is that art is created solely to be art. Kojima does imply that functionality is a detriment to the creation of art, because then the object is made not simply to be an art object, but to then perform some purpose. This has already been challenged in the art world several times over--Claes Oldenburg's paint-splattered bed, for one--and the sister subject, whether there is something artistic lying in that which is created primarily to be functional (namely Warhol's silkscreens of soup cans).
Perhaps our secondhand interview doesn't give us the whole story of what he's suggesting. That first line, about art radiating the artist, seems to speak to the large number of people who collaborate to create the experience that is the game. That is, can art really radiate one particular viewpoint when that art is the coalescence of several hundred people's expressions? (Go buy Psychonauts and learn that, yes, it can.)
Kojima's comments raise more questions than they answer, if there really are answers in anything like aesthetics, and maybe that's the point. The particular cultural assertions that define what to Kojima is art are necessarily different than Americans', so I'm not entirely sure we're supposed to see eye-to-eye here. I do know, from the art objects I've seen from Japan, that the physical artifacts maintained from antiquity pose a very definite separation between utility and artistic purpose. The screens and fans we see are treated as dual objects--the fan is one thing-in-itself, and the adornment on the fan is another.
Honestly anything that kick-starts this discourse, especially on a wider scale, is a good thing.
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is that art is created solely to be art. Kojima does imply that functionality is a detriment to the creation of art, because then the object is made not simply to be an art object, but to then perform some purpose. This has already been challenged in the art world several times over--Claes Oldenburg's paint-splattered bed, for one--and the sister subject, whether there is something artistic lying in that which is created primarily to be functional (namely Warhol's silkscreens of soup cans). Perhaps our secondhand interview doesn't give us the whole story of what he's suggesting. That first line, about art radiating the artist, seems to speak to the large number of people who collaborate to create the experience that is the game. That is, can art really radiate one particular viewpoint when that art is the coalescence of several hundred people's expressions? (Go buy Psychonauts and learn that, yes, it can.) Kojima's comments raise more questions than they answer, if there really are answers in anything like aesthetics, and maybe that's the point. The particular cultural assertions that define what to Kojima is art are necessarily different than Americans', so I'm not entirely sure we're supposed to see eye-to-eye here. I do know, from the art objects I've seen from Japan, that the physical artifacts maintained from antiquity pose a very definite separation between utility and artistic purpose. The screens and fans we see are treated as dual objects--the fan is one thing-in-itself, and the adornment on the fan is another. Honestly anything that kick-starts this discourse, especially on a wider scale, is a good thing.