I don't get the obsession some people have over having video games qualified as art. You play 'em, you like 'em, you move on to the next one. They're an interactive pasttime.
We might as well call jerking off or playing a slot machine an art.
Atomika on
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JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Criticism. One common element to all things considered art is the creation of academic criticism surrounding whatever that art object is. Now I'm not arguing that for item X to be art there must be a peer reviewed paper about it, but for any generally accepted art a field of critical discussion beyond "SUPER GREAT. A+. TEN OUT OF TEN" has grown for the purpose of interpreting the meaning, artistry, emotive response, etc of that piece of art. I do not see this around video games. Again, I am not saying that a thing is not art without some guy in a university publishing a paper about the Marxist interpretation of whatever that thing may be, but rather that criticism is a consequence of whatever makes art, art. At the same time I suggest this it is important to realize that video games as an entity as a whole have existed for an incredibly short period of time and if games are art, games that could qualify as such have been in existence for an even shorter period (I highly doubt anyone would seriously classify Space War, Pong, Asteroids, or Adventure! as art). As such, I may be too eager for video game criticism to appear.
It's beginning to happen; I don't know the degree to which serious criticism is happening in academia, but it's certainly happening "on the ground," in blogs and in critics' circles. This is the same way formal movie criticism developed, btw - among enthusiasts, rather than in the schools.
You're right that part of the problem is gaming's youth as a medium. Another issue is the accessibility (or lack thereof) of older works. One of the critic's functions is to serve as genealogist to a medium, tracing the lineage of current works back through their predecessors and inspirations, and I'm sure you can see how that might be hampered by lack of ready access to, say, a Z-X Spectrum or Commodore 64. This was actually a problem with the early movie criticism, as well; many writers had to wait for years for revivals or TV showings to have a chance to encounter an old classic.
Could my perception and interaction with Civilization 4 be altered if I were to try and consider the game from a Marxist or Femminist perspective?
Absolutely. I'm surprised that you're asking this about a game like Civilization; the assumptions such games make about real-world issues like national development, economics, politics, and so forth could provide rich fodder for analysis. A Marxist might well ask why the game privileges conflict between nations as its main engine of drama while comparatively ignoring conflict among classes.
But let's consider another game besides Civilization. Something with no narrative elements at all. Say, Tetris. Could a Marxist or feminist meaningfully critique an abstract game like Tetris in terms of their fields? Probably not meaningfully (though it might not stop them trying!) but since when is the degree to which a work relates to the exterior world our only yardstick? There are many pieces of art that make either only tenuous statements about the world outside of their medium, or speak only of the intensely subjective emotional state or aesthetic taste of their creator; many pieces of classical music, for instance, or some works of abstract art.
In those instances we put away the tools of social or political analysis and discuss them in terms of aesthetics. And the rules and objectives of the game - and the way in which those manifest - can absolutely be subject to aesthetic criticism. We can discuss the environment those boundaries create and compare the subjective experiences of audiences within those boundaries, we can ask ourselves what was trying to be accomplished and how successful we think the work has been, we can ask if a new element is truly new or a clever refinement of something that came before - in short we can reenaact all the debates to which devotees, aesthetes, and scholars of any other medium have been treating themselves to for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Really, how could we not?
We can point to specific things in these games and point out elements that give us a feeling that our interaction with them is art. However, is that feeling caused by the sum of every artistic element in the game or can some be isolated and produce the same effect without the game? Is the game what results in artistic expression or is it simply a matter of other art forms layered atop each other with the added feature that through an input device, sometimes we can move a camera around?
This is a a question that can be and has been asked of many other media, most recently of films and comic books. Certainly our response to a film might simply be some sort of net total reaction to individual elements - the photography, the music, the acting - that can be examined individually, and some films indeed manage to do one or two of those things really well while lacking a certain film-ness to tie it all together. And yet that separability doesn't disqualify films from serious consideration as a medium, and neither should it to games.
I don't get the obsession some people have over having books qualified as art. You read 'em, you like 'em, you move on to the next one. They're a pasttime.
We might as well call jerking off or playing a slot machine an art.
Garthor on
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I don't get the obsession some people have over having books qualified as art. You read 'em, you like 'em, you move on to the next one. They're a pasttime.
We might as well call jerking off or playing a slot machine an art.
Yeah, remember that time Mark Twain hired 30 Korean kids to write code for three years when designing Huck Finn?
And how Huck and Jim drowned in the river when I wasn't fast enough during that quick-time event?
