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Videogames as Art
Philip Kollar writes "AllRPG has just posted Games As Art, Part 2.
In this article, I attempt to create a viable list of things that come together to make a videogame art, rather than just entertainment. I also explore how these three concepts (writing, design, and interactivity) have been used in other forms of media and how they're being further explored in the world of gaming."
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About the only art I get out of games is trying to write my name on walls with bullets....
If the storyline in a videogame can truly create memories, then there has to be more behind the games than simple entertainment.
Yea.. the emotions.. I almost.. cried everytime one of my ninja turtles got killed when I was a child. I'll never forget. *tear*
(\_/)
(O.o) This is Bunny. (> <)
Star Control 2. If only for the graphics, story, and dialogue.
Anybody else get a popup to install GAIN?
If it's all the same to you, I'm not gonna RTFA
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
When i was forced into a computer art class, I sat around coding opengl demos while the others were in photoshop. the teacher accepted it and gave me a better grade :)
I wouldn't define interactive art as a videogame. A videogame is primarily for entertainment and an art piece is not (a different kind of entertainment at least).
So it's either a game or interactive art, not both... If it's an artsy game it's still a game
...would be Shenmue
Let's go way back now, and be honest: what's the first videogame that you remember that had a plot worth remembering? I mean something that wasn't just throw-away. My answer (big surprise here) would be Final Fantasy VI.
Yeah, it's pretty hard to forget that big collapse in storytelling about halfway through.
As for me, the first videogame with a real plot that I can remember was Ninja Gaiden. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a PC game that I'm forgetting earlier than that. I guess it depends on your definition of "throw-away."
Rob
Is it me, or music in every new games suck ?
I think almost every old game that had great succes had great music. Think of Final Fantasy I, II and III, Dragon Warrior (main theme inspired from Debussy's Passepied frome "Suite Bergamasque #1"), the original Metroid, etc.
And even older games, with very few audio capacities, had cool themes (often Johann-Sebastien Bach inventions, stuff like that).
It seems that the less they had technical possibilities, the more they had to rely on art (great melodies) in order to make games attractive. Or maybe it's about the old paradox that limitations stimulate creativity ; such as Beethoven being deaf and composing great symphonies.
Anyone who played Final Fantasy VII on their PS-X/PC knows what I'm talking about.
...
/dev/sequencer support). Anyone else try ?
Those movies were such vividly rendered with amazing music to match. The art work done was probably the best I've ever seen in any Final Fantasy game. Some of the effects done during game play stood out like no other RPG. Ahh, the memories
Sunny Dubey
PS: I've been trying to get FF7 working with wine, but have had no luck (I think I need
I wrote about this over on my blog a while back. Basically, whenever this question coes up I have to ask, "Why should we care?" Why does it matter if it is art or not? What do we get out of that? The people who say it isn't, will never say it is. The people who say it is, already say it is. What does calling it art do for the form?
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
'nuf said
if movies are considered an artform then indeed, why not games?..well, some games at least- but some movies, spy kids, not really artsy.
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there are many parallels
How about the ZORK series? Those games were ALL plot.
Ahh. The old "videogames as artform" conversation. Ive had this one with many people. Usually the younger individuals say, yes, videogames are art, just like movies.
Its the elder generation that hasnt grasped that a game can be artistic as well.
Then I put in the game "Rez."
Rez is the best argument Ive ever seen for videogames as an artform. It is unique, beautifully stylistic, and incredibly interactive. You could say that this is just another rail shooter, but that doesnt integrate the way sound, vibration, and visual effects all tie in together. This concept of interactive musical and visual integrated together was originally concieved by Kandinsky, which he referred to as "Synestasia."
Please read this review.
Even my parents found the game to be incredibly artistic and beautiful. I cannot reccomend it enough.
no
Zork was great, but the two best infocom games bar none were Trinity and Planetfall.
Usualy when I see the words Videogame and Art together, someone is talking about art that is inspired by video games (like the Paper Rad comics or the Brick Attack fashion stuff). So its nice to see art being attributed to the source.
There was a magazine in Japan years back that was basicly applying art and film theory to video games. Does anyone know what this was called?
we're just marketing. marketing our bad attitudes.
What the FUCK is going on here?!!!! /." dimension where everyone has goatees?!!!
