Video Games and Art (Video Games AS Art) (and so on)

This thread is a continuation of sorts of Ebert Video Game Commentary Hullabaloo

and references a couple of things brought up towards the end of RPGs are better in 2D. Discuss!

here's an article about a discussion that MoMA did have about 4 years ago.

From his statement:

While my body, mind, and self-perception changed since my first affair with Adventure!, its code laid dormant, neither growing or changing, so that when I returned to the game after a decade’s absence I encountered a shell of my past identity. I remembered how my body used to fit it: I was a homunculus inside the mind of a tiny rectangle, exploring the vast mazes of a 4kb Atari cartridge.

Adventure! is the first video game I remember playing, and is the first time I experienced and became aware of the multiplicity of identity. I was to become that little square and my disordered, confusing body was displaced as I grabbed the controls and became a tiny, perfect rectangle. The form I took was entirely abstract. I made it a humanoid; I made it sympathetic. By playing it, I authored it.

Screencaps, clips, and artist's statement are here:

http://www.r-p-l.org/TEAMS/DUST_BUNNIES/PROJECTS/persistent_clips_main.html

He's a cool kid, check that shit out.

I can't help but think more of sports than literature or graphic art, at least regarding the role of videogames. Is chess art? Is football art? Sure, in their own ways.

http://www.neatorama.com/2006/09/05/jason-huangs-lovepixel/

has anyone else been keeping an eye on the upcoming jeff minter game, space giraffe for the xbox360?

new screenshots up on yakyak

http://www.yakyak.org/viewtopic.php?t=65244

(warning, large images)

see also, his visualiser that is bundled with all xbox360s.

he's been writing about it in an edge column for a few months now. I am pretty excited by it.

holy shit, new yak game? amazing!

Also, where the hell is SPORE already?

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1082/708958045_8981045405.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1166/709080033_60a8345bf8.jpg

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1203/708734823_54d6c8324e.jpg

what is this

GTA:LCS I believe. I like them Ste, I like the last one most of all.

Yes it's me going crazy with a camera on GTA messing around with shutter speeds and the photoshop perspective tool With all this rain at the moment I can't take pictures of anything else!

Yeah I blurred the cranes and bridge in that last one, which I think works to some rainy effect level.

one more

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1347/708875089_5012a91efc.jpg

I like the effect but I think that if you're softening the rider you need to soften all the sharp edges especially on the wheels. Does that makes sense?

i would be really happy if you could do this for Ico

do you mean the riders head? it was accidentally softened because of where the blur mask was set down the screen, i guess i should have art-history'd his head back in focus.

I meant his knees as well, the wheels aren't as rounded...

yeah i don't know what happened at the knees, i think the contrast between the white bike and the black outfit blew out when I curved it to death.

I... don't know what that means...

its a tool in photoshop, the curve tool. i use it to enhance contrast and colour. which i used to the max on this one.

Ah. Cheers. More plz.

I like the last one best, it looks like those faux-model train miniatures shots that were all the rage on ILE for a few days way back when

Oh the larks as people tried to recreate them. Good attempts though and definitely one or two successes! Can't find thread though, sorry. Had something to do with model railways in the title.

It looks like a miniature trainset but really, oh that one really is: Olivo Barbieri and fake tilt-shifting photos

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1158/672349917_cd085ef7f1_b.jpg

Tracer, a star is you.

Ste, loving those! May we use them as wallpaper?

yeah course, do what you want with them.

and thanks

loving the graphics on this up and coming release

http://www.machinarium.com/

that's just concept art, right?

No, it's a 2D adventure game, that is the actual art. I remember the flash games that guy made, pretty cool looking stuff.

looks and sounds good! very lucasartsy.

i just checked out the flash game, very nice indeed

http://amanita-design.net/samorost-2/

some interesting picks.
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2012/games/winninggames.pdf

hmm... "interesting" indeed

messed up

okay i saw these done on the internet recently, lego incarnations of video game characters (alright its hardly original). but i thought i'd try one myself.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zMQG1qIiAaI/Tcr42eYVPKI/AAAAAAAAAEw/yKJPV69syyA/s1600/samcruiselego.jpg

Nice!

thanks, i pretty much ran out of black bricks after this. but i want to do another one instead and keep it on my shelf. perhaps one with more colour

also the aspect ratio of the brick sizes means they look a little stretched horizontally. this would lend itself well to atari type ones, or bbc mode 2 graphics!

Modes 2 and 5 had pixels that were twice as wide as they were tall. Modes 1 and 4 had square pixels. The aspect ratio for Lego bricks is something like 1 unit high, two thirds of a unit wide?
http://www.lugnet.com/~330/FAQ/Build/dimensions

oh i'm using 2 brick slots horizontally to 1 vertically, because i have more thick bricks than thin.

so yeah, if i just used single bricks it would be then stretched upwards. i tried this actually with a galaxian sprite and it looked stupid.

some interesting picks.
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2012/games/winninggames.pdf

― Stone Colde Sylke Freek (forksclovetofu), Friday, May 6, 2011 12:10 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

hmm... "interesting" indeed

― Nhex, Friday, May 6, 2011 10:21 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

messed up

― Lamp, Friday, May 6, 2011 10:23 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark

metroid prime 2... smh...

okay i'm happy with this one, i didn't have any pink lego tho

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_I3eKqGiWLz8/TcxM_D4ykRI/AAAAAAAAAFM/wyYc8P-srR0/s512/2011-05-12%2022.04.25.jpg

Way of the AS-PLODING FIST!!!

that looks A+!
instructions, please

Good work, sir!

(eyes .jpg, looks at bag of lego on the floor, strokes chin)

Those look very fun to make! They also look awesome.