2. As a Matter of Interpretation. An exceedingly vast majority of games are completely devoid of interpretation on any level. Even if a form of academic criticism were to form around games, what would there be to examine? Could my perception and interaction with Civilization 4 be altered if I were to try and consider the game from a Marxist or Femminist perspective? Will an analysis of the manner in which the great leaders are animated provide me with a better understanding of anything whatsoever? The major issue is that games are confined by rules and objectives. Even the most open world games can be won or lost to some extent, and degree to which game worlds can be "open" is something that I believe is highly debatable. There is no way for me to "win" reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. My experience in reading it is going to be wholly different from anyone else's despite the fact that you and I are reading the same text. In the same way, my reactions to whatever goes on during a play through of Modern Warfare 2 will also be different than anyone else's (though we'll all be somewhat confused by the nonsense plot). However, if the goal of the game is to be "won" in some extent, my interaction with the medium is going to be forced down a narrow pathway. Yes, in a level the designer gives you the option to go left through some part of the level or right through some part of the level. At the end of things the same end is reached.
You're not the first person in this thread to bring up the concept of a win/loss condition and "art" status being exclusive, and I don't really understand why that would be. That you beat a game doesn't diminish the spectrum of experience any more than Huck Finn's is diminished by the fact that the book ends. I mean, I guess the idea that you're rewarded for taking certain actions (progressing through the game) and not rewarded for others (say, writing your name in bullet holes on the wall) might be a criticism, but it's not as though you have that option in books, either.
I'm not going to get too far into the 'omniartistic' point because I think other people have already addressed that well enough, but I do think it's interesting that we seem to be trying to divorce "art" from the medium it occurs in. Most of the elements that exist in a video game that might cause it to be called "art" also exist in other media; movies, books, what have you. So if we say that certain elements of games are "art" but the game itself is not, we could also make that distinction about films. It therefore seems like our understanding of certain media having de facto status as "art" is more a matter of convenience than anything else. There are games that are very artistic and there are films that are very artistic, but since tetris has no equivalent in film we simply say "films are art" without considering the reasons why that is the case.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I don't get the obsession some people have over having books qualified as art. You read 'em, you like 'em, you move on to the next one. They're a pasttime.
We might as well call jerking off or playing a slot machine an art.
Yeah, remember that time Mark Twain hired 30 Korean kids to write code for three years when designing Huck Finn?
And how Huck and Jim drowned in the river when I wasn't fast enough during that quick-time event?
To be fair, people who hold up books as art don't generally point to the bodice-rippers or assorted ninety-percent that is crap.
I think this debate has gone a little too broad in technicalities.
Sticking half a horse in plastic to preserve it is art.
A movie about lesbians driving on a road in Hollywood is art.
Listening to someone basically shout down a microphone whilst instruments are struck in intentionally discordant fashions is not only art, but Avant Garde.
So why is there debate about if being able to slice someones head off with an abstract gesture on something that looks like a distended and dried out donkey nipple whilst listening to the gargling death wails of an actor is art or not?
Its no more or less valid then any of the above.
The simplest way to view this debate is that any creative medium is art.
Except advertisements... we all hate adverts.
I don't get the obsession some people have over having video games qualified as art. You play 'em, you like 'em, you move on to the next one. They're an interactive pasttime.
We might as well call jerking off or playing a slot machine an art.
I just don't think you like video games. Most people who play them aren't nearly as cavalier about them or treat them as disposable. That's why we're well into our third decade of playing the original Super Mario Brothers, and have ongoing contests, conventions, costumes, etc. celebrating them, and collect merchandise for them, and debate which characters are best. Many gamers can tell you which games made them cry.
Honestly, this isn't even hard stuff. Of course they're art. 99% of games are easily described as art, not just the more explicit examples of Okami and Ico and whatnot. You just don't care about the art elements. That's your problem, not the mediums. I don't see why you need to make up distinctions like "artful" to justify that you don't get that element.
EmperorSeth on
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
I don't get the obsession some people have over having books qualified as art. You read 'em, you like 'em, you move on to the next one. They're a pasttime.
We might as well call jerking off or playing a slot machine an art.
Yeah, remember that time Mark Twain hired 30 Korean kids to write code for three years when designing Huck Finn?
And how Huck and Jim drowned in the river when I wasn't fast enough during that quick-time event?
What does that have to do with whether something was art? Are pointillist paintings not art because someone can stand too close to the canvas?
You see, you have yet to give a logical reason for why it isn't art. You can't even keep your definition of art straight, as you keep flipping between saying intent is all that matters and your opinion is all that matters. This is a pattern with you, as you always make up nonsensical bullshit to dismiss mass media that hasn't been accepted by the establishment.
I don't get the obsession some people have over having books qualified as art. You read 'em, you like 'em, you move on to the next one. They're a pasttime.
We might as well call jerking off or playing a slot machine an art.
Yeah, remember that time Mark Twain hired 30 Korean kids to write code for three years when designing Huck Finn?
And how Huck and Jim drowned in the river when I wasn't fast enough during that quick-time event?
To be fair, people who hold up books as art don't generally point to the bodice-rippers or assorted ninety-percent that is crap.
Ronya kinda beat me to it but
The vast majority of any medium be it books, movies, or videogames is mediocre to outright bad.
I think this debate has gone a little too broad in technicalities.
Sticking half a horse in plastic to preserve it is art.