Have we slipped into that "evil
Art is very hard to define clearly (much like humor) because it depends on the reaction of the audience as much as the creativity of the originator. However, a dictionary definition is "the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects". Certainly there is a conscious use of skill and creative imagination in video games. Some games have even felt like more attention was put on the aesthetics than on the gameplay -- putting these even closer to the definition of art while losing out as games.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
This is a good place to bring up Mike Oldfield's Music VR (Maestro) project, a game in which you explore a landscape of often-beautiful often-abstract imagery, with Oldfield's music in the background.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Consider the case of Role Playing Games: what is the difference between Literature as Art and RPGs as art? Not much, insofar as they both tell a story. Consider the plots from various Final Fantasy games (I think 7 specifically, as it's the one I played the most): they are not necessarily simple stories made only to provide a backbone for the game.
But that can't be all there is to it, right? Literature is a craft of writing, whereas RPGs do not involve the same amount of writing. So you can generalize and say that the 1) story and 2) presentation of the story make something 'artful'. The presentation in a novel is in the writing style, whereas the presentation in a game is more visual.
But how can the presentation of the story of an RPG qualify as 'artful' ?
For me, the real issue it comes down to, when discussing the Art-worthiness of a work is: does it move you?
The original Zork had barely anything to do with plot, but I did forget about A Mind Forever Voyaging.
Rob
I was too busy denying those stupid controls for "FREE BROSWER PLUGIN"
CPM MEDIA LTD
....
You've been warned!
They're porn. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I don't know if this counts as "art" in video games, but it beats the hell out of turning on "paintball" mode and trying to paint the walls green.
Lagito ergo expectabo
Matt...
Save the Bottom Line
Beat me in by a minute! I only I hadn't used that vile PREVIEW button!!!!
I wish I were an artist, but I became craftist instead. Programming is a craft. Crafts have the aspects of creativity, and artistic skill that programmers take pride in. They do not have the artistic intent, however.
I think the question is not "Are games art?" but "What happens when critical thought is applied to games?"
For instance, Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises makes critical statements and assesments about values. Hemmingway's writing, however, really doesn't get past "He did this. Then he got drunk. The table wobbled. He left the bar and walked. He went to sleep." Poetic, flowing prose just doesn't happen. The themes that can pulled out of this are worth discussing and dissecting, for their sake.
I get the feeling that games will end up being like popular music: on the fringe for the most part and worth their plot summary/dialogue but the music (and perhaps graphics) will not be used. Games have elements worth discussing critically. For instance, I have used songs in papers for their lyrical content only. Game graphics could be discussed abstractly, as there is a certain "This has more than a literal meaning" element based on cultural and symbolic meaning.
Certainly something to think about and play around with especially considering even popular fiction has elements worth discussing.
IAAEM (I Am An English Major)
That's the real question.
I like to think that art is the expression of ideas and concepts in a manner that evokes something above and beyond the sheerly practical.
In other words, if you make a sandwich because you're hungry, it's not art. If you make a sandwich in a way that seems aethetically pleasing, or incorporating particular ingredients that remind you of something, or you refrain from making a sandwich to make a point about world hunger, it's art.
I'm not a huge modern art buff. I much prefer Constable, Turner and Monet to Pollock, at least as far as painting is concerned. I like things that look like things. But I don't dispute that things which may not be appealing to me aren't art.
Personally, when I really think about what I do for a living, I'm something of an artist. When I write programs, I try to make the code beautiful, clean, functional, and even visually organized, because that is artistic to me.
If you go with my definition, videogames certainly qualify.
--- Where's my car, and why are these grass stains on my pants?
People like to consider their work as some kind of "art" form. Writers, Painters, Muscians. Back in High School my anatomy teacher considered surgery an artform. Most of my fellow geeks would agree that seeing a piece of code take shape could be artistic, and other engineering venues like architecture.
Learn something new.
..which provide entertainment. Bush mazes actually came to mind first (following really funky artcars, e.g., a VW Beetle painted like a ladybug - these are interactive with a drivers' license.)