Games= art, apparently http://www.techspot.com/news/43696-the-us-legally-recognizes-video-games-as-an-art-form.html?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4dc8487e9cc70318%2C0

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2011/06/the-aesthetics-of-video-games.html#more

scroll down. video game art exhibit

http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/11/29/video-games-14-in-the-collection-for-starters/

what is...art

Marble Madness is art

Over the next few years, we would like to complete this initial selection with Spacewar! (1962), an assortment of games for the Magnavox Odyssey console (1972), Pong (1972), Snake (originally designed in the 1970s; Nokia phone version dates from 1997), Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979), Zork (1979), Tempest (1981), Donkey Kong (1981), Yars’ Revenge (1982), M.U.L.E. (1983), Core War (1984), Marble Madness (1984), Super Mario Bros. (1985), The Legend of Zelda (1986), NetHack (1987), Street Fighter II (1991), Chrono Trigger (1995), Super Mario 64 (1996), Grim Fandango (1998), Animal Crossing (2001), and Minecraft (2011).

way to reach for the stars there

or you know, i could just let them come over to my house and borrow some stuff

For one weird, horrible moment there I thought Yars' Revenge read Custer's Revenge.

okay that would be amazing

hahaha oh god that would be an amazing choice

xposts!

the world's most unsurprising xpost

was coming to post that link in lolz thread

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/nov/30/moma-video-games-art

I haven't read this yet but I suspect dude's picture is going to tell me everything I need to know about the article:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/2/26/1235669002764/Badge-Jonathan-Jones-on-A-001.jpg

JONATHANJONES
SHART
BLOG

I read about three sentences of dude's column before the urge to punch my computer became overwhelming and I had to stop

good choice w/ dwarf fortress!

The worlds created by electronic games are more like playgrounds where experience is created by the interaction between a player and a programme.

nabokov to thread

ya seems like a sound enough defn of art to me

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD_(video_game)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnNgv1qDLGM

So often when someone wants to challenge the idea of what a game is, the solution is: meandering around in some landscape, no points or score or levels. Virtual reality, Second Life, Proteus ... it's a very TED conference mode of game abstraction. But to me the real essence of video gaming is in rule sets, and the nuances of gameplay. The absence of rules in a game can be an choice in an art game, but if you can't abstract the idea of game rules beyond eliminating them altogether I don't really feel like you're qualified to think about games as art.

i don't disagree with that. journey does a good job of it i think.

Agreed.

otm. As with most art, it isn't the song, it's the singer.

what do you guys think of demo scene stuff? those dudes seem to have gotten lost in the conversation.

I think of that stuff as programming art.

like their code is really clean? a lot of those dudes went on to games and gaming hardware.

Not just that it's clean, but it's creative. They're like Joey Pants in The Matrix, to use the most hackneyed example possible.

But also it's very much in the tradition of abstract animation, going back to Oskar Fischinger or whatev

i feel the same way, they're sort of related to this, but essentially little pieces or code sculptures

what's the barrier to accepting them as the standard bearers for video game art rather than footnotes? as for influences, i really see them being more aligned with graffiti than avant animation.

what's the barrier to accepting them as the standard bearers for video game art rather than footnotes?

They can be, and maybe they are. But these demoscene videos aren't games, in the same way that cutscenes aren't games. In the same way that the matte painting isn't a game, but if you put it in the background and let Mario run across it then it's part of a game's art assets. And it offers programmers the sort of challenges that make them great candidates to work in the game industry, as you said.

as for influences, i really see them being more aligned with graffiti than avant animation.

why?

re: graffiti, they're grouped in crews, it's full of boasting and shoutouts, associated with vaguely illegal activity, etc... The effects are deployed and received, and when you read reactions from their peers to their execution, it's a lot like someone landing a particularly difficult skateboard trick.
i agree they aren't games in the traditional sense, but they are certainly not videos -- they are intended to be "played" on what you could call a specific set of instruments, and it's up to the audience to meet those demands, in the same way it's up to a game player to gather some arbitrary set of achievements to advance the game.

So are the demoscenes different every time, based on some sort of user input?

re: graffiti, they're grouped in crews, it's full of boasting and shoutouts, associated with vaguely illegal activity, etc...

You could say the same thing about abstract expressionism. Also there are plenty of graffiti artists who don't fit that description.

"So are the demoscenes different every time, based on some sort of user input?"
kind of. they depend on what kind of hardware you put together etc... what modes you choose.

that would be an interesting game, pick which name is the abstract expressionist, graffiti crew, or demo group.

they depend on what kind of hardware you put together etc... what modes you choose.

Like a synthesizer?

some demos were optimized for gravis sound board if that's what you mean. there's very much a performative aspect to it, since what's impressive about them is the ability to do so much with so little. to flatten them to videos destroys the ritual.

some demos were optimized for gravis sound board if that's what you mean.

What I mean is: the visuals are different depending on how you adjust the knobs or levers or etc., whether they're tangible or virtual. A live performance.

some demos did, though the kind of explicit visual control you're looking for was pretty rare. one simple way to vary the graphics in a more oblique way would be to use your keystrokes as a seed number for whatever procedural graphic routines might run.

Found object art, too. Duchamp signing a toilet, cracking groups signing a pirated game.

but was duchamp l33t?

He DDOS'd the Mona Lisa

So often when someone wants to challenge the idea of what a game is, the solution is: meandering around in some landscape, no points or score or levels. Virtual reality, Second Life, Proteus ... it's a very TED conference mode of game abstraction. But to me the real essence of video gaming is in rule sets, and the nuances of gameplay.

i agree that it isn't v inventive. in general i don't think 'simulations' of any kind are; i think what's distinctive & interesting/exciting about computer games is the ability to interact w/ an enormously complicated system, tracking all those variables, almost infinite permutations, being able to play around w/ that stuff. dwarf fortress is the best example i can think of a game that impresses me in that sense, it feels pure to me.

video games aren't art.

that's not a knock. they just belong to a different category. i don't think they even engage the same parts of your brain as art, at all.

I agree w you if we're going to say art stopped in the 50's, but if you look at performance art, conceptual art, Fluxus, sensationalism, post-modern art, video art, environmental art, appropriation, etc. etc. everything that has happened since abstract expressionism and before that even then it almost seems like more of a disservice towards art to say that video games are one thing that it can never be.

Though I think I understand where you are coming from. Playing a game at the top of your skill - usually a game you have played many times before, in your past - is very much like throwing a pitch in baseball, or bowling a strike. It engages that part of the brain where you are in THE ZONE, where you sense things before your brain should physically detect them, where you and the game are one. Not much art that you find in galleries (if any?) does this. Then again you can probably find people that say baseball is art.

