Games as art and why you shouldn't care.

[driph]

So we wrote a thing.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably already familiar with the debate. You know the back and forth between Roger Ebert and Kellee Santiago on the subject and you’ve probably made up your mind about which side of the line you stand on. For those who haven’t been following the drama, here’s a quick recap:

Ebert: vidya games will never be art. they r dumb an bad. poems, paint, poems.
Santiago: no wai! games r totally art now. they wernt before, but u kno… games r sooo much better than b4. have you guys seen Fl0w(er)?
Ebert: lol nub. u dont kno wat art is.
Santiago: no, srs! here I send u my game. u liek?
Ebert: no thx
Santiago: watevs, i alredy won. games r totes art. my next game also is an art.

http://flyingmongooselabs.com/2010/12/games-as-art-and-why-you-shouldnt-care/

Thoughts, criticism?

[DeathInABottle]

I agree entirely with the idea that rules can influence emotions, and I agree that it's those rules that essentially distinguish games from other media: there's a seduction in opting out of the law of reality and into the rule of the game.  This isn't to say that games can't be art, but that whatever it is that makes something a work of art doesn't bear any necessary relationship to the rule of the game - which isn't a problem, as you've said.

Excellent post.

[Mrbloodworth]

They are indeed art, its just a medium like any other. They can be pretty, ugly, emotional, crappy, provoking, ban-able, uplift, offensive like all forms of art.

I'm sure the same thing was said when color film was developed, or computers. Im convinced those that say they are not, are the same ones who think using photoshop means instant image or one push mimicry.

[Sir T]

Or Music.

You can play Mozart and have a boring crappy night. You can play the banjo and enthrall an audience for hours. It depends on the execution and performance of the medium.

[Lucas]

You can play Mozart and have a boring crappy night. You can play the banjo and enthrall an audience for hours. It depends on the execution and performance of the medium.

Ok, sorry to interrupt for a second, but whenever I read "banjo" in a videogame topic my mind immediately gets back to this :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_PqZofBPWg

[Nebu]

Games are a combination of media which could all, individually, be considered pieces of art.  Games itself are really relegated to their genre and I would define them as such by default (puzzles, interactive fiction, etc.).  I have no problem calling the graphical, musical, or story components "art", but a game is still, by definition, a game.

[Mrbloodworth]

Depends on what game you are talking about.

Most games are interactive performances, they just happen to be canned in a medium.


FOR INSTANCE!

What if the opening scene/level to Call of duty was live acted, with you, as the viewer in an instillation?

What makes it NOT a collaborative effort on the part of the artists involved (yes even programmers)? The fact its in a digital medium? When do those parts you list stop being art, once combined?

[Sky]

Of course games can be art. Anything can be.

Fuck, if you're going to call that wag Pollack art, I took a nice art this morning in the toilet. A real moving experience.

A slapping of pigments and binders onto a surface is just a slapping of pigments and binders onto a surface, eh?

[Lucas]

Maybe I'm minimizing the meaning of the word "art" but: the concept of a game, and consequentially its realization, come from a sparkle of creativity, just like a piece of what you consider "traditional" art come from; then, just like traditional Art, in whoever watches it (and play, in our case, but I don't see a meaningful difference here), it evokes the range of emotions MrBloodworth described.

[Mrbloodworth]

Typically, Art creates or requests emotion.

Kinda hard to say that games are not an art form, when they have a greater impact on society then Pollack did, or skys movement will (Due to a limited engagement).

[Nebu]

As Sky has pointed out, labeling a game as "art" is as meaningless as labeling a urine-filled container as "art".  Game designers need not try to legitimize the skills they bring to bear by calling their productions "art".  

Personally, I'm fine with calling games "art".  However, it really adds nothing to the medium by doing so. Were I a game designer, I'd take great pride in my finished product regardless of the label affixed to it.  

 

[Mrbloodworth]

I don't believe thats what Ebert means though. He seems them as inferior toys, that have no impact on the world around us. They are not art, so they do not elicit emotion, require skill, training, or talent.