What about the windows on an entire side of a skyscraper used to play Tetris via your cell phone? I think that surely constitutes an artly piece.. it's certainly creative, and the point of it, by no means, is purely to entertain by gameplay; if it were noninteractive, if it was played by computer instead of a person, would it not be a work of art? What if one just *painted* a side of a building with a screenshot (whether real or not) of a game? Just because it's from a videogame means it can't possibly be art, right? If you think so, consider a painting of Monopoly or Candy Land
Read; Write; Execute
One of my house mates works in an art library and one of the trade journals had UT2K4 characters on the front as someone had done sculptures of them, i will try and upload scans if i can get him to bring it home again.
The art's in selling it, baby.
I'm something of an artist. When I write programs, I try to make the code beautiful, clean, functional, and even visually organized, because that is artistic to me.
I'm an accountant and i feel the exact same way about my spreadsheets.
Myst was perhaps more visually striking when it came out (and before that, The 7th Guest), but Syberia balanced both art and gameplay.
Believe it or not... I'm not really into the newer games on the newer platforms (xbox, ps2, gamecube) I've really cut down on the gaming I do these days (even on the pc). But I have to say the only recent game that has given me that inspirational feeling, the oceanic depth and feeling that comes with seeing a classic work of art up close is Otogi : Myth of the Demons for xbox. This game is truly a work of art and inspiration, from the colors to the music to the controls, everything from start to finish is breathtaking. If you haven't played it yet, you should.
http://www.sega-europe.com/otogi/
One of the few games to renew my faith in video games in recent years
Is this an art or is that an art?
You got a guy who spent years perfecting his C coding and now he is a great guru and make wonderful program thats art.
You got a mother with 4 children who mops floors, but when she mops floors she does her damn best and knows how to do it right. Thats art.
What definition do you give a art?
Is it something that has to portray emotion or colors or even craft.
I'll tell you something anything that you can make yourself truly good at and then execute it in greatness relative to it God has blessed you with a craft that will generate art.
I'm sorry, but this is contemporary art. As much as I agree with the author's premise that video games is art, his writing style bears no reality on the current status of art as a discipline and offers about as much insight as my grandma would on the state of open source in the computing disciple. Comparing it to hollywood, which has it's own artistic foundation totally removed from the authors writing, is grotesque.
Holy frickin art snobbery batman!
Really, there is a shitload of good art in videogames. In fact ANYTHING CAN BE ART.
What really makes something "art" is the effort and thought put into it. That's why some buildings are "art" while others are not.
A cheap, pre-fabbed home is not art (typically) but something designed by a guy like IM Pei is.
The medium does not decide if something is or is not art.
The Holocaust Museum in Berlin is an amazing work of art*, but a trailer park is not. The medium is the same, the difference is all in the effort and mastery that was put into their aesthetics.
*So much so that the museum was actually shown before there was even any art in it.
Life is too short to proofread.
You might think video games are art, but once you've seen how they're developed then you'll change your mind. Video games are more like TV sitcoms: a bunch of marketing people and executives making calls on what they think will sell. There's almost no "do the right thing" aspect to it. There's zero interest in innovating or following a distinct vision. The popular myth is that video games have the equivalent of a director, like Spielberg or Peter Jackson, but they really don't. The designer is just a pawn. The writers are just pawns. There are a few game designers with well-known names, like Will Wright and Sid Meier and Shigeru Miyamoto, but realize that these guys are just executive producers. Miyamoto hasn't done any art or level design or game design in a decade. He just supervises a dozen projects at once and makes a fuss when one is going off track. He's a manager.
well there are intelligent -and accepted artists- who think exactly that. go figure, trollboy.
Video games = art
every bit as much as paintings or scultures.
Art exists to express ideas or emotions without words. Maybe not all games live up to this defintion but niether does a painting of a bowl of fruit.
Most of the final fantasies reached this level, as they managed to evoke emotion in the player.
Myst convied a cold sense of the unknown.
Anything that attempts speaks to the soul should be considered art, those that succed should be considered good art, and those that midlessly blow things up should be placed next the picture of the bowl of fruit.
This guy clearly doesn't know his Art from his Elbow. He claims that videogames combine design with interactivity and that that has never been done before. Of course it's been done before, in absolutely every user interface ever created. Plus the quality of the article is dreadful, the writing is haphazard and, while the guy has a point, he has executed it extremely badly. Video games are a collage of art; art is in every texture, every mesh, in the plot and writing, in the music and sound, in the concept art, even in the code, but it's how all the parts come together that define the piece.
:) all we own as consumers is a copy.