The problem with video games is that they are so much more complex then classical Fine Art and even conceptual PoMo Art. Here are some of the dimensions you could possibly discuss with just about any given game, just coming up with these off the top of my head:

- in-game character & environmental depiction/animation techniques
- title & ending screens/cutscenes/attract modes
- gamer control & interaction/instances of 'Friction' as Tim Rogers likes to say
- appropriation/recontextualization/references to other art forms
- programming prowess/console pushing/code efficiency
- box art/promotional ads/tv commercials
- international approaches towards censorship
- public reception/historical context
- legacy/add-ons/mods/hacks

-glitches

-foley/sound effects/music composition

there's artistic STUFF in video games, but that doesn't make them an art form

i mean, there's nice wallpaper in a train compartment, that doesnt make rail travel an art

i don't say that to denigrate video games or shut them out of a pantheon, i just think that art is not the right way to think about them, and that doing so actually precludes interesting investigation of what they actually are

How many decades do you think it'll take not for games to be considered art, but for us to have evolved language and understanding to actually describe what games do?

s1ocks, all those are arguments that were levied at film for the first thirty or so years too

Is Scrabble art? Pinochle? Charades? The Super Bowl?

scrabble is an inert rule set that allows for puzzle play. Pinochle is the same but less puzzle play and more probability wagers. Charades, if done right, can be artistic as it incorporates acting/dance/mime. Athletic displays (done well) are always artistic; it's one of the main reasons i watch sports.

or more to the point, some games come closer to art than others depending on the skill, intent and execution of both the gamer and the gamemaker.

Hideo Kojima argues iirc that video games can never be inherently artistic because of the necessity of functionality and playability.

Dude has obviously never mixed a record, served a meal, framed a painting, produced a work of theatre, etc.

explains the fucking cutscenes

I disagree w you s1ocki though, my opinion is that the games that are the most "artistic" are the ones that don't take their artistic elements from film (Journey) or books (RPGs) or music (Rez) or choreography (shmups) but the ones that are computational exercises like Tetris and Galaga and Pac-Man. You might call them gamey

interactive art is hardly an original idea? walking through a serra or a smithson is the prescribed way to appreciate it.

saints row > a blue man group show

s1ocks, all those are arguments that were levied at film for the first thirty or so years too

films arent art either

but slock dogg otm

s1ocks, all those are arguments that were levied at film for the first thirty or so years too

― i didn't even give much of a fuck that you were mod (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, June 11, 2013 11:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

examples?

i'm not arguing that games are a "low" or "debased" form, like saying "that comic book trash isn't art!" i'm saying that the way we experience them has nothing to do with the way we experience art except maybe tangentially (like when you take a second to admire a background during a load screen or wtv)

I agree that pure games are anti-art in that they facilitate expression instead of expressing things themselves
But this is also why I think demos get short shrift in the videogames as art conversation, because they are almost purely expressive

arent demos just video clips? are they interactive?

honestly the more interactive a thing gets, the less like art it is to me

they typically aren't very interactive but you do have a role to play as the audience that goes beyond watching a video clip

It seems v silly to look at things like LSD and ROM Check Fail and say straight-up "video games cannot be art at all, ever"

i've never seen those before but i might argue that they're not games!

oh come on dude

yeah, "interactive things are not art!" "those interactive art things are not games!", this is like some kind of logical whack-a-mole.

there's artistic STUFF in video games, but that doesn't make them an art form

There are artistic EXPERIENCES in videogames that might borrow the stuff of other media, but wouldn't be the same without the interactive element. Like flying a plane into a huge rosy dawn sun after successfully completing a GTA mission, and Crockett's Theme coming on the radio. That's one of my favourite memories! And I wouldn't have been half as moved if I'd just been watching it on a cinema screen.

i'm moved when i watch a sunset but i wouldnt call it art

and i like i said, i dont doubt that there are occasional art-like experiences/moments when playing video games but they're outliers, accidental

it's not interaction but the degree of control and expression you lease to a player that makes a game more of a game and less of an art
They are almost contradictory goals so it's not surprising that trying to meet in the middle will always be harder than going to the ends.

thats definitely part of what im saying

take cut-scenes... like basically, these aren't part of the game at all. they're mini-movies in between playing the actual game. i find that kind of tension irritating. i hate any moment i'm playing a game that i'm not in control of the player/avatar/whatever

i'm moved when i watch a sunset but i wouldnt call it art

a) it was a combination of things, not just the sunset; ii) would you call a painting of a sunset art?

I think as games get more complex - and as they learn to combine the artistic and interactive elements more successfully - these experiences get more common (and deliberate). As opposed to flamboyant goon tie I think the ludic elements are the least amenable to being called art, perhaps with the exception of self-referential meta-games like rom check fail. With all their graphical and musical complexity it's easy to dismiss modern games as just artistically piggybacking on other media, but the immersion and interaction they present is a new and unique form of experience.

i don't disagree! i just wouldn't call it art. i would call it gaming!

it's a bold new world out there! but that doesn't mean we need to keep pretending that games aren't something that they're not, just because "art" sounds better!

wait so are we also arguing that interactive art is not art?

"art" DOES sound better than "gaming", as describing that kind of experience, while gaming is already more closely associated with competition and gambling

interactive art is an uncomfortable, unwieldy phrase though

so are "graphic novels" but...

wait so are we also arguing that interactive art is not art?

― ed ASMR (Stevie D(eux)), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 12:02 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

some of it! and some of it is art.

(and most of it sucks, because interactivity and art don't work together)

Why are you reluctant to call it art? What definition of art are you going by that seems to exclude these things? Yeah yeah can o' worms; but I get from games the kind of didactic/empathetic/aesthetic experiences I get from other media and that I woollily think of as 'art'.

What about Nam June Paik's experiments with video and tape and stuff in the 70's?

Why are you reluctant to call it art? What definition of art are you going by that seems to exclude these things? Yeah yeah can o' worms; but I get from games the kind of didactic/empathetic/aesthetic experiences I get from other media and that I woollily think of as 'art'.

