this, and other interesting topics are covered in the December 9, 2005 episode [http://www.wnyc.org/studio360/show012905.html] of WNYC's Studio 360 [http://www.wnyc.org/studio360/] which explores the topic of videogames. One segment of the show highlights the use of games as military training simulators. These simulators elicited highly emotional responses from their participants. If that reaction could be directed to an intention of exploring unique and significant experiences, we might start to explore and expand the range of the medium's capabilities. To quote segment producer, Rachel McCarthy: "Perhaps the one big difference may be the intent of the player: a game is only just a game when the person using it chooses to see it that way."
The root of the conventional argument is really about a fundamental modernist / post-modernist split. A modernist author would be horrified to think that their piece does not exist in a singular, perfect form. Though, of course, since the art is constructed between the experiencer, the work, and the artist, it is never singular. To him, a work must explain itself fully to its audience, and be completely internally consistent. Experimental music composer, writer, and visual artist, John Cage [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_cage] talks about the concept of a "roaratorio". These are works, typically a music-poetry fusion, where many sounds, sights, words,
etc. constantly assault the viewer. The goal was for the eventual experience not to be about any single piece of the roaratorio, but about the complete assemblage as a whole. As he said, a single wrong note can spoil a symphony, but no amount of wrong notes can destroy a roaratorio. In a recent concert, The Flaming Lips [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_flaming_lips] handed out radios to the audience with different seating sections tuned to different FM bands. When indicated by lead singer, Wayne Coyne, a given section was prompted to turn on their radios, individually picking the volume, to create an original and spontaneous song. Somehow, because they let someone else make a decision, is this not art? What about choose your own adventure books? Can they not be art? What if there's exactly one choice, halfway through, that the reader makes. Does that mean the entire book is not art; that the author has not "constructed" the experience?
Modernism has a tendency to reject pluralism: words have only one spelling, any question but a single unassailable answer, a work of art the product of one man. They want a world where everything means exactly one thing, and none other. That's not the world we live in. Of course, people who have bought into this world view will say that, since it does not have a singular representation, since it does not reflect the vision of one, single and singular man that it is not "Art." They're the old guard, and we all know what happens to the old guard when a revolution comes through. So critics such as Ebert are simply afraid of something they don't understand. And if there is a defining characteristic of new art, that is it: new art will almost always frighten the standard-bearers of old art. Video games are on the bleeding edge of art, and that blood has to come from somewhere. We shouldn't expect that, as we cut into the sensibilities of the old ways, they will acknowledge us. But nor should we pay any mind when they say we are just throw-away culture.
New art is almost never widely appreciated in its own day, but our day will come.