I believe that some games are more art than entertainment; games like Myst and Syberia were both extremely artistic graphically and musically. Some games are too artistic; the original Unreal FPS didn't satisfy a lot of people because it was simply too art-driven, it was beautiful but slow with long periods of not enough stuff to shoot. Does that mean it's art in the videogame genre, or does entertainment factor into whether the game is art or not?
The point of the above is that there is a difference between interactive art and video games. It is intensely difficult to class video games artistically, most people see only as deep as the graphics. I don't think art necessarilly has anything to do with entertainment, which is what the interactivity provides. Art is possibly the antithesis of entertainment.
Basically my definition of art is anything that inspires one or ignites emotions. I've actually shed tears after finishing some video games (not because it was "so beautiful" but because it's often such a relief). So I guess that if a video game can be appreciated and provokes emotion in the observer (good or bad) then it can be classed as artistic.
However, I'm opposed to classifying video games as works of art, because if they do get to that distinction then they'll cost $3,000 a piece. Come to think of it, the source code probably costs more than that to license
People seem to be claiming that video games are art simply because some of them have plots with twists and the ability to tug on some players' heart strings. Some people see nothing wrong with this, but I would imagine that such people would consider black and white (with regard to characters) movies like Terminator 3 to also be art.
To me, the most artistic (for lack of a better word) movies are the ones that leave me thinking at the end; movies with characters whose motivations aren't as simple as pure revenge; movies with villains that are not soulless evil incarnate. I'm having some trouble coming up with examples, but things like the characters in movies like Princess Mononoke or Insomnia.
Making a story where you battle true evil is not art, it's mostly formulaic. Making a story that is unpredictable and unique is art.
(Note: I'm addressing only the plot of games as art. The actual 3D content and graphics classify as art and I don't think anyone could argue against this in many games)
True story.
Also, art usually retains it's price or gets more expensive with age. Video games do the exact opposite, in fact the original work (the source) often gets released openly and freely (see Doom) over a very short time. Open source people will say "yay", failing artists will say "price doesn't define art", but I just wanted to make that observation. "This is an original CliffyB work of source! Do I hear 1,000 dollars?" will never be something we hear.
Art must provide an insight into your relation to your world.
This happens in a context for which you must have some feeling or understanding for the art to mean anything to you. For example: European mediaeval religious art appreciation requires some feeling for the society and other art of the time.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
To which you reply: "The medium does not decide if something is or is not art." Huh?
The parent agrees, games can be art -- she just doesn't think this article measures up to anything like "the status of art as a discipline."
I used to work in a modern art museum. If we'd hosted a show about video gaming as art, nobody'd have blinked. If we'd put on a shoddy show about games as art, it'd have been a different thing. The parent's saying this ain't much of a show, not that its premise is wrong. That's not being a snob, it's being competent and having some background in the subject.
No offense intended to the article poster, but I'm with the "snob" on this one. Pachinko machines are art, but if you tell me it's because they make pretty noises and you can put money in I'm not that impressed...
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Art & craft can't really be differentiated on the basis of "artistic vision" alone, since that is not always known, and is anyway judged and reinvented by its audience, without which any "artistic vision" is meaningless. Neither can they be differentiated because of being "commercial" or "technical": all art comes from the mastery of the technical, which could range from painting, or understanding how to evoke specific emotions via a modern art installation, and historically, much of what we call art was created under contract.
You might even say that the art arises because of the limitations under which it's created.
An architect might consider designing an important museum to be art, and a suburban house mere craft, but the fundamental difference between them is the scope, the audience, and the expectation, rather than the fundamentals of the field. So with photography, or graphic design.
Perhaps projects instantly recognizable as art are yet to come.
IMO, few games can truly be considered as having reached the level of "Art". Most games rely on too much of the same thing with merely different graphics, and there is rarely any deep story telling or distinctive style to them. However it is the least favored genre of games that do the most to promote artistry in games: Adventure Games.
/ default.htm
t ac/syberia/
Admittedly, even many adventure games have similar game mechanics (in the same way a side scroller, FPS, and other game genres do), but they have the advantage of being more focused on both story-telling and the graphical settings for these stories, that they truly can be considered a work of art in both a literary and visual sense.