― nagl dude dude dude (ledge), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 12:18 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

well why WOULD you call it art? i get none of the same aesthetic experiences from a game than i do from basically any other kind of media or experience. video games can be really compelling but they occupy just a completely different space. all the "artful" stuff in video games is just decoration as far as im concerned.

and most of it sucks, because interactivity and art don't work together

omgggg

they don't! they're totally incompatible.

and—let me emphasize—i'm not saying video games are less intelligent, less creative, made with any less care than "art"

i don't think food is art either, even the most incredibly prepared food

actually, food is probably more like art than video games, because you just consume it, you don't really interact with it otherwise

i get none of the same aesthetic experiences from a game than i do from basically any other kind of media or experience.

slock when's the last time you went to a museum or gallery that exhibited contemporary art?

art and interaction mix idg how you think they don't, i mean you've been to museums

i agree that video games can be 'artistic' w/o actually being 'art', and i think the central difference btw games and art is how we xp them, but it's not really their 'interactivity' that governs this its the relationship btw creater/consumer and developer/player that does i think. the game exists in the space in which its played, its meaning is created by the player the context by the developer, art is kinda the opposite. games are better than art in a lot of ways for everyone but the people that make art

when i'm playing a game, i'm "on"—i'm trying to accomplish some task in exchange for a reward. i'm "leveling up," grabbing ammo, jumping on mushrooms... the pleasure that this gives me has nothing to do with the pleasure i derive from a film, a story, etc, in which i have no "job" to do.

even at a base level you have to walk into a gallery to see your modigliani and the way it is mounted and the way you walk toward it constitute interactivity

on a less didactic level you are suggesting that approx. 25% of all conceptual art is "not art". i've seen about 40-50 big pieces of yes it is art in the past ten years that required interactivity: yoko ono, wim delvoye, christian marclay, tino sehgal, janet cardiff immediately spring to mind

all the "artful" stuff in video games is just decoration as far as im concerned.

what if this stuff (cut scenes, graphics, etc) isn't the artful stuff? what if the real artfulness of a game is in intentionally-designed systems coming together to create an emotional response?

xp

art and interaction mix idg how you think they don't, i mean you've been to museums

it's possible for them to mix but i can barely think of a handful of examples that i found meaningful or that worked for me at all. what are the great works of interactive art? in this age of total interactivity with everything, don't you find it a bit suspicious that there is no "canon" of interactive art? that barely anyone you know who isn't an art nerd could even name one work?

i don't count experiencing the artwork (walking around a gallery, sitting in a movie theater) as interactivity, if you call that interactivity the word is pretty much too vague to be meaningful

what if this stuff (cut scenes, graphics, etc) isn't the artful stuff? what if the real artfulness of a game is in intentionally-designed systems coming together to create an emotional response?

xp

― precious bonsai children of new york (Jordan), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 12:36 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

games don't create emotional responses in me

i guess that's the heart of it?

i'm enjoying this convo btw!

as a kid, i got thrown out of the red grooms exhibit for jumping around the subway car. sort of my first griefing session

i hope yall realize i am trying to unpack something that really interests me here and not trying to be a dick or anything

yeah, i dig s1ocks, not trying to fight
i have had emotional responses with games, i'm embarrassed to admit. journey got me. the end of limbo got me. walking dead occasionally gets me. i don't know if that's the barrier to entry for art tho.

i guess i would define interactivity as going beyond just you taking it in, but you reacting back and provoking a discrete response from the piece

i have had emotional responses with games, i'm embarrassed to admit. journey got me. the end of limbo got me. walking dead occasionally gets me. i don't know if that's the barrier to entry for art tho.

― i didn't even give much of a fuck that you were mod (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 12:40 PM (28 seconds ago) Bookmark

i'm gonna walk back and say i don't EVER get those responses, but to me they are outliers, incidental, and never the "point" of the session

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7k-WY8MHLis/T27ywf2EPKI/AAAAAAAABwk/IThYXHJkOdU/s800/randomaccess.jpg

"In this tape installation [...] the visitor can use the sound head, which has been detached from the tape recorder, to interactively run through the tapes glued to the wall, and constantly vary the sound sequence according to location and speed. This random access to the musical raw material enabled visitors to produce compositions of their own."

dude this is not "not art"

but to me they are outliers, incidental, and never the "point" of the session

If I can summarize my thoughts at the risk of repeating what other people have already said:

My problem with the "games as art" debate is that a lot of the dialogue revolves around pre-existing notions of "how art should be" and you've got people pointing out cutscenes or character development or sweet design choices as indications that games can contain some intrinsic artistic worth. I think it's bullshit, and I can see where Hideo Kojima and s1ocki are coming from, respectively. Nothing I've read in a game has been better than a book, and nothing I've seen in a game has been better than a movie, and nothing I've heard in a game has been better than an album, blah blah blah

But there is art in video games, there is already that sense of "connecting to the infinite" that you feel when you view the works of The Great Masters. In my experience it has been the experience of decoding the code, unpacking it into a level of playability-- the same way that your ears have been trained to decipher "this is the sound of a piano" "this is a major scale" "this is sonata-allegro form" "this is Mozart" "he was drunk when he wrote this".

In my experience these beautiful experiences of unpacking have been mostly found in text adventure games, interactive fiction and rogue-likes. Galaga and Tetris are the best examples, because they play the same every time, and it's about deciphering mathematical probabilities and revising your muscular response. You're not communicating with a friend via a set of rules, as you are with chess. You are interacting with a work of art, as designed by the "auteur" programmer, and deciphering it, as you would any work of art.

Re: "name a piece of IF", I challenge you to get any non-nerd to name any work by Bach

i'm gonna walk back and say i don't EVER get those responses, but to me they are outliers, incidental, and never the "point" of the session

I guess you have to play the right kind of games or be open to this kind of response so I daresay your experience is probably the common one. But if you do get emotional responses from conventionally 'non art' games like gta or red dead redemption I think it's doing a disservice to the game designers to call them incidental. These experiences will become more and more common imo.