A movie about lesbians driving on a road in Hollywood is art.
Listening to someone basically shout down a microphone whilst instruments are struck in intentionally discordant fashions is not only art, but Avant Garde.
So why is there debate about if being able to slice someones head off with an abstract gesture on something that looks like a distended and dried out donkey nipple whilst listening to the gargling death wails of an actor is art or not?
Its no more or less valid then any of the above.
The simplest way to view this debate is that any creative medium is art. Except advertisements... we all hate adverts.
I would say the pedestal and plaque claiming it's a portrayal of yadayada and the spork itself combine to make a single work of art, without them the spork is still not art.
Well, often there's no actual plaque, just a title. Or sometimes not even that. And perhaps the pedestal belongs to the museum. Point being, if an artist takes a spork and says: "Voila, art!" does it become art? What if a non-artist does?
I mean, I have literally seen a plain sheet of corrugated cardboard hung on a wall as art. If that's art, according to people who presumably know enough about art to be running a damn museum, then can't anything be art?
In the case of michaelangelo's paperweight, I would argue that it's exceedingly difficult to create something of obvious artistic beauty by accident. He may claim it's nothing but a paperweight he made on a dare, but at the time he was making it he must have been thinking about it's aesthetics or it wouldn't have turned out so well.
Someone was thinking about aesthetics when they made my socks. Are they art?
I don't think advertising is a good example of art made less artsy because of money because ads are suppose to be aesthetically appealing just like normal art, the concessions made to practicality are minimal.
You can say the same about almost anything designed for public consumption, including video games.
/Devil's Advocate++
I realize I'm a little slow on the response but seeing as how you generated such debate over whether socks can be art I think our posts are still relevant.
It's difficult for me to know weather the creator of your socks selected pattern 343 and dye 267 out of a hat or spent months agonizing over the details. The fact that I'm uncertain about it makes me tend to not consider them art, I feel I should be able to recognize the creators artistic efforts easily for something to be art but that's more of a personal stance than a definition.
Someone asked me why a generic apartment building was not art and questioned who had designed it if not an architect. There may have been an architect who initially designed it and the first such building was art, but the thousands of copies made of the cheapest materials that meet building codes and built off stock drawings with only practical modifications (sewer connects from north on this building, water from east on that one, etc) were not artistic creations, they were made by practical minded people for practical purposes.
As I mull this over and read the thread again I'm beginning to think the observer needs to make a judgment call. Did I buy this pair of socks because of their artistry or because I needed a pair of socks? Consider two different people buying identical socks, one buys them for their artistry, the other to keep his feet warm. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, not just the heart of the creator, I think I do need to allow that something could be both art and not art.
I think if someone takes an object like the spork and say "Voila, art!" it does become art, but only so long as it is on obvious display. It is art because it is jarringly out of place forcing you to think about it outside it's normal context. Despite this I'm not inclined to give museum curators sole ownership of the word art. If they put a toilet on display, it can be art, if they write the word "ART!" above a toilet in the public washroom that does not make that toilet art, at best it makes the image "ART!" itself art.
I think the definition of art must be broad, and then we call art that doesn't appeal to us personally or doesn't appeal to a wide audience bad Art. If you take a pole and 95% of people agree that the cardboard on display at that museum is Not Art, but the other 5% say it is art doesn't that just mean its bad art?
Personally I think a publicly funded gallery is exhibiting signs of silly goosery if it's displaying things 95% of the public don't consider art but I can't really hang my definition of art on public opinion any more than I can hang it on the expertise of museum curators.
The more deeply I get into this the more I find semantics failing me. Is there really a difference between not art and bad art?
And I appreciate you playing devil's advocate.
And one last time for the record: Video games are Art
Some ads are definitely art. The standard "50% of all jackets today only!" ads aren't, though. It really depends on the ad.
As for video games: well, I would call them art, based on my personal definition of it. But I don't think that most games are good art, even if they are good games. Some games, however, are certainly good art.
Art, more than any other subject, really seems to be up to personal interpretation. History, science, math- all of these things have strict guidelines as to what they are. Art doesn't, and that's why it's so hard to figure out what does and doesn't belong.
Butler For Life #1 on
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CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
Some ads are definitely art. The standard "50% of all jackets today only!" ads aren't, though. It really depends on the ad.
As for video games: well, I would call them art, based on my personal definition of it. But I don't think that most games are good art, even if they are good games. Some games, however, are certainly good art.
Art, more than any other subject, really seems to be up to personal interpretation. History, science, math- all of these things have strict guidelines as to what they are. Art doesn't, and that's why it's so hard to figure out what does and doesn't belong.
Basically, if it appeals to your personal definition of art and stirs something in your soul or at least your brain that math and science can't touch, it's art. Video Games are, when done properly, a new kind of more interactive art, where in many cases you can share in the creative process with the finished product and allow it to grow. New art can be born in more traditional means as well based on what is inspired by video games.
Video games are definitely art to me, a different kind that still means something to me.
