Videogames as Art
- Thread starter Yahtzee Croshaw
- Start date
I've not heard of Roger Ebert before or his views on gaming, so I'm going to have to leave my torch and pitchfork in the back garden and postpone the witchhunt until I read up on this...
I'm in agreement here - frankly who cares what a FILM CRITIC thinks and secondly it's one of those 'if we want your opinion, we'll ask for it' scenarios. Each to their own.
I think video games can be beautiful and entertaining to look at - that could say it's art, yes. But I don't care if some Twatty McGuff says it isn't, he won't ruin my afternoon by saying that.
I think video games can be beautiful and entertaining to look at - that could say it's art, yes. But I don't care if some Twatty McGuff says it isn't, he won't ruin my afternoon by saying that.
The artist/collaborators do not need to have a total stranglehold on the text of a performance to ensure that the 'play' conveys/explores the pre-determined theme. In many ways the work can become more persuasive by moving away from dogmatic monologue to quasi-dialogue. There is some evidence that Shakespeare's plays were 'aware' of the audience when they were originally performed, although to a lesser extent.ostro-whiskey said:
In agreement with what was stated in this article I point you all towards Allen Kaprow's "Happenings"
if you read about them you say WTF?
but participating in them is an entirely different experience
if you read about them you say WTF?
but participating in them is an entirely different experience
Adding to the back of the thread so not sure if anyone will actually read this, but here goes (And if it seems to long to read, just skip to the final paragraph):
First off, saying videogames will never be art is a stupid statement. Games are an interactive audiovisual medium. When the camera was first invented, every critic said that photographs could never be art, and then movies came and pretty much the same happened. Look where we are now. Just because games have for the past 30 years been made solely as an entertainment product does not mean the medium does not have the possibillities to be art in the right hands, made with the right intent (an artist using the medium to express himself/herself artistically)And 300 years ago, Marcel Duchamps urinoir would never ever have qualified as art, so maybe its just that we are looking at this wrongly and with prejudices on what art is?
Further more, when Ebert, or anyone, wants to catagorize a game as art, how does he qualify it as such? Should you be looking at the graphical aspect? Maybe the sound and musical aspect? With the advancements in computer technologies we sure are able to produce more detailed graphics and more lifelike sounds, but is that what games as an artform should be about? Oh wait, visuals are an artform in and of itself, so is music. To me, games as art would qualify on a combination of those coupled with the interaction with and by the player, or the concept of the game itself. The thought of games as art also does not seem to be very old either and during my time in art school, pretty much none of my fellow students really played games for anything else then entertainment or even thought of using them in an artsy way or would have had the skills to do so. Sure, they used games as an inspiration, but never as a direct medium on it's own. So maybe it just has to grow still with artists finally getting out of only painting and photgraphy and seeing the potentials in this medium.
And my final word: There IS already an example for a game as art!: "You have to burn the rope" would be an art studies textbook example of a video game as art! I'm to tired to write out an analysis on why exactly, but check it out and compare it to what Marcell Duchamp's "Fountain" did in the art world. You have to burn the rope is avant garde, in videogameform.
Long write, long read, hope it was worth it. My 2 cents
First off, saying videogames will never be art is a stupid statement. Games are an interactive audiovisual medium. When the camera was first invented, every critic said that photographs could never be art, and then movies came and pretty much the same happened. Look where we are now. Just because games have for the past 30 years been made solely as an entertainment product does not mean the medium does not have the possibillities to be art in the right hands, made with the right intent (an artist using the medium to express himself/herself artistically)And 300 years ago, Marcel Duchamps urinoir would never ever have qualified as art, so maybe its just that we are looking at this wrongly and with prejudices on what art is?