Nothing I've read in a game has been better than a book, and nothing I've seen in a game has been better than a movie, and nothing I've heard in a game has been better than an album, blah blah blah

Is this eternally and necessarily true?

tbrr I think Samba de Amigo encapsulates the idea of a game as a piece of art

it seems a little weird to talk about "the point" as if it's a given. i may not sit down to play a game in search of an emotionally resonant experience, but neither do i do that 100% of the time with books, films, albums, etc. lots of artistic media can occupy an area somewhere between functionality and (let's say) catharsis, and it's constantly shifting (even within a single experience).

xp: (part of this is directly tied to how much I love "Samba de Janiero" though)

if theres no bob ross for video games can we even have this discussion

s1ocki's post about train compartments is really making me angry

@ ledge, not 100%, but maybe 99% no. It doesn't work most of the time, almost all of the time it doesn't work. I feel that game designers who try to be musicians/authors/directors are missing the point of what makes their games so beautiful

I would argue that there's a capacity for huge development in the fusion of choreography and cinematography with gaming. Choreography: 2D schmups, Starfox, Sin & Punishment, any game where models unfold before your eyes in geometric patterns. Cinematography: "Journey", obv.

You are interacting with a work of art, as designed by the "auteur" programmer, and deciphering it, as you would any work of art.

you aren't 'deciphering' it tho you're creating it. i mean you're actually playing it i guess but in the space we're in you're not reading the text you're writing it or however you want to phrase things to capture the distinction.

i'm trying to think of the best way to succinctly illustrate the difference btw the space in which the player of a game operates and the space in which a consumer of art does but for me that's the key. i think these spaces overlap that that are artful games and gamelike art projects but i dont think 'unpacking' works at all the same in the two.

Well, I do. Exploring the world of Ico = exploring the Dom cathedral = listening to Thomas Tallis = going to a concert = going to an opening. At a very base level though we might as well be arguing whether or not architecture should be considered art, seeing as it's the closest medium to game design

no it isnt

i think architecture compared to videogame landscaping has similar problems in that the goals of being a livable sustainable space and a piece of art are almost irreconcilable. (e.g. upkeep involved in that frank lloyd wright house that's always falling apart)

exploring ico shares more in common with playing a game of baseball than any of the things you mentioned

games are explorations of rules systems more than they are ideas/emotions/experiences or w/e. maybe that's a good way to phrase it - games are defined by the systems that govern them

I think that is an old fashioned notion of games that doesn't take into account the sense of immersion and depth of experience possible in modern games (and apparently so decried by goon tie). That's why the central question of the thread was never even posed before the advent of videogames.

Afaik

Is the Mona Lisa a game?

the idea that that kind of immersion is the sole province of video games will likely be this weird cul de sac in history as people who actually want to make art to that effect rather than games start making apps or something else entirely instead, like some google goggle gaggle.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7k-WY8MHLis/T27ywf2EPKI/AAAAAAAABwk/IThYXHJkOdU/s800/randomaccess.jpg

Or is this thing?

Xp I wouldn't say it's the sole province, but it seems to be the central one at the moment. I'd be all for non game immersive interactive art (but who's to say they wouldn't be games, hell it's all semantics anyway ¯\(°_o)/¯

Nothing I've read in a game has been better than a book, and nothing I've seen in a game has been better than a movie, and nothing I've heard in a game has been better than an album, blah blah blah

This is largely true; I've always been disappointed that video games I've played have never really reached the greatness-level of other art forms. Though, I must say, EarthBound comes very close in the text and music depts.

This is the 'video games are art they're just bad art' response, which strikes me as somewhat short sighted.

cf. sturgeon's law

i'd say games do reach that sense of greatness if you allow them to operate as games and let the players create the art (like a fischer-spassky match, or daigo vs whomever)

Philip Nunez described architecture as the creation of a "livable sustainable space" that requires "upkeep" and that is game design, no?

I mean, not across the board, but in any sort of game that features a virtual 2D or 3D environment, requires patching and porting, etc.

oh for god's sake everybody

people make stuff for other people to interact with, we can talk about the stuff itself or we could play a taxonomical parlor game that never ends

you aren't 'deciphering' it tho you're creating it.

welcome to art!

i wouldn't hamstring architecture to those constraints but what makes for good, livable houses often does not make for art, and likewise what makes for good, playable games won't jibe with art either. same problem with cuisine as art. having to taste good and be edible is kind of a downer if you want to make some kind of strychnine foam that evokes the memory of being poisoned by strychnine or something.

likewise what makes for entertaining and "readable" novels etc

ugh sorry i have to get on a bus i didn't mean to be aggressive and then immediately disappear but yknow i'll be around l8r

@ ledge and Stevie

I am only restating the "videogames make bad art" argument because while I believe it to be true, I also believe the statement to be worthless. Videogames should be assessed on different terms than "good plotting" or "character development" because they can, because they are games, not movies or books

I restated the argument too because I played MGS4 last night for about 30 minutes and I'm fucking pissed

man you guys are all lucky that ive drank away most of my philosophy cred because i just almost sent us down a deep wittgensteinian k-hole

since i would need to reread to provide any backup, ill go semi-unspecific - w. uses games as a perfect example of why accurately defining (wrt categorical imperative or whatever) is functionally an impossible task, its no surprise that trying to further define what would make those things art is prtty daunting as well.

the simple version would be that we recognize what is and isn't x by appealing to an internal constantly updated list of things that we see as x. so for some of us architecture or photography or films or video games are going to fail that appeal, for others they aren't.

i do think that rendering and mo-cap and cutscenes are a total dead end wrt this appeal tho, it's an attempt to take qualities of other art and apply them which is a dead failure. hence the resistance to photography in particular in early art history.

ludwig otm, jjjusten otm

i'm trying to think of the best way to succinctly illustrate the difference btw the space in which the player of a game operates and the space in which a consumer of art does but for me that's the key. i think these spaces overlap that that are artful games and gamelike art projects but i dont think 'unpacking' works at all the same in the two.

