Videogames and Art

[seawasp]

A number of people on Usenet and LJ have mentioned this article in which Mr. Ebert counterpoints with Clive Barker about Video Games As Art (or NOT!)

While a number of points have been discussed (not to say, beaten to death) previously in this discussion, I would like to talk about the problems I have with Mr. Ebert's assertion that Video Games Can Never Be ART.

The problem, if one reads that carefully, is that Ebert doesn't define "art". He instead discusses the subject as though (A) the word was so well understood and defined that there could be no possible argument, and (B) as though there was "art" (little A), which is all well and good but isn't really GOOD, and Art (big A) which is obviously of great Worth.

This allows Ebert to allow that videogames can be art, but can't be Art.

As in most of the discussions of similar stripe I've gotten into WRT writing, it all boils down to personal preference -- but the ones who like to use the art-Art (or art VS "great art" or "high art") discrimination want to pretend that there really, honestly IS a difference, even though they cannot define it, demonstrate it, or illustrate it other than by basically saying that it's obvious, here's the obvious examples, and your examples don't count because... they're wrong.

I'm not saying there isn't such a thing, but that I've never seen it proven, and I think "High Art" will vary for the viewer, just like anything else.

Kathleen has actually expressed the opinion that computer art has provided an opportunity for new high Art as it has provided a new medium to explore, while the prior media and approaches had pretty much been mined out.

Ebert's position that a computer game's interactivity and changeability is by itself sufficient disqualification for being Art is not, unfortunately for him, a very good position at all, and in fact if one carries it to the obvious conclusion it means that many forms of "art" are by their nature excluded. All theater, for instance, changes with the actors, with the performances, with the settings. We may find ourselves reinterpreting an old favorite in a new light based on a change in interpretation by the actor. Does such a change -- possibly even changing our perception of a character on a basic level -- remove the work from consideration as Art?

Is "performance art" not possible to consider as Art?

Is an ongoing serial -- which explores directions for characters and the world in which they live -- ineligible for Art?

What, indeed, *IS* "Art"?

Can we define Art in such a way that we can include all things which are generally agreed upon to be worthy (sometimes) of Art -- plays, paintings, books, sculpture, etc. -- and yet exclude video games, RPGs, or anything else which has a changing component?

How do you define Art? And would that definition exclude any possibility of a video game being Art, and why?

Comments

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

::shrugs:: I'm a nontypical person in that I regard tattoos, cooking, bad jokes, and sometimes extravagant mistakes as art. And, on occasion, baby animals of several different sorts.

[denubis.livejournal.com]

<cheeky>Pterry's response here (http://clioaudio.com/2006/09/15/its-ok-its-art-theres-a-fat-kid-on-a-nearby-wall/) sums it up.

It's art if it's got urns in it`. Or maybe a plinth or a cherub.

::grins::

[xyzzysqrl]

I figure video games will become art when enough old people die and the young ones who played artistic video games grow up some more.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

In much the same way that long familiarity and experience and the older generation of critics dying out has lead baseball games and parades to be recognized as art?

[xyzzysqrl]

Parades I'll grant you, but there -are- television channels devoted to running old baseball games 24/7, and movies have sprung up around baseball.

I'm trying to decide if movies will be made about video gaming, and will that matter? Is a movie about something art when the thing isn't? ... now I'm confused.

[sandratayler.livejournal.com]

The definition that I've arrived at after many conversations and much pondering is that "Art" or "High Art" exists primarily to challenge us, to force us to see the world in new ways. In contrast "art" or "commercial art" exists to please us.

The problem with this definition is that it still contains a subjective element. A book that is world shattering for me may be boring to someone else. Thus for me the book qualifies as "Art," but for the other person it isn't even "art."

I believe that art, commercial art has great value to society as a whole. Picasso would have been a horrible choice to illustrate a children's book. Rembrandt or Monet could not keep up with the schedule necessary to create a daily comic strip. But how many lives were touched because of Calvin and Hobbes or Goodnight Moon? Just because a creation will never hang in a museum does not negate its value.

By these definitions, video games could definitely qualify as art and possibly even Art.

(All opinions subject to change upon receipt of further information.)

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

Art: none. The purpose of art is to hold a mirror to the universe. There simply isn't a mirror large enough. See point 1.

More seriously, I think video games will be art when people start becoming emotionally invested in the characters. (Doesn't mean I think all art requires emotional investment; but video games are a form of narrative art, which I think generally does.)

Some people already do just that, granted, but my impression is they're a vanishingly small minority.

[j-v-lynch.livejournal.com]

"ART -- A friend of mine in Tulsa, Okla., when I was about eleven years old. I'd be interested to hear from him. There are so many pseudos around taking his name in vain."
Chad Mulligan's "HipCrime Vocab,"

Art is...

[guy-jin.livejournal.com]

Anything that someone has put their personal 'touch' on for appearance sake.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

I find myself generally agreeing with Ebert's belief but not with his description. There are two (if I may be overbroad) types of art: decorative art and fine art (aka capital-A "Art"). The difference (if I may be overbroad again) between the two is that decorative art is functional or part of something functional whereas fine art exists solely for aesthetic purposes. A program is functional by nature. It has purpose, even if that purpose is to create something aesthetic, and that I think precludes it from being fine art.

Applying that to your theater example, the actors and performers in a play are not the art. They are the artists. Their performance is the art.