Basically, if it appeals to your personal definition of art and stirs something in your soul or at least your brain that math and science can't touch, it's art.
Agreed.
Of course, everyone has a different definition, so there tends to be a lack of consensus on what art is.
I would go so far as to say that there is no unified definition of art. It's a wholly personal definition.
Butler For Life #1 on
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CorehealerThe ApothecaryThe softer edge of the universe.Registered Userregular
Basically, if it appeals to your personal definition of art and stirs something in your soul or at least your brain that math and science can't touch, it's art.
Agreed.
Of course, everyone has a different definition, so there tends to be a lack of consensus on what art is.
I would go so far as to say that there is no unified definition of art. It's a wholly personal definition.
I don't get the obsession some people have over having video games qualified as art. You play 'em, you like 'em, you move on to the next one. They're an interactive pasttime.
We might as well call jerking off or playing a slot machine an art.
I don't get the obsession some people have over having video games qualified as art. You play 'em, you like 'em, you move on to the next one. They're an interactive pasttime.
We might as well call jerking off or playing a slot machine an art.
This isn't hard. Well, not for anyone else anyway.
Seriously I don't get it. I've been to MoMA exhibits that depended on the audience. Sometimes that was the point of the piece.
Also, if concept art is not art A.) why do I think Art by Feng is such an awesome place full of evocative and interesting designs? Is it because I'm so easily fooled by non-art that I accidentally react to it like it is art? The same way I sometimes lick lichen off of rocks because it is shaped like a hamburger? And B.) All advertising, all comic books, all commissioned works of art of any kind, are not art.
You do realize most classical music has as it's basic intent "Get paid by rich douch, live comfortably", right? There is very little "pure" artistic intent in any given work.
...all commissioned works of art of any kind, are not art.
I don't know if I would go so far with that. What about commissioned portraits, or patrons of the arts? Some very famous, and very valuable art has been commissioned.
I'd rather judge art on the work itself, not on why it was made.
Butler For Life #1 on
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BugBoyboy.EXE has stopped functioning.only bugs remainRegistered Userregular
So art is something that cannot be objectively defined, right? It is something that every human has to decide for themselves? And even then, they actually can't, because at any point they might encounter something that contradicts their definition, but still tucks the right strings, so that they change the definition? Even if you say something along the lines of "it has to imply meaning" or "it has to be there for everyone to see", you still have countless things of "art" that simply don't fit.
What the hell? Doesn't that mean art is plain and simply undescribable?
So if we assume that art doesn't have a definition, then anything can be art, and nothing really is. :?
Maybe it's just a label for everything that can be appreciated. Some people like unusual thoughts, others pretty colors, pleasant geometry, or incredibly generic usefullness. Even actions can count as art. I think that's what art truly is: a self-serving label, which ultimately distracts from the actual qualities of whatever the label gets slapped on.
Maybe that's just lil' barbaric foreign me, but I'm satisfied with that explanation. :P
So if we assume that art doesn't have a definition, then anything can be art, and nothing really is. :?
Art does have a definition, but it's personal. You can't really make a shared definition of art. Anything can be art to somebody, but that doesn't mean it's art to everybody.
That's why it's so hard to have a discussion about the nature of art.
The world moves on and both good and bad art continue to be created.
Where does a sock fit in that spectrum, then?
Entirely up to the viewer and their criticism of it.
I disagree completely. Art cannot exist in a vacuum.
How about that time I accidentally sucked up a minidisc full of Beethoven, huh, smart guy?
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
So if we assume that art doesn't have a definition, then anything can be art, and nothing really is. :?
Art does have a definition, but it's personal. You can't really make a shared definition of art. Anything can be art to somebody, but that doesn't mean it's art to everybody.
That's why it's so hard to have a discussion about the nature of art.
I'd like to backtrack to the comments regarding how art must be "static" to allow the viewer to truly draw out intent and thus qualify it as art. Sorry if the tangent-train has moved on, but it got me thinking.
The idea was that Shadow of the Colossus, for example, cannot be art because it is not the same experience for everyone. Taxi Driver, though, is, because it is the same movie no matter who watches it, with the same stuff there to draw from it. But is it really?
Taxi Driver was originally meant to be watched in a theater, right? So what if I watch it at home? Is it still the same? Can the viewer still draw the same information from it, and experience it in the proper manner?
What if I watch it in Pan-and-Scan? Now some of the data has been lost. What if I watch it on a tiny B&W TV, or on my iPod? What if I watch it with shitty speakers that make the sound cut out occasionally? What if my TV sucks and the image is really staticky? What if I watch a version edited for content?
Watching Taxi Driver can be a pretty different experience between two people, depending on their viewing conditions. Yet I doubt anyone would be prepared to say that Taxi Driver ceases to be art, or that it only counts as watching it if you see it on a big screen with THX-calibrated video and audio.