― Lamp, Wednesday, June 12, 2013 12:13 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

something like designer : composer :: player : musician, maybe?

something about working through the experience of the game as created according to the rules of its creation.

but the composer : musician relationship has a third element of the audience who is meant to be enjoying the experience of seeing the "designed object" (the composition iow) "gamed out" (played lol). for a game the player and audience are the same person. unless you like watching other people play, which nobody does.

xps yeah i find the definitional lassooing a really not very interesting avenue

difficult novels and paintings and movies do not have the quintessential constraints that houses, food, and games have as a fairly non-negotiable basis for their being (though movies are closer to games in requiring a lot of skill and capital, writing a novel requires literacy, so painting is probably going to win in a hierarchy of media most amenable to art)

for my own xp of games the best analogy is that i'm the reader tho. which probably explains some of my taste. i've never cared for goofy, abstract, endless or procedural games, or twitch-reflex challenge type games that reduce basically to a micro-athletics.

i like a little story, non-ludic and narrative elements (no this does not mean 'cutscenes' or even 'emotion'). i like to be shown something, i guess i'd put it.

lamp is mostly otm in this thread, i was just about to quote that same thing xxp

i would like to see an understanding of video games that takes them on their own terms rather than awkwardly shoe-horning them into a definition of "art" that doesn't really apply, or that just points to the nice decoration.

i like to be shown something, i guess i'd put it.

to go further, the 'art' of it not in the what-is-shown but how-it-is-shown.

Videogames should be assessed on different terms than "good plotting" or "character development" because they can

I suppose I'm down with this, but I think the idea that games will only ever make bad conventional art will seem increasingly outdated.

And yeah of course this is all a semantic argument. It's one of the better ones though, in that the discussion illuminates the subjects at hand instead of just being shouting about what words mean. Many xps.

you can't really blame people for borrowing language from movie criticism to understand games; a finite prepared audiovisual experience that takes place in time given certain technological etc etc, i mean, of course that would happen. it hasn't really 'helped' that as memory and computing constraints have lessened game designers have aped movies more and more.

I suppose I'm down with this, but I think the idea that games will only ever make bad conventional art will seem increasingly outdated.

Although as people still say this about e.g. sci fi, maybe not.

i don't think that they will ever make conventional art at all, they will always be games

i think from a narrative point of view, there's just this massive barrier that you cross when you take control of the protagonist. then they are no longer a character, they're you.

Is Final Fantasy XIII a game?

i don't think phoenix wright is really a game, but it's sold and packaged as one.

from the name i would hazard a yes-guess

by conventional art, do you mean, idk, romantic art? that breaks convention, has no practical use, 'pure' experience, operates by its own self-invented rules or struggles against them, w/e

i guess i'm trying to get at your definition of art that games must necessarily fall outside

see, i'm willing to include just about anything as art; industrial design, muzak, sure, w/e, throw everything in there

xp yeah the collapse in definition between 'protagonist' and 'reader' is impt, but i don't see how that kicks games out of the wagon

I think Norbit and Thomas Kinkade and Attack! Attack! are all art, even though I think they suck.

Has anyone addressed or mentioned how video games are almost exclusively made to entertain (not unlike television), whereas other art forms are more often rooted in expression? Like no one goes into the mixed media installation business to strike gold

i am always curious (and it maybe has a touchpoint for this whole thing) how people feel about whthr performers are experiencing art? ie is the dancer/musician/actor 100% a vehicle for the audience and somehow not having that "oh shit art!" moment? does that change during improvisation? as a player, am i experiencing art when i am "jamming" (ugh plz note i try never to do this)? does all of this require a passive viewer (real or imaginary) to be art instead of idk something else?

xp well there is also def the filthy lucre bias involved in some of this, ie if you have a massive company making billions of $ off something we hate calling it art, even if it is

I think Norbit and Thomas Kinkade and Attack! Attack! are all art, even though I think they suck.

― polyphonic, Wednesday, June 12, 2013 2:41 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

i'm trying not to judge here, which is why i'm emphasizing that my definition of games as being something other than art isn't a value judgment, has nothing to do with quality, etc

i think games are their own category

and i think it is a great category!

but i think we don't really understand it that well and getting away from our inferiority complex about it and "real art" is a step in the right direction

i'm also going to stay away from the commercial consideration, i think that is irrelevant

without having to define what art is exactly, would you all agree that expression is a necessary aspect of it, and that certain things are less conducive to art because they have properties that value other things before expression? (i think we're going to have to allow that commercial considerations is one of these properties)

xp yes they are experiencing art as much as the audience and more so

see thats my leaning as well, which makes the video games aren't art because the audience is participating a hard argument to swallow

I dunno I really get into playing Chopin on the piano in a room by myself, reminds me of playing Tetris tbh

even though I'm playing pieces that Chopin wrote for his own performance, I don't think I'm "inhabiting a protagonist" when I'm playing them. Nor do I think I'm Link or Ness or w/e

Pursuant to notions of "self-expression" I have no time for that, I couldn't care less, I am mostly interested in what the art says to me about my life, if you had to "plumb your depths" to reach me then that's cool

i think the artist's experience is not that handy an idea to bring into this, unless you want to argue that when you are playing a video game, you are an artist. which would be an interesting argument, and by all means run with it! but i feel like it's torturing logic a little bit just to once again try and make video games fit into that mould.

it's not so much participation but control, and when the audience seizes expressive power, the art no longer belongs to the piece.
bona fide games are all about surrendering control to the player. you are the artist in a game like chess and people will watch you perform your art.

I find it interesting that everyone is mostly gravitating towards narrative-driven games in this discussion and not even considering rhythm games in the conversation

you are the artist in a game like chess and people will watch you perform your art.

― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, June 12, 2013 2:56 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i actually wrote an essay in university about how when marcel duchamp quit art to play chess that his playing was just an extension of his artistic practice, haha

but i don't actually agree that a chess player is acting as an artist when he or she plays. the player's considerations are not aesthetic. the goal is to win, not to play a beautiful game. when i drive to work, i'm not artist of the bicycle, either.

but i think we don't really understand it that well and getting away from our inferiority complex about it and "real art" is a step in the right direction

I don't really think anyone is doing that here, but it is a major problem with the larger "are games art?" conversation. I don't care if people think games are art or not, and I have a sort of Morbsian contempt for people who are so invested in the artistry of games but have never seen, I dunno, Citizen Kane? It's less about appreciating games as art and more about giving games the status of "art". A validation. But for me the game/art issue is mostly taxonomical, and sadly I have a real passion for categorization.