In the visual sense, the effort and creativity put into giving an adventure game is closer to painting where every detail is unique and carefully 'crafted', than is, for example, a 3D game's use of textures put together to form an entire wall or the grassy/rocky/sandy ground. In a way, it's about "Style". How many games have you seen that look like The Longest Journey, Grim Fandango, or Syberia? These 3 adventure games are arguably the best pieces of 'video game' art I've ever seen, and each one is incredibly unique in style. And yes, Myst and its sequels are also impressive, though several games have tried (poorly) to copy them and thus have diluted their visual uniqueness a little.
In the literary (or story-telling, if you prefer) sense, again it is games like The Longest Journey, Grim Fandango, Syberia, and (to a lesser degree) Myst(+sequels) that have gone far beyond most any other video game in terms of story immersiveness. You get drawn into these worlds through the richness of detail and depth of the story as it unfolds, in a way similar to reading a good book, whereas other games may still immerse you, but through non-artistic methods such as "Pay Attention or Else" (FPS's, Sports, Fighting games, RTS's, etc), or "Look at all the places you can go and all character building options you have!" ([MMO]RPG's), or "Wow, just a few more goals met and I can do such-and-such!" (aka: "just one more turn!" = Civ, Sim games).
If Hollywood would get its collective head out of its butt and stop trying to make movies from games with little to no story that rely simply on the game's previous popularity and a bunch of random action and 'sexy' stars thrown in to attract an audience, and instead start telling a *real story* that has a solid foundation already (and not have to "patch" one together to force-fit the "theme" of the game that had no real story to begin with) then we might actually get some GOOD movies based on games.
Thus, I recommend that if Hollywood is going to make a movie out of a game, that they try using an Adventure Game (and do it justice you bastards!) to actually tell a story the way a good movie SHOULD.
Links
-----
The Longest Journey:
http://www.longestjourney.com/
Grim Fandango:
http://www.lucasarts.com/products/grim
Syberia:
http://www.adventurecompanygames.com/
http://www.syberia2.info/english/
Myst:
http://www.riven.com/ (Myst & Riven)
http://www.myst3.com/html/exile.html (Myst 3)
http://uru.ubi.com/us/ (Uru, Uru: to D'ni, Myst 4: Revelation)
Video games can have orignal plot lines like you mentioned , but I have to admit this is rare.
Some of the final fantasies reached this level.
Yes they have pure evil to fight at the end, however they weren't predictable because of they layered the game with forgivable villains and imperfect hero's. Character act with complex and believeable motives weither for good, evil, or undefinable grey areas, where your not sure if their doing the right thing or not.
is that art is relative to both the artist and the viewer.
The end of Sons of Liberty really got me. Not the talking as much as what really happened? If art is supposed to make you think, that made me think.
"Anyone who attempts to generate random numbers by deterministic means is living in a state of sin." -- John von Neumann
I think we really have to forget purpose in any kind of consideration of what is and isn't art. Artiness is a function of the final result, rather than the process of getting there. (Yes, so-and-so may have poured their heart and soul into this sculpture but it's still crap...) Unless, of course, the process itself is worthy of being considered art, though that's pretty unusual (e.g. some types of performance art).
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Art is merely communication; a medium plus a message.
Painting is an art, music is an art, public speaking is an art, etc. There is good art and bad art, of course, and the message can be anything from "life is meaningless" or "people are suffering in [insert country]" to "have a nice day" or "enjoy your leisure time".
Are video games art? Yes.
Are video games GOOD art? Well... maybe, haha. Like any other art form, I think it depends on the individual piece.
I think it has been long ago since the concept "art" was something that people could take without questioning. In fact, it is so much open for questioning as to make it virtually meaningless. If the term "art" has no meaning then this discussion, interesting as it may be, has no point.
I have a personal story too. One day I went to have lunch in a museum. Some of the exhibition rooms were open, so I walked inside. Oops, I thought, this must be being worked on, because all I can see is *strings*, just a few here, a few there, tied from the floor to a wall, or from a wall to the ceiling. Nothing, nothing else. So I walk through another room, same thing. Another room, same thing. I noticed that the security guards were having a kick out of my expression, and then I got it. *That* was the exhibit. Strings. Tied to the walls. That was *art*. Why ?
Perhaps the whole reason for it being art was its pointlessness. Sort of like the guy who painted an iceberg red, or wrapped a building in cloth. What is the point ?