They are impact less, musings, his connotations strips them of everything you have said nebu.

She begins by saying video games "already ARE art." Yet she concedes that I was correct when I wrote, "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets." To which I could have added painters, composers, and so on, but my point is clear.

I think he is out of touch.

[Ingmar]

This is and has always been a stupid argument that could be settled by actually looking up what the word 'art' means. Of course games are art.

[driph]

As Sky has pointed out, labeling a game as "art" is as meaningless as labeling a urine-filled container as "art".  Game designers need not try to legitimize the skills they bring to bear by calling their productions "art".  

Personally, I'm fine with calling games "art".  However, it really adds nothing to the medium by doing so. Were I a game designer, I'd take great pride in my finished product regardless of the label affixed to it.  

 

And that's pretty much our take on it. Is the experience meaningful? As a game, does it succeed in doing what you intended it to to? Then grats.

[jakonovski]

(Video) games are young and have already developed an opaque subculture, so it's no wonder there's resistance to calling them art. It also doesn't help that the ratio of cynical money making schemes to labors of love is far worse than even movies. But the indie scheme is already on the rise, and will inevitably at some point compel the industry to constructive self-reflection.

I think that instead of a premature discussion on art, it would be better to concentrate on the lack of self-respect many games designers show.

[Mrbloodworth]

As Sky has pointed out, labeling a game as "art" is as meaningless as labeling a urine-filled container as "art".  Game designers need not try to legitimize the skills they bring to bear by calling their productions "art".  

Personally, I'm fine with calling games "art".  However, it really adds nothing to the medium by doing so. Were I a game designer, I'd take great pride in my finished product regardless of the label affixed to it.  

 

And that's pretty much our take on it. Is the experience meaningful? As a game, does it succeed in doing what you intended it to to? Then grats.

That's a bit like comparing commercial art, to traditional.  

EDIT: What I mean by that. Creating a "Thing" that simply serves a purpose, rather than a thing, that servers the makers desires, or that of the viewer.

[Nebu]

That's a bit like comparing commercial art, to traditional.  

Commercial art, literature, music, canvas and oil... it's all art.  Games are art.  Game music is art.  Game art is art.  It's all art.  This stuff is just a pointless academic exercise.  It's like some pseudo-heirarchical argument for the sake of feeling important.

[stu]

Ebert and Santiago are both snooty clowns. Reading their arguments, I get the feeling that they are both in over their heads but have delved too deeply in their stances to back out. So, they just argue over loopholes within definitions.

Santiago's remarks infuriate me even more than Ebert's because she looks down on anything that isn't mature or critically acclaimed. One of them has an inferiority complex and the other has no basis for his opinions other than peripheral knowledge.

edit: what Nebu said.

[Mrbloodworth]

That's a bit like comparing commercial art, to traditional.  

Commercial art, literature, music, canvas and oil... it's all art.  Games are art.  Game music is art.  Game art is art.  It's all art.  This stuff is just a pointless academic exercise.  It's like some pseudo-heirarchical argument for the sake of feeling important.

Not really, its two distinct intents.

[Malakili]

The real problem with the "art" of games is that there aren't enough artists working on them.  By artists I mean creative people with good ideas.

[Lantyssa]

This stuff is just a pointless academic exercise.  It's like some pseudo-heirarchical argument for the sake of feeling important.

What else do you expect from artists?

[Nebu]

Not really, its two distinct intents.

Art is independent of intent.  It's all art.  A commercial jingle is every bit as much art as a Mozart symphony.  Academics just like to assign value to justify their own egos.  I know... I'm an academic.

[Nebu]

What else do you expect from artists?

I don't think that real artists care.  It's the critics that like to affix labels to make themselves look like they're adding value.  

[Mrbloodworth]

This stuff is just a pointless academic exercise.  It's like some pseudo-heirarchical argument for the sake of feeling important.

What else do you expect from artists?

If I knew the terms, I'm sure I could come up with the two different intents in science too.

Art is independent of intent.

I disagree. 

