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Blow-Back From Ebert's Latest Games Assertion
Last week's new diatribe from Roger Ebert on the merits of games had some people up in arms. Commentary ranged from the respectful at Ars Technica, to the dismissive statements at GameCritics. N'Gai Croal, of Newsweek's LevelUp, has a lengthy and thoughtful look at the issue from both sides. From his comments: "It's the right of someone with the maturity of an honest and articulate four-year-old to forget the history of his own favored art form and close his mind to the potential of another. In the meantime, those of us who care about the possibilities inherent in this medium will have to rely upon ourselves and one another to keep doing the heavy lifting necessary to suss out where the art of videogames lies; to determine how the craft can enhance that art; and to continue the fight to push this young medium from squalling infancy into graceful adulthood. Let's get cracking."
Why should we (gamers and game creators) care what Roger Ebert says?
The only point I deemed even somewhat worthy from Ebert was exactly his concern over interactivity. Essentially, it's what differentiates the film medium from the video game medium. There is plenty to debate in that area, considering that this is the first medium that allows the actual audience to play a part, versus how many people participate in recreating the work (as in a play or movie).
The funny thing is, however, that a large portion of the "high art" contemporary art world is actively exploring audience interaction. The catch there is though, is that an awful lot of contemporary critics refuse to believe that anything that became a part of popular culture could no longer be considered art, as it was something else now. What else? They don't know, don't bother to know, don't care. Thus video games != art.
I actually wrote a lengthy paper for a Contemporary Art class debating whether or not video games could be considered art. The snag I ran into with my professor was pretty much the exact moot point I found Ebert stumbling on. What always got me laughing was that at some point or another in the history of art, there is a counter example for every point these contemporary critics believe prove A. is art but B. is not. Take when photography first began as a medium, for example. Walter Benjamin wrote that photographs could not be considered art, because they were reproductions of the work, and no longer had the "aura" that true art contained. But today, photographs can most certainly be considered art. This also kind of derides the argument that what exists in popular culture can not be art, because the only differentiating factor from that is the amount of people that acknowledge the work, due to mass copying. Film as well, was criticized because it incorporated new elements. Instead of just a stand still picture, there was sound, and a plot! But film today can be considered art (not to mention all of the basic elements within film can exist independently as an art form).
Basically, the argument by "true" art critics comes down to 2 points. They either refuse to acknowledge interactivity as a new element, or they believe that the video game medium is a mash-up of other art forms, but where the collected parts are not as great as the whole. Both of these arguments can be countered in the "true" art world, as I stated previously.
I do agree with you that art is a personal choice, and whatever a person chooses to consider art becomes art to themselves. But when you enter the "high" art culture, the argument becomes a whole nother ballgame, complete with flimsy logic and cloudy thoughts. At the end of my paper, I came down to these two points, disproving them (in a much more eloquent fashion however), but essentially ended on the point that ultimately, it becomes the artists' job to create something out of that medium that can be considered art by more than a few. And what happened in the end? My professor hated it. For him to even acknowledge I could be right, would essentially destroy his entire lifes' work as an artist. It would show that popular culture can produce mediums that are art worthy, and one doesn't not need to be in this exclusive circle in order to be a true artist.
But then again, those that we acknowledge today as great artists were more often than not, considered to be almost treasonous to their craft. Look at the history of Modern Art. From Manet, Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso...(it's a long list)..and I'll stop at Pollock since he springs most to mind as the most recent debate within the art world, well, every single one of them caused a great divide between "art" and "not art", but ultimately, they created the revolution that allowed art to progress.
Within Ebert's definition of "high art", it is not unreasonable to state that games do not pass muster. The way he defines high art, it precludes the kind of interactivity that is in most games. Nothing wrong wit that.
But what about the individual elements that go into a game -- like the textures, or background images, or cutscenes, or level designs, or soundtrack -- can those be "high art", even if the game as a whole is not?
The Mona Lisa is, unquestionably, High Art. Would it still be High Art if I used it as a texture for my "Louvre Deathmatch" game mod?
What if I made an original painting of equal artistic merit as the Mona Lisa, but instead of exhibiting it in a hoighty-toighty gallery I used it in a game -- would my choice of context instantly make my painting become Not Art?
If a famous composer wrote a symphonic work specifically for a game, would it still be High Art? Why (not)?
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