I would say that there is more similarity between any two people playing SotC to completion on comparable AV gear than there is between watching Taxi Driver in a theater versus watching it on your iPod.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
So if we assume that art doesn't have a definition, then anything can be art, and nothing really is. :?
Art does have a definition, but it's personal. You can't really make a shared definition of art. Anything can be art to somebody, but that doesn't mean it's art to everybody.
That's why it's so hard to have a discussion about the nature of art.
That doesn't sound like it's hard. It sounds like it is absolutely impossible.
That's why I think the term itself just gets in the way. In the end, most things people name that make something "art" are things you can appreciate all by themselves; things you can enjoy.
I think there's a much more interesting question out there: why then, if no two people can agree on a definition of art, is it even necessary to call anything art? Why is there a need to separate art and non-art? Is there any use in this?
It's useful to call something art because we all have a vague concept of what art is, and therefore, we need a name for it.
We all agree that there is art, and we have a basic idea of what it is. We run into trouble when we try to flesh out our concept. We can't make a complex, all-encompassing definition, but we can agree on the basic details (such as: painting is art, etc.)
I think there's a much more interesting question out there: why then, if no two people can agree on a definition of art, is it even necessary to call anything art? Why is there a need to separate art and non-art? Is there any use in this?
Because even though the definition is fuzzy, everyone gets the concept, and it's nice to have a word to use to discuss it. If I say "I like looking at art," people don't confuse that for "I like looking at tacos" or "I like looking at stuff". It has a particular meaning, even if we can't agree exactly what art is.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Don't forget that videogames don't exist. The actual game itself is reproduced in a virtual world, foreign to our own senses. Then that virtual world is plastered on another screen.
Furthermore, videogames strangulate imagination.
But as power relations go, I would expect videogames to be put on display as Art as soon as that generation enters into power (30 years or so). Just like what happened to comic books. But comic books got placed in literature, which I vehemently disagree with, but some are considered Art currently, nonetheless.
I'd like to backtrack to the comments regarding how art must be "static" to allow the viewer to truly draw out intent and thus qualify it as art. Sorry if the tangent-train has moved on, but it got me thinking.
The idea was that Shadow of the Colossus, for example, cannot be art because it is not the same experience for everyone. Taxi Driver, though, is, because it is the same movie no matter who watches it, with the same stuff there to draw from it. But is it really?
Taxi Driver was originally meant to be watched in a theater, right? So what if I watch it at home? Is it still the same? Can the viewer still draw the same information from it, and experience it in the proper manner?
What if I watch it in Pan-and-Scan? Now some of the data has been lost. What if I watch it on a tiny B&W TV, or on my iPod? What if I watch it with shitty speakers that make the sound cut out occasionally? What if my TV sucks and the image is really staticky? What if I watch a version edited for content?
Watching Taxi Driver can be a pretty different experience between two people, depending on their viewing conditions. Yet I doubt anyone would be prepared to say that Taxi Driver ceases to be art, or that it only counts as watching it if you see it on a big screen with THX-calibrated video and audio.
I would say that there is more similarity between any two people playing SotC to completion on comparable AV gear than there is between watching Taxi Driver in a theater versus watching it on your iPod.
I don't think it's fair to compare watching the movie in different sub-par forms to people who play the exact same game but don't take the same routes.
I mean, how much is your experience of SoTC changed by your choice of route?
Here let me guess: you killed some big monsters, felt good for a while, slowly realized what was happening, felt bad, and then were alternately depressed and confused by the ending. The narrative is pretty damn solid regardless of which big monsters you kill when and how.
...what's there to discuss, then? According to that, videogames can be art, yeah. As can be tacos. And stuff. Everything CAN be art.
End of the line! Logic cannot be applied to art. Nothing can. It's, well, essentially contested.
Maybe I'm just not experienced enough in philosophy; or maybe, my English is just not good enough to properly interpret that article. But this whole thing reeks of choosing the easy way out.
As I get it, the only thing we can actually do is decide what is "good" and what is "bad" art. I'm not quite satisifed with that option...
Just because something is contested, does not mean we cannot apply logic and reason to it.
We will never come to complete agreement on art, but there is value in discussing it and its meaning, even if we never reach the finish line. Through our discussions/disagreements, we learn more about art and our own opinions on it.
Don't forget that videogames don't exist. The actual game itself is reproduced in a virtual world, foreign to our own senses. Then that virtual world is plastered on another screen.
How do they exist less than other media? Music only exists as data on a disc, or etches on a record, or notes on a page of music, except when it's actually being played. A painting only exists as pigments on a canvas - it's not like the trees and fields are a real world.
Your point is rather silly.
Furthermore, videogames strangulate imagination.
How so? How does a movie involve imagination moreso than a game? The game requires that you come up with your own plans for progressing through the experience. You may need to think laterally to solve a puzzle, or use strategy to get past a battle. What imagination does a film stimulate that a game can't?
This point is even sillier.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I think there's a much more interesting question out there: why then, if no two people can agree on a definition of art, is it even necessary to call anything art? Why is there a need to separate art and non-art? Is there any use in this?