What's gonna bake your noodle is when you apply *that* back to video games. The game itself is not art, but to an observer watching someone play the game? That's art.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

Movies about video games have been around for a while now, but I'm not sure if there have been any about video gaming. I'm also pretty sure there haven't been any movies about videogaming that aren't some form of a documentary. Unfortunately the movies about video games have typically been pretty bad. I think the Tomb raider movie is/was the best of the bunch, however little that is saying.

Welll...

[seawasp]

... those aren't movies ABOUT video games, they're ADAPTATIONS of video games to movies. A movie about video games would focus on the games. A movie about video gaming would focus on the gamers.

IMCGO, the best video-game translation movie is a sort of tie between "Street Fighter II: The Movie" (NOT the VanDamme abomination, but the anime movie) and "Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture". Fatal Fury is overall probably the better movie (partly because it draws on actual continuing background from the preceding OVAs), but I feel that the finale of the SFII movie is better because it doesn't rely on the classic Deus Ex Machina of all fighting anime: I'm the Hero, so I'll Pull a New Power Out of My Ass and Beat the Previously Invincible Bad Guy.

Hmmm...

[seawasp]

... but I don't think there's any such thing as "Art" in the sense you describe, then. I don't think a story, painting, or anything else can FORCE you to see the world in new ways. You have to do that yourself. You have to allow yourself to see things differently.

I don't think...

[seawasp]

... they're as much a minority as you think. I cried during the "Crono's revival" scene in Chrono Trigger, and had tears POURING down my face when Aerith was killed in FFVII (I was practically hammering the buttons during the subsequent battle scene). I play those games for the characters, actually, to see and hear them and follow their lives.

So...

[seawasp]

... that means that Shakespeare's plays are not art, because they're books (by their nature, functional reading thingies). Van Gogh isn't art, because the paintings are functional decorations.

Re: Hmmm...

[sandratayler.livejournal.com]

Good point. If you take the words "force us" out of that sentence it would be a better representation of what I was attempting to express.

Re: So...

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

A book -- a collection of bound pages -- is no more art than a TV screen or an empty stage. The words written or printed on those pages could be art, or they might not be art. Is the text of "Programming Python" (one of the books I am currently reading) art? I don't think so. The text of "Programming Python" has a function: instruction. Is the text of "Digital Knight" art? I think so. The text of "Digital Knight" has no function; it exists to be ejoyed.

Did that make sense?

[qinshihuangdi.livejournal.com]

An Engineer once defined art as a means of communicating information.
Although I am only a wannabe engineer, I agree with this paraphrase.


Many things speak to me in some fashion or another. The sort of stories
that Baen publishes and Kipling's poems and prose, for example. I also like
various cartoons, comics, games, jokes and things found on the internet. I am
beginning to pick up stuff from machines, math, and such related to my discipline.


I do not tend to find art in pure mathematics or things that heavily rely
on body-language and nonverbal communication or stories that are strongly oriented
towards the psychology of the characters.


I think all of the above constitutes art. Broadly speaking, art is
involved in just about every human activity.


One can also divide human activities into Arts, Crafts, and Sciences. This
is a different usage of the word art then I think you are interested in.


High Art is nowadays defined using a jargon filled babble. One should be
able to call anything High Art so long as it has 'social commentary', 'societal
criticism' and 'challenges preconceptions'. In reality, current High Art themes
are tired and cliched. I think a machine that can produce millions and millions
of nails is far more interesting, special, able to speak to me and to make me happy
then yet another Taoist wannabe complaining about soullessness and conformity.


The people who actually do the defining are those who are foolish enough to
both study the jargon and to believe it has any real significance or meaning. This
serves three purposes. Purpose one is to artificially inflate the income that a high artist can expect. Purpose two is to give the ideological message in 'High Art' a greater weight then it really deserves. Purpose three is to support the ego of the artist more then it should be supported.


High Art is currently so loosely defined that a secret police rounding up
artists could be considered a form of performance art. It would shock, like I hear performance art ought. It would also point out that artists and High Art are not
as valuable and do not contribute to society what they say they do. This is similar to the idea that censorship and the murder of ones political opponents
could constitute political speech. I do not think that because something can be
considered artistic or political speech, that this is license to do it. Just for
the record, I am opposed to the operation of censorship, secret police, and the
murder of political opponents. I think that High Art is worthless for use as a
category of art.


I think games could be easily be High Art but I don't think this would be a good thing. Consider what criteria might be used to determine the 'High Art' worth of games. I think that the clarity or precision of thought required for good programming might be incompatible with the mindset required for 'High Art'. Games rated high on 'High Art' criteria might still be quite buggy, perhaps unfinishable or unplayable. I am just as happy to have game makers more interested in salable games then in 'artistic' games.


Kipling's poems are the only poems that ever really spoke to me. I am also a literalist, and am also very blind to methods of communication beyond the literal meanings of words. If art is communication, then each item of art has some
fraction of the population that it communicates to. If High Art tends to communicate to less people then regular art, and if there is anything real to High
Art, it would not be surprising that I, with my communications issues, would tend
to miss all of it. Especially since I have never spent any amount of time looking
for Art that speaks to me.


Despite my scorn for High Art, and artists in general, I do not think I
have yet met an actual artist and scorned them as an individual. This is either
hypocrisy or a sign that I am not completely lost to all human decency.


I like to claim that I have no measurable sense of aesthetics or a shred of
poetry in my soul. I am a fan of the big concrete box school of architecture and an engineer wannabe.