But I think plenty of games have themes and visual imagery that have changed me and the way I think, in a manner very similar to how I am affected by other art forms. And it's different, but so is my appreciation of dance vs. sculpture or whatev. And sometimes that comes from the more filmic elements of a game, and other times it's a sort of procedural resonance (the logic of Minesweeper, for example, invaded my dreams for months).

i think i am ready to agree that games can have an impact on your mind / imagination / etc. but so can things that are not defined as art. so is that the best way to approach it i wonder?

from a strictly experiential point of view, i'm trying to think of a work of art that i "use" in any the same way as a video game. ie, i play it over and over again until i "beat" it or "make it till the end." the first part, definitely could apply to records, but it's the sense of "completing" the work in an active way that i get stuck on.

although theoretically that could apply to my effort to finish ulysses or moby dick, haha, but i don't think those are typical cases

what about a TV series?

I completed Twin Peaks
*achievement unlocked*

re: rhythm games, rez was mentioned a few times.
re: chess, in their pursuit of winning, the players reveal the sum of their philosophies on the game, maybe life -- it's totally an expressive act, it's that expression that's compelling about it. same with hot dog eating contests at the top level.

same thing. nothing i do changes the input the tv series gives me. xxp

re: chess, in their pursuit of winning, the players reveal the sum of their philosophies on the game, maybe life -- it's totally an expressive act, it's that expression that's compelling about it. same with hot dog eating contests at the top level.

― Philip Nunez, Wednesday, June 12, 2013 3:08 PM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark

i agree it's an expression of something (most likely skill), but not all expression is art, surely you agree with that! is football art? is sex?

Maybe not the way YOU do it. ;-)

lol

http://www.five.no/sandra/records/images/ArtOfLove.jpg

i've been thinking about my attachment to the idea that games are explorations of rules systems whereas art isnt and i start thinking about like, how certain paintings are exploring the 'rules' about academic painting and modern arts own deconstruction of the 'idea' of art &c &c and so while its sorta frustrating to be unable to articulate clearly how different they are i just don't xp games the way i do art, i don't think of these as fundamentally trying to do the same things, as operating within in the same set of values. i can 'get' some of the same things out of games that i do art, i even think games are capable of the kind of transcendence that art is, that games can help create connections btw things, illuminate the world and how i move in it &c &c but they're working the same to those ends?

The category of narrative games confuse this conversation in that they are so clearly analogous to other narrative forms. Those games feel like a movie with a game scattered around it, but those are increasingly what people think of when they think about games because they dominate the marketplace, and are the games that nerds tend to want to defend ... not because of the beauty of their systems but because of the stories they tell.

its all bioshocks fault really

well in wtv modern art we're talking about, it's the artist who is really exploring those rules, the viewer doesn't really experience that in the same way, can't make choices about what "happens" in the painting

The category of narrative games confuse this conversation in that they are so clearly analogous to other narrative forms. Those games feel like a movie with a game scattered around it, but those are increasingly what people think of when they think about games because they dominate the marketplace, and are the games that nerds tend to want to defend ... not because of the beauty of their systems but because of the stories they tell.

― polyphonic, Wednesday, June 12, 2013 3:16 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i agree, but i sort of see them like the uncanny valley animatronic dolls of narratives, ie they kind of look and feel like movies but you know on every level that they're not, no matter how "realistic" they get

and i think they exist because of that anxiety about games as art/entertainment

i agree, but i sort of see them like the uncanny valley animatronic dolls of narratives, ie they kind of look and feel like movies but you know on every level that they're not, no matter how "realistic" they get

Is Polar Express a film?

i definitely think there are (narrative) art-like things that are crucial to a lot of games, like setting/character/goals, that make games more than just complete abstract rule-play, but i think they're just there to make us more comfortable in the ludic experience, not to be the experience itself

Is Polar Express a film?

― polyphonic, Wednesday, June 12, 2013 3:19 PM (39 seconds ago) Bookmark

yes—sorry, i didn't mean because they're VISUALLY uncanny valley, but the way they act as narratives is somehow incomplete & unsatisfying

and i think they exist because of that anxiety about games as art/entertainment

I don't know about that. Narrative has been a part of gaming since Zork at least, long before this art issue became a thing.

from a strictly experiential point of view, i'm trying to think of a work of art that i "use" in any the same way as a video game. ie, i play it over and over again until i "beat" it or "make it till the end." the first part, definitely could apply to records, but it's the sense of "completing" the work in an active way that i get stuck on.

although theoretically that could apply to my effort to finish ulysses or moby dick, haha, but i don't think those are typical cases

― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 2:05 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's funny u bring up sex bcz i was gonna make a jerking off joke here, and then realized i was only half kidding

like what i talked about in the uncharted thread a billion years ago, you go from a cut scene where one guy holding a gun is enough to stop your hero, to a scene where you fight 100 dudes with bazookas like it's no problem, it's that disconnect that makes the narrative seem false

I don't know about that. Narrative has been a part of gaming since Zork at least, long before this art issue became a thing.

― polyphonic, Wednesday, June 12, 2013 3:21 PM (26 seconds ago) Bookmark

see what i said two posts above this

I definitely like your way of thinking about it, slocks, I'm just not sure I agree.

see what i said two posts above this

Yeah I should've read xposts before I replied.

Most of the connections I feel between "experiencing a game" and "experiencing a work of art" come from a life-long immersion in so-called "absolute" chamber music, i.e. Bach and Palestrina and Boulez. The work is a) interactive, b) entirely mathematical with no reason for existing except "the glory of God" and "I need to pay my bills" and "technological expansion of musical/game language" i.e. self-expression may exist but it's not the m.o., c) it conveys at the best of times a glimpse of purity that is otherwise alien to the human experience

explain how bach is interactive?

That was an xp to Lamp, btw, wrt to "transcendence", kind of exactly what I expect from my art

I play Bach

but the way they act as narratives is somehow incomplete & unsatisfying

But being incomplete or unsatisfying doesn't mean that they're not narrative. But I agree that they're often window dressing for the ludic experience.

whoa slocks, i dont think theres any argument that playing bach is anything but interactive

Re: Bach, I think sheet music is an interesting comparison. The way my mom played Bach vs. the way Glenn Gould played it could not be more different, within the parameters of the text.