Because even though the definition is fuzzy, everyone gets the concept, and it's nice to have a word to use to discuss it. If I say "I like looking at art," people don't confuse that for "I like looking at tacos" or "I like looking at stuff". It has a particular meaning, even if we can't agree exactly what art is.
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I'm going to have to politely disagree.
http://www.ifiction.org/games/play.phpz?cat=&game=232&mode=html
There's a full preview on Google Books.
I don't get the obsession some people have over having video games qualified as art. You play 'em, you like 'em, you move on to the next one. They're an interactive pasttime.
We might as well call jerking off or playing a slot machine an art.
It's beginning to happen; I don't know the degree to which serious criticism is happening in academia, but it's certainly happening "on the ground," in blogs and in critics' circles. This is the same way formal movie criticism developed, btw - among enthusiasts, rather than in the schools.
You're right that part of the problem is gaming's youth as a medium. Another issue is the accessibility (or lack thereof) of older works. One of the critic's functions is to serve as genealogist to a medium, tracing the lineage of current works back through their predecessors and inspirations, and I'm sure you can see how that might be hampered by lack of ready access to, say, a Z-X Spectrum or Commodore 64. This was actually a problem with the early movie criticism, as well; many writers had to wait for years for revivals or TV showings to have a chance to encounter an old classic.
Absolutely. I'm surprised that you're asking this about a game like Civilization; the assumptions such games make about real-world issues like national development, economics, politics, and so forth could provide rich fodder for analysis. A Marxist might well ask why the game privileges conflict between nations as its main engine of drama while comparatively ignoring conflict among classes.
But let's consider another game besides Civilization. Something with no narrative elements at all. Say, Tetris. Could a Marxist or feminist meaningfully critique an abstract game like Tetris in terms of their fields? Probably not meaningfully (though it might not stop them trying!) but since when is the degree to which a work relates to the exterior world our only yardstick? There are many pieces of art that make either only tenuous statements about the world outside of their medium, or speak only of the intensely subjective emotional state or aesthetic taste of their creator; many pieces of classical music, for instance, or some works of abstract art.
In those instances we put away the tools of social or political analysis and discuss them in terms of aesthetics. And the rules and objectives of the game - and the way in which those manifest - can absolutely be subject to aesthetic criticism. We can discuss the environment those boundaries create and compare the subjective experiences of audiences within those boundaries, we can ask ourselves what was trying to be accomplished and how successful we think the work has been, we can ask if a new element is truly new or a clever refinement of something that came before - in short we can reenaact all the debates to which devotees, aesthetes, and scholars of any other medium have been treating themselves to for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Really, how could we not?
This is a a question that can be and has been asked of many other media, most recently of films and comic books. Certainly our response to a film might simply be some sort of net total reaction to individual elements - the photography, the music, the acting - that can be examined individually, and some films indeed manage to do one or two of those things really well while lacking a certain film-ness to tie it all together. And yet that separability doesn't disqualify films from serious consideration as a medium, and neither should it to games.
Yeah, remember that time Mark Twain hired 30 Korean kids to write code for three years when designing Huck Finn?
And how Huck and Jim drowned in the river when I wasn't fast enough during that quick-time event?
You're not the first person in this thread to bring up the concept of a win/loss condition and "art" status being exclusive, and I don't really understand why that would be. That you beat a game doesn't diminish the spectrum of experience any more than Huck Finn's is diminished by the fact that the book ends. I mean, I guess the idea that you're rewarded for taking certain actions (progressing through the game) and not rewarded for others (say, writing your name in bullet holes on the wall) might be a criticism, but it's not as though you have that option in books, either.
I'm not going to get too far into the 'omniartistic' point because I think other people have already addressed that well enough, but I do think it's interesting that we seem to be trying to divorce "art" from the medium it occurs in. Most of the elements that exist in a video game that might cause it to be called "art" also exist in other media; movies, books, what have you. So if we say that certain elements of games are "art" but the game itself is not, we could also make that distinction about films. It therefore seems like our understanding of certain media having de facto status as "art" is more a matter of convenience than anything else. There are games that are very artistic and there are films that are very artistic, but since tetris has no equivalent in film we simply say "films are art" without considering the reasons why that is the case.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
To be fair, people who hold up books as art don't generally point to the bodice-rippers or assorted ninety-percent that is crap.
Sticking half a horse in plastic to preserve it is art.
A movie about lesbians driving on a road in Hollywood is art.
Listening to someone basically shout down a microphone whilst instruments are struck in intentionally discordant fashions is not only art, but Avant Garde.
So why is there debate about if being able to slice someones head off with an abstract gesture on something that looks like a distended and dried out donkey nipple whilst listening to the gargling death wails of an actor is art or not?
Its no more or less valid then any of the above.
The simplest way to view this debate is that any creative medium is art.
Except advertisements... we all hate adverts.