Then you come and tell me: Videogame makers have a point: making money. Well, then look no further! Here is videogame art. On the other hand, who is it that works (at anything) *only* for money ?
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
Video game art seem to be a popular trend amoungst the art 'establishment' at the moment.
Velvet Strike and a couple of other video game-based installations were part of the 2004 Whitney biennial. Also there have been a number of exhibitions of classic arcade games at various art galleries around New York in the last year or so.
Lesser games would be scattered across the US at regional musuems. In the Southwest, you'd only be able to see Deerhunter and Redneck Rampage.
Only a select few people would be wealthy enough to own games and actually play them on demand. Everyone else would own demos or screenshots. Full games would be limited to editions of a few dozen and distributed through galleries. They would be prohibitively expensive. To have good access to a variety of games, you'd have to move to New York. Fans of vintage games would be advised to move to Paris. Games would rarely be available at night or on Mondays.
Most people would experience games through expensive coffee table books filled with screen shots. Books on all the cool games would either be perpetually checked out from the library or stolen. Screen shots would not be available on the Internet, and game digital reproduction rights would be carefully controlled by Bill Gates or Mark Getty.
Video game developers would be ignored or considered outsiders unless they have a master's degree from Yale or UCLA. Most developers would have to move to New York or LA if they wanted to be taken seriously. When their most challenging work was attacked by policy-makers, they wouldn't have a billion-dollar industry to lobby for their rights or foot their legal bills. Only a handful of developers would ever make a steady income writing games, and even the best would be obscure until they're nearly dead. The biggest distributors would tacitly refuse to release their work until they're dead or so mentally disabled as to be considered dead. Developers would resort to providing cheap wine and triscuits to get people to play their games.
Anyone who has played Xenogears can appreciate video games as art. (Unless you didn't like it. But then you're crazy, and none of your opinions are valid.) Though the dialogue (it's a translation) isn't so great, the story and music more than make up for it. It's something I wouldn't have an issue with recommending to an English teacher. Planescape: Torment is along the same lines, but with a much more well-written text. Most of the game can (re: SHOULD) be done through conversations, instead of killing everything. The story is much simpler than Xenogears, but with the same amount of depth. I'd say play it, but have fun finding it. Truly art-worthy, though. Sucks that Black Isle was closed down.
This sig is only here so people stop skipping the last lines of my posts.
I attempt to create a viable list of things that come together to make a videogame art, rather than just entertainment. I also explore how these three concepts (writing, design, and interactivity) have been used in other forms of media and how they're being further explored in the world of gaming.
I also demonstrate my ability to write a very boring, cookie-cutter introductory paragraph.
-Colin
One of the reasons I collect classic coin op is the artwork. Some of it is hokey, most is simple but attention grabbing, and some of it deserves to be in museums. Star Wars, Millipede, Crystal Castles, Tron; all these games have beautiful artwork.
:)
And I know, the article is about the game itself, not it's packaging, but this *is* game art related.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
The question "is this art?" is inherently unanswerable, because in order to answer it, "art" itself must be well defined. But asking whether or not something is art inevitably leads to the question, "what is art?" It's similar, really, to asking if competitive video games should be considered a "sport". It always leads us to question the definition of "sport".
Art is art if we, as individuals or a society, perceive it as such. And since individuals, society, and perceptions are in a constant state of change, a precise definition of art is impossible.
First of all, not all movies are considered art. Infact, most aren't. Most movies are made to entertain the masses, and so have to appeal to the lowest common denominator. The few movies that are considered "art" are usualy made by smaller studios, and have a much more uncompromizing attitude to their vision. In the same vein, most video games are produced by large studios, and are made to appeal to the largest potential market share. These games should properly termed "entertainment", and considered on the same level as stock action movies. There are some games that, like independent art films, try to rase the bar, and don't flinch from dificult concepts. Ico comes to mind, as does Myst. I think that the comparison of movies and games, vis a vis, art is valid, as long as you remeber that not all movies are art.
Apple has never claimed not to be evil, they're just very stylish about it.
I have long thought of programming as art. Not just game programming, which I do as a hobby, but also to a certain extent the business/database programming that I do in my day job.
Of course, I have had a hard time rationalizing this out loud or explaining it to anyone. When I sit down and write a object-oriented wrapper to procedural database commands, or write my own login/session-key code, I *feel* the same way I do when I am doin art-- Art is a big part of my life. I write and draw and sculpt all the time. Everything I truly enjoy doing is art... except programming. Why then does it feel like art when I am doing it?