[stu]

Art is a function acting as an extension and response to an environment. Anything created can be art, including that which nature provides us with. Intent doesn't factor into the equation. Whether something is commercial or not, the outcome is still art.

[Mrbloodworth]

They are both art, never said they were not.

However one is created for a means, the other is a expression of ones self or concept or environment. Two different intents. Two different outcomes, two very different set of considerations.

[Sky]

This stuff is just a pointless academic exercise.  It's like some pseudo-heirarchical argument for the sake of feeling important.

I started out as an art major. If I could have stomached this kind of discussion, I may have ended up an artist.

For me, there is a tipping point, but I'm not too hardcore about it. When we go to museums, she finds it funny how I just dismiss pieces. For me, having been an artist (and my best friend was an insanely talented artist now making a living as a fine artist), the main thing is: could this be posted to a mother's fridge? Even modern art, which I mostly detest, can be done well with a proper eye and skill level. However, people see an orange canvas with a blue line in it and go 'oh I can do that!', slap some paint on a canvas and get all philosophical about how they're artists and what it means to them. Which my second criteria, art speaks for itself. That said, modern art can go fuck itself; the old masters were, well, masters. If Pollack could paint as well as Rembrandt and CHOSE to splat paint around the canvas, I'd still think it shit but at least give him credit for making a statement.

That's how I grew to appreciate Andy Warhol, not for his "art", but for his amazing con game. Easily one of the greatest men of the last century, proving the insipid nature of the art world without any shadow of a doubt.

[Ingmar]

Intent matters to the extent that art has to be created deliberately - something created by accident doesn't really count. That isn't to say it can't include randomness, if the randomness is present by design.

But what I think Bloodworth is talking about, a distinction between something created for commercial or functional purposes and something created as art for art's sake, that's a very modern idea and one without a lot of merit, IMO. Mozart was writing pop music to make a living, he wasn't making art just to make it. The idea of the 'artist' as someone who goes off and just does their own thing for its own sake is a 19th century invention.

[Mrbloodworth]

A lot of the pieces we hold as works of great art are not always the ones that were being displayed publicly, "To pay the bills".

[Ginaz]

  This stuff is just a pointless academic exercise.  It's like some pseudo-heirarchical argument for the sake of feeling important.

Not really.  Video games need to be seen as art in order to be protected from overzelous lawmakers who want to ban or limit them.  If they're seen as art, both legally and by the general public, then doing that becomes much harder.  That is what is at the heart of the "games as art" debate now.

[Sky]

Yeah, Michaelangelo had suits telling him what to do, they were just silly robes type suits. Art has always needed the patron, and few the patrons who didn't insert themselves into the process. You can't deny some amazing art that has come from the advertising world.

[Ingmar]

A lot of the pieces we hold as works of great art are not always the ones that were being displayed publicly, "To pay the bills".

I'm a musician, I can't speak to visual art really, but things like this are very much the exception in music, not the rule.

EDIT: Feels a little weird describing myself as a musician these days since I haven't done anything with it in years, but whatever.

[Mrbloodworth]

I'm not sure I'm able to explain what I mean any better than I have. Other than, when you set out to write a jingle for someone, you make a jingle. When you set out to make a song as a form of expression, you don't write a jingle. Yes, there are many great jingles in the world.

[Nebu]

I'm not sure I'm able to explain what I mean any better than I have. Other than, when you set out to write a jingle for someone, you make a jingle. When you set out to make a song as a form of expression, you don't write a jingle. Yes, there are many great jingles in the world.

The only person that knows the intent of any piece of art is the artist.  Most great songs of the 20th century were crafted as marketing vehicles. While not product specific, there was a definite money-making intent to both their creation as well as their design (the 2 minute 50 second song, etc.).  I doubt that anyone would debate the hit songs of the 50's and 60's as being considered works of art.

How overt this marketing campaign is does not detract from the quality of the art.  Only academics and critics debate this merit and I think that's ego driven.

[Ingmar]

And again, music as advertisement is a really recent invention. Who knows, people may be studying Alan Thicke in class 200 years from now.