I just don't think you like video games. Most people who play them aren't nearly as cavalier about them or treat them as disposable. That's why we're well into our third decade of playing the original Super Mario Brothers, and have ongoing contests, conventions, costumes, etc. celebrating them, and collect merchandise for them, and debate which characters are best. Many gamers can tell you which games made them cry.
Honestly, this isn't even hard stuff. Of course they're art. 99% of games are easily described as art, not just the more explicit examples of Okami and Ico and whatnot. You just don't care about the art elements. That's your problem, not the mediums. I don't see why you need to make up distinctions like "artful" to justify that you don't get that element.
What does that have to do with whether something was art? Are pointillist paintings not art because someone can stand too close to the canvas?
You see, you have yet to give a logical reason for why it isn't art. You can't even keep your definition of art straight, as you keep flipping between saying intent is all that matters and your opinion is all that matters. This is a pattern with you, as you always make up nonsensical bullshit to dismiss mass media that hasn't been accepted by the establishment.
Ronya kinda beat me to it but
The vast majority of any medium be it books, movies, or videogames is mediocre to outright bad.
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I realize I'm a little slow on the response but seeing as how you generated such debate over whether socks can be art I think our posts are still relevant.
It's difficult for me to know weather the creator of your socks selected pattern 343 and dye 267 out of a hat or spent months agonizing over the details. The fact that I'm uncertain about it makes me tend to not consider them art, I feel I should be able to recognize the creators artistic efforts easily for something to be art but that's more of a personal stance than a definition.
Someone asked me why a generic apartment building was not art and questioned who had designed it if not an architect. There may have been an architect who initially designed it and the first such building was art, but the thousands of copies made of the cheapest materials that meet building codes and built off stock drawings with only practical modifications (sewer connects from north on this building, water from east on that one, etc) were not artistic creations, they were made by practical minded people for practical purposes.
As I mull this over and read the thread again I'm beginning to think the observer needs to make a judgment call. Did I buy this pair of socks because of their artistry or because I needed a pair of socks? Consider two different people buying identical socks, one buys them for their artistry, the other to keep his feet warm. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, not just the heart of the creator, I think I do need to allow that something could be both art and not art.
I think if someone takes an object like the spork and say "Voila, art!" it does become art, but only so long as it is on obvious display. It is art because it is jarringly out of place forcing you to think about it outside it's normal context. Despite this I'm not inclined to give museum curators sole ownership of the word art. If they put a toilet on display, it can be art, if they write the word "ART!" above a toilet in the public washroom that does not make that toilet art, at best it makes the image "ART!" itself art.
I think the definition of art must be broad, and then we call art that doesn't appeal to us personally or doesn't appeal to a wide audience bad Art. If you take a pole and 95% of people agree that the cardboard on display at that museum is Not Art, but the other 5% say it is art doesn't that just mean its bad art?
Personally I think a publicly funded gallery is exhibiting signs of silly goosery if it's displaying things 95% of the public don't consider art but I can't really hang my definition of art on public opinion any more than I can hang it on the expertise of museum curators.
The more deeply I get into this the more I find semantics failing me. Is there really a difference between not art and bad art?
And I appreciate you playing devil's advocate.
Some ads are definitely art. The standard "50% of all jackets today only!" ads aren't, though. It really depends on the ad.
As for video games: well, I would call them art, based on my personal definition of it. But I don't think that most games are good art, even if they are good games. Some games, however, are certainly good art.
Art, more than any other subject, really seems to be up to personal interpretation. History, science, math- all of these things have strict guidelines as to what they are. Art doesn't, and that's why it's so hard to figure out what does and doesn't belong.
Basically, if it appeals to your personal definition of art and stirs something in your soul or at least your brain that math and science can't touch, it's art. Video Games are, when done properly, a new kind of more interactive art, where in many cases you can share in the creative process with the finished product and allow it to grow. New art can be born in more traditional means as well based on what is inspired by video games.
Video games are definitely art to me, a different kind that still means something to me.
Agreed.
Of course, everyone has a different definition, so there tends to be a lack of consensus on what art is.
I would go so far as to say that there is no unified definition of art. It's a wholly personal definition.
Exactly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_art
This isn't hard. Well, not for anyone else anyway.
Seriously I don't get it. I've been to MoMA exhibits that depended on the audience. Sometimes that was the point of the piece.
Also, if concept art is not art A.) why do I think Art by Feng is such an awesome place full of evocative and interesting designs? Is it because I'm so easily fooled by non-art that I accidentally react to it like it is art? The same way I sometimes lick lichen off of rocks because it is shaped like a hamburger? And B.) All advertising, all comic books, all commissioned works of art of any kind, are not art.
You do realize most classical music has as it's basic intent "Get paid by rich douch, live comfortably", right? There is very little "pure" artistic intent in any given work.
I don't know if I would go so far with that. What about commissioned portraits, or patrons of the arts? Some very famous, and very valuable art has been commissioned.