Most people define art in terms of art-appreciation. Nobody ever looks at or admires the scripts I write on the company mail server. So for the longest time I rejected the idea of actually calling programming art.
But lately I have been getting a better appreciation of minimalism. I used to hate abstract art, and minimalist art, until I actually started to do a little bit of it. To the non-artist, art is in the appreciation, but to the artist, art is in the creation. Recently, a teacher of mine, Jay Mccafferty was telling me about his favoured field of art, "Process Art". If you follow the link, you will see a couple of examples of his work-- he freely admits that they don't look like much, and that if you didn't frame them and put them up in a gallery, nobody but him would know they were art, but that isn't the point. The point is the process of creation. He spends a lot of time on his art, and puts a lot of thought and emotion into them. Most of this is invisible to the causal observer. "Artistic Entropy" if you will; lost data. But the end result is still kinda pretty, isn't it? I think so anyway.
So I applied that concept to the idea of programming-as-art, and it really fit well. Nobody at work who uses my inventory control web-app is going to see any of the parts of code that I am really proud of. Things that took me days of hard work are going to flicker into their browser in a few seconds-- But that isn't the important part to me. The part that matters to me, as the programmer/artist was the process of writing it. The experience.
Or something like that ;)
The best films would only be available a couple times in your life at special cinemas. You'd have to pay admission, wait in line, and then only get a glimpse of the game from behind someone's head for a few minutes.
Lesser films would be scattered across the US at regional musuems. In the Southwest, you'd only be able to see Knockaround Guys and the Transporter.
Only a select few people would be wealthy enough to own films and actually watch them on demand. Everyone else would own still images. Real films would be limited to editions of a few dozen and distributed through cinemas. They would be prohibitively expensive. To have good access to a variety of films, you'd have to move to New York. Fans of vintage films would be advised to move to Paris. Films would rarely be available at night or on Mondays.
Most people would experience film through expensive coffee table books. Books on all the cool films would either be perpetually checked out from the library or stolen. Images from the films would not be available on the Internet.
Film directors and actors would be ignored or considered outsiders unless they have a master's degree from Yale or UCLA. Most directors would have to move to Los Angeles if they wanted to be taken seriously. When their most challenging work was attacked by policy-makers, they wouldn't have a billion-dollar industry to lobby for their rights or foot their legal bills. Only a handful of directors would ever make a steady income directing films, and even the best would be obscure until they're nearly dead. The biggest producers would tacitly refuse to release their work until they're dead or so mentally disabled as to be considered dead. Directors would resort to providing cheap wine and triscuits to get people to see their films.
Oh wait...
Words can be art too when used in a deliberately stylish/expressive way. Think of poems and songs.
Warhol was able to break the distinction between high and low art, even so far as to incoporate advertising and trash pop culture etc, etc. Warhol imo however wasn't really a very good artist, but contributed great ideas to the art community. In the same way, one can agree or disagree whether games are art, however in my opinion the real topic for discussion should be instead: "Are video games good art?"
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
I'm sorry but the nature of art IS the purpose or the intent of the artist (or artists) that realize the work in question.
If it is worth anything artistically is a matter of debate, and of taste. But It is the intent that makes the art.
That is why if you see some rock with an interesting shape, it can be beautiful, but it's not art. Because there was no intent in creating it.
If someone takes that boulder and put's it on display, and calls it "Attack ship on the shoulder of Orion". Then it is art. It might suck, be lame or lazy, derivative or cliché. It might be artistically worthless. But that's not the point.
There was intent in putting it in context, however lame it may be.
There seems to be a misunderstanding that to be art, an object, work or process as to have a standard of quality. Or a certain degree of pompousness. As if "Art", with a capital A is something else in a class on it's own.
The artisitc intent makes the piece. Whether or not it is good is a matter of taste, and analysis.
The problem with the article, is that it does not adress some of the more interesting issues. Like that videogame as an artform has yet to come into is own. Videogames are still an immature medium. It's highly derivative of movies in it's grammar and the way that it conveys information.
It is somewhat natural, being partly a visual medium, like movies. But I think that as it matures, the medium will acquire it's own distinctive grammar, it's own style guidelines.