Further more, when Ebert, or anyone, wants to catagorize a game as art, how does he qualify it as such? Should you be looking at the graphical aspect? Maybe the sound and musical aspect? With the advancements in computer technologies we sure are able to produce more detailed graphics and more lifelike sounds, but is that what games as an artform should be about? Oh wait, visuals are an artform in and of itself, so is music. To me, games as art would qualify on a combination of those coupled with the interaction with and by the player, or the concept of the game itself. The thought of games as art also does not seem to be very old either and during my time in art school, pretty much none of my fellow students really played games for anything else then entertainment or even thought of using them in an artsy way or would have had the skills to do so. Sure, they used games as an inspiration, but never as a direct medium on it's own. So maybe it just has to grow still with artists finally getting out of only painting and photgraphy and seeing the potentials in this medium.
And my final word: There IS already an example for a game as art!: "You have to burn the rope" would be an art studies textbook example of a video game as art! I'm to tired to write out an analysis on why exactly, but check it out and compare it to what Marcell Duchamp's "Fountain" did in the art world. You have to burn the rope is avant garde, in videogameform.
Long write, long read, hope it was worth it. My 2 cents
Magical, no. Elusive, yes. Impossible to properly define, yes.derelix said:
Words do not need to be well-defined in order to be words. A dictionary is just a list of words in common usage, with flawed attempts to define their meanings.derelix said:
I guess what I have a problem with is when people attempt to codify their own understanding of what art is and what it is not, and try to pass this off as universal truth or impose it on others.
Perhaps it would be more productive of me to say, instead of "art is undefinable", rather "art is undecidable". That is, it is impossible to decide whether X is or is not art, for any value of X.
I point to my previous post [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/7.189265.5929097] in the comments thread from the News Room.
Which also covers frozen yoghurt.derelix said:
Thanks for the backup there. Also, there is such a thing as non-dairy ice creamoktalist said:
I don't get flustered by being put on the spot, it's just not as easy as you think.The point that I was trying to make is that you will never be able to objectively define art when things such as ice cream, which is a physical thing, is rather difficult to define.
Despite a lot of people saying that we can't define "Art", we can to a very big degree. The problem is that it needs more indepth knowledge of art(an art study is really a study in and of itself, you can't read up on it and inform yourself in a weekend's time and have a really meaningfull opinion) and that the definition changes somewhat over time so you have to keep up. What was Art 30 years ago is still art now, but if you make the exact same thing nowadays, you aren't really being contemporary unless you do it really really wel and ad a new twist. My teachers at art school knew the heart and soul of what art is, yet at the same time they were stuck to much on what art was in their time, 20-30 years ago.
Nice article, but he shouldn't have given a definition (HIS definition) for art. If art was so easy to define there wouldn't have been a branch in philosophy called aesthetics.
There ain't no way that games can ever compare themselves to Bernini's "Rape of Proserpine" or "Apollo and Daphne". It's not the same experience.
There ain't no way that games can ever compare themselves to Bernini's "Rape of Proserpine" or "Apollo and Daphne". It's not the same experience.
No, nothing was proven by that. What I wrote was a small example not based off of any scientifical fact. It was an example to show you that perspective is everything.The Deadpool said:
If you are having a debate with somebody you need to determine that you are on the same footing with the other person. For example, with the 'I am a god' example one would have to determine that the man in question meant when he used the word 'god'. If he is saying that he is a god in the sense that Jesus or Osiris is a god he would be wrong. He doesn't fit the qualifications of what a god in that sense is. Omnipresent, all-knowing, etc. But that doesn't rule out the possibility that he was using different qualifications on what a god is. He could possibly be right.
Let's look at the example of the world being flat. Do we know what flat is to everyone? Could someone else's flat be different than how you or I concieve flat? In the sense of flat that you talk about you are right; the world isn't flat. (nor is it really completely round, for that matter.) To someone else though the world could be flat as a pancake and they would be absolutely right.
This isn't just some crazy new-age thinking going on. It isn't just thrown out there so people can say 'hey, everyone is right!' It logically makes sense.
The only thing (and i mean literally THE ONLY THING) that irked me about the article was that ebert said that no one has been able to compare a video game with the works of the great novelists, painters, sculptors, etc. Hasn't "Bioshock" been compared to Ayn Rand's works multiple times?