I'd rather judge art on the work itself, not on why it was made.
So the Sistine Chapel ceiling isn't art? Good to know!
So art is something that cannot be objectively defined, right? It is something that every human has to decide for themselves? And even then, they actually can't, because at any point they might encounter something that contradicts their definition, but still tucks the right strings, so that they change the definition? Even if you say something along the lines of "it has to imply meaning" or "it has to be there for everyone to see", you still have countless things of "art" that simply don't fit.
What the hell? Doesn't that mean art is plain and simply undescribable?
So if we assume that art doesn't have a definition, then anything can be art, and nothing really is. :?
Maybe it's just a label for everything that can be appreciated. Some people like unusual thoughts, others pretty colors, pleasant geometry, or incredibly generic usefullness. Even actions can count as art. I think that's what art truly is: a self-serving label, which ultimately distracts from the actual qualities of whatever the label gets slapped on.
Maybe that's just lil' barbaric foreign me, but I'm satisfied with that explanation. :P
Art does have a definition, but it's personal. You can't really make a shared definition of art. Anything can be art to somebody, but that doesn't mean it's art to everybody.
That's why it's so hard to have a discussion about the nature of art.
How about that time I accidentally sucked up a minidisc full of Beethoven, huh, smart guy?
Essentially contested concept?
The idea was that Shadow of the Colossus, for example, cannot be art because it is not the same experience for everyone. Taxi Driver, though, is, because it is the same movie no matter who watches it, with the same stuff there to draw from it. But is it really?
Taxi Driver was originally meant to be watched in a theater, right? So what if I watch it at home? Is it still the same? Can the viewer still draw the same information from it, and experience it in the proper manner?
What if I watch it in Pan-and-Scan? Now some of the data has been lost. What if I watch it on a tiny B&W TV, or on my iPod? What if I watch it with shitty speakers that make the sound cut out occasionally? What if my TV sucks and the image is really staticky? What if I watch a version edited for content?
Watching Taxi Driver can be a pretty different experience between two people, depending on their viewing conditions. Yet I doubt anyone would be prepared to say that Taxi Driver ceases to be art, or that it only counts as watching it if you see it on a big screen with THX-calibrated video and audio.
I would say that there is more similarity between any two people playing SotC to completion on comparable AV gear than there is between watching Taxi Driver in a theater versus watching it on your iPod.
That doesn't sound like it's hard. It sounds like it is absolutely impossible.
That's why I think the term itself just gets in the way. In the end, most things people name that make something "art" are things you can appreciate all by themselves; things you can enjoy.
I think there's a much more interesting question out there: why then, if no two people can agree on a definition of art, is it even necessary to call anything art? Why is there a need to separate art and non-art? Is there any use in this?
We all agree that there is art, and we have a basic idea of what it is. We run into trouble when we try to flesh out our concept. We can't make a complex, all-encompassing definition, but we can agree on the basic details (such as: painting is art, etc.)
Because even though the definition is fuzzy, everyone gets the concept, and it's nice to have a word to use to discuss it. If I say "I like looking at art," people don't confuse that for "I like looking at tacos" or "I like looking at stuff". It has a particular meaning, even if we can't agree exactly what art is.
Furthermore, videogames strangulate imagination.
But as power relations go, I would expect videogames to be put on display as Art as soon as that generation enters into power (30 years or so). Just like what happened to comic books. But comic books got placed in literature, which I vehemently disagree with, but some are considered Art currently, nonetheless.
I don't think it's fair to compare watching the movie in different sub-par forms to people who play the exact same game but don't take the same routes.
I mean, how much is your experience of SoTC changed by your choice of route?
Here let me guess: you killed some big monsters, felt good for a while, slowly realized what was happening, felt bad, and then were alternately depressed and confused by the ending. The narrative is pretty damn solid regardless of which big monsters you kill when and how.
...what's there to discuss, then? According to that, videogames can be art, yeah. As can be tacos. And stuff. Everything CAN be art.
End of the line! Logic cannot be applied to art. Nothing can. It's, well, essentially contested.
Maybe I'm just not experienced enough in philosophy; or maybe, my English is just not good enough to properly interpret that article. But this whole thing reeks of choosing the easy way out.
As I get it, the only thing we can actually do is decide what is "good" and what is "bad" art. I'm not quite satisifed with that option...
We will never come to complete agreement on art, but there is value in discussing it and its meaning, even if we never reach the finish line. Through our discussions/disagreements, we learn more about art and our own opinions on it.
How do they exist less than other media? Music only exists as data on a disc, or etches on a record, or notes on a page of music, except when it's actually being played. A painting only exists as pigments on a canvas - it's not like the trees and fields are a real world.
Your point is rather silly.
How so? How does a movie involve imagination moreso than a game? The game requires that you come up with your own plans for progressing through the experience. You may need to think laterally to solve a puzzle, or use strategy to get past a battle. What imagination does a film stimulate that a game can't?
This point is even sillier.
What about the culinary arts?