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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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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
The two are not mutually exclusive. Just as not all that is done with paint is considered art, not all video games are. But, like some work that is done with paint is considered art, it is equally logical that some video games can be seen as art. There are those who consider movies art. Lets take, for instance, Toy Story. That is definitely art, in my opinion. Now, lets take a video game like Diablo II. Have you watched the movies that play when you beat a level? Are those any less deserving of being called Art? If so, why do you draw a distinction between one animation that is played on a big screen vs one that is on your computer? Are the 3D models of the monsters any more or less art than the models used in Toy Story?
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
:wq!
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?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
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
Go to eBay and check the price of Radiant Silvergun, THEN tell me video game prices only depreciate. A big reason most games don't appreciate in value is the number of copies that are produced. Rarer games, especially good ones like Silvergun, are priced accordingly.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
is that art is relative to both the artist and the viewer.
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 ;)