Videogames are a mix of interactivity, visual stimulation, intellectual stimulation, fine motor skills as well as dramatic tension. But it has yet to fully exploit all of those element with any degree of consistency, partly because of it's cinema heritage, and the strong familiarity that people have of it.
The same way that cinema gradually moved away from the theatre mindset and that photography moved away from a painting mindset, while still retaining caracteristics reminiscing of them, videogames are evolving and will continue to evolve.
I also think it would be interesting to look at the way games are reviewed, and how it evolves with time. Because it seems that the way a particular medium is critiqued formalises the medium, identifies the structure of the idiom and procures guidelines to follow or break. It provides a structure, on which the artform can lean on.
Those are very interesting issues on a theoretical stand point, and I'm still waiting for this. It dosen't at all diminishes the pleasure of playing the present games however
Strioa
I think Art is something that involves us in some way that can bring your emotional side to connect with your rational side. This can happen with a good book (like Neal Stephenson books), this can happen with movies (I really like Contact), but the only time I can remember this ever happening with games was in those nice years I got to play those cool LucasArts adventures, monkey island series, indiana jones and the fate of atlantis, loom, the dig. Games that were a true form of art, they captured us for hours, we marveled the graphics, the plots, the puzzles, the music... everything was fun. It was like interacting with a movie or a book, it was like being part of a history. It's sad that we're no longer building adventures, almost all efforts now are put in some weird FPS... I miss chating with my friends on how to defeat some puzzle on Day of the Tentacle.
-- Por mais que eu ande no vale das trevas e da morte, meu PowerMac G4 Não Travará!!!
I appreciate good craftsmanship on something I can own and use. I have little or no use for pure art.
Being married to one of the SCA seneschals has exposed me to a lot of very nice craftsmanship, from the clothing, leatherwork, sword makers, potters and most importantly of all, brewers of ales.
Likewise modern craftsmen have all turned into case modders, and although I've seen some boring ones, I've seen some really nice work. And the craftsmen, not the artists, are steering the PC gaming industry in ways that the industry couldn't easily predict. Now you have companies like Lian-Li and Alienware and just about every-one else selling pre-modded cases because people do respect the craftsmanship.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
To an extent they can be differentiated easily.
Craft is generally always useful, from tea cosies to quilts to case mods to furniture, aesthetically pleasing but also intrinsically functional.
Art is generally always useless, from statues to paintings to interpretive dance and performance art.
So the best way to tell is that the artists are the ones being loaded onto the "B" ark.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
ICO on the PS2 was the most enjoyable gaming experience i've ever had. It was so incredible. Imagine a finely tuned peice of poetry transformed into an interactive experience.
Its a dreamy game, that says only what it needs to, and lets your emotions figure out the rest. The ending is simply breathtaking.
There are very few games that are truely a artfull experience and even those do not come close to ICO.
ICO is perhaps one of the finest peices of art the gaming industry has ever seen.
The music... THE BEST EVER in a videogame.
I could write endlessly about ICO because it such an experience. Games are something you do to pass time, but ICO isnt a GAME... it really is fine art because you connect with the characters and truely feel the exeperience. At the end of the game you feel the emotion and the loss.... It can not be described litterally because the game is very subtle yet highly effective if you embrace the awkardness of the story telling methods used in the game. The game is subtle. It tells you only what you need to know, to get you to an emotional state. Somepeople get bored and usually those people come back and say "well i finally beat ICO and i'm so fucking happy i did..."
PLAY ICO. If you can find a copy. Its hard to find, and HOLD ON TO IT. Its the best game ever made.
As far as them being art, they sure are. And I also think the are a sport. I would rather watch some professional gamers play against each other on TV than watch a baseball game or anything like that. I predict that in less than 20 years, gamers will make huge contracts and a lot of money playing for the masses.
Art is a mapping between a physical object and an abstract thought.
Shameless self-promotion:
Google's #1 Link for "game music": the Videogame Music Archive
I founded the site in December 1996. Enjoy!
Super Mario Bros. Theme: Beep boop boop, boop boop boop boop, boop boop boop boop, boop boop, boooop, boop boop boom. The midi files are a lot more expressive.
PS A rock isn't art for the simple reason that it's not art. I can make that simple distinction without involving any kind of concept of intent.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.