The necessity of an audience is a moot point, too, as many canonical pieces were designed for the player alone. Audience has been grafted on afterward

games don't create emotional responses in me

― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 12:38 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not even frustration at losing? 99% of video games will frustrate the 99% of possible players within the first 30 minutes of play, usually resulting in colorful vocal inflections. Have you never fallen down and endless pit and cursed at the screen?

have you ever reacted to art like that??

i have never yelled at a movie because i somehow failed at watching it!

I remember the first time I saw the Mona Lisa, I fell down an endless pit and cursed at the frame

which brings another topic: you can objectively say that one player is "better" than another at a game. can you say that about the viewer/reader/listener of a work of art? doesn't that fact alone mean we're talking about two very different things?

whoa slocks, i dont think theres any argument that playing bach is anything but interactive

― O_o-O_O-o_O (jjjusten), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 3:25 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

i'm talking about listening not playing. like i said, if you wanna argue that as a video game player, you are an artist, i'm all ears! but i'm dubious.

I remember the first time I saw the Mona Lisa, I fell down an endless pit and cursed at the frame

― they are either militarists (ugh) or kangaroos (?) (DJP), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 3:29 PM (57 seconds ago) Bookmark

irl lol

"if you wanna argue that as a video game player, you are an artist, i'm all ears!"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daigo_Umehara

have you ever reacted to art like that??

Yes one of my earliest memories of being an artist was creating a collage out of construction paper and then getting frustrated with it and immediately destroying it. And plenty of artists have a love/hate relationship w their work.

Also you could ask the audience that nearly rioted during the premiere of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring".

Playing a modern game is both an active and passive experience. Performing music is active, and listening to it is passive ... although if you're performing in a group you're performing and listening simultaneously. Theater is probably a better analog for video games than film, in that sense.

which brings another topic: you can objectively say that one player is "better" than another at a game. can you say that about the viewer/reader/listener of a work of art? doesn't that fact alone mean we're talking about two very different things?

My mom was definitely better at playing Bach than I was. On the other hand she would suck at Trials HD.

you can objectively say that one player is "better" than another at a game. can you say that about the viewer/reader/listener of a work of art?

ha isn't this the entire enterprise of ILX?

xp I stand by my architectural analogy but don't disagree w/you

Art History buffs can look at a piece of minimalism and understand it in the appropriate context, whereas your average person may look at it without that specialized knowledge and completely fail at interpreting it. You can be objectively better at interpreting art, and you can be objectively better at interpreting the patterns of the eagles in Ninja Gaiden.

you really think you could OBJECTIVELY measure how much better someone is at, say, watching an episode of degrassi than someone else?

s1ocki I feel that the keystone of your "not art" argument is the requirement that the viewer be entirely passive. A situation where the viewer is entirely passive. That situation is limited to film and television. Every other form of art requires that the audience-- the entire audience, at least some of the audience, or a performing body-- take an active role.

Some people are better readers than others, too, "fourth grade reading level", "eighth grade piano", "twelve level sorcerer"

Theater is probably a better analog for video games than film, in that sense.

― polyphonic, Wednesday, June 12, 2013 3:33 PM

i was going to suggest comic books because video games seem to get the same "if its art, its a low form of it not worth taking seriously" and also occupying a middle ground between visual and textual. the analogy fails when you bring in the competitive/sportslike nature of it i guess

s1ocki I feel that the keystone of your "not art" argument is the requirement that the viewer be entirely passive. A situation where the viewer is entirely passive. That situation is limited to film and television. Every other form of art requires that the audience-- the entire audience, at least some of the audience, or a performing body-- take an active role.

― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, June 12, 2013 3:38 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

what?? how do sculpture, music, dance and theater require an active role?

i'm not talking about the performer here (for the millionth time)

you really can't include the performer unless you are arguing that you, the player, are creating a work of art when you play call of duty

(btw i dont know about you guys but i think this is a great discussion and it is making my afternoon very enjoyable)

Is Blue Man Group art?

Part of it is that a thing can be more than one thing at once. Is an improv troupe art? Is the audience an active participant or a passive observer? A modern game has a game in it, but also other things. So there's the larger category of "games," but they contain both art and a game.

Along those lines: Is a whodunit mystery story simply a narrative, or does it also contain a game?

You have to buy the tickets. You have to sit there. You have to stare straight ahead for the duration of the piece. You have to get dressed for the event appropriately. You have to observe unwritten laws of etiquette. You have to be quiet while the performance is going on. At the end of the work you need to stand and applaud. If it's something that may have an encore, then you are performing with the rest of the audience members, taking into account their enthusiasm, the quality of the performance, etc. I could go on.

You have to buy the tickets. You have to sit there. You have to stare straight ahead for the duration of the piece. You have to get dressed for the event appropriately. You have to observe unwritten laws of etiquette. You have to be quiet while the performance is going on. At the end of the work you need to stand and applaud. If it's something that may have an encore, then you are performing with the rest of the audience members, taking into account their enthusiasm, the quality of the performance, etc. I could go on.

― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 3:43 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

come on, that's not interacting with art.

i don't think they even engage the same parts of your brain as art, at all.
― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Tuesday, June 11, 2013 10:12 PM

^^ this. i probably wouldn't even bother with video games if this wasn't true

that is all passive, save for maybe the applause. there's no analog between sitting in a concert hall and listening to music and playing super mario.

What about a person who is sitting in the room while you play Super Mario?

yeah, are they art?

alvin lucier

Is Blue Man Group art?

― they are either militarists (ugh) or kangaroos (?) (DJP), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 3:43 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

They're not just "performance artists," they make kick-ass music.

I am not saying a performer is the artist. A performer is a part of the execution of a piece of art, which may also require a theatre, a gallery, a venue, an audience, an artist, some instruments, a game system, a Kinect controller, or nothing at all.

sculpture, music, dance and theater require an active role?

Curation and presentation with all of them. Sculpture can publicly exhibited and has to be travelled to and sat beneath. It requires upkeep and storage. Music requires performers. Dance requires dancers and can also require musicians and the audience might be able to participate also. Theater requires the most number of paid participants of all these examples. Audience members may be asked for input, or not.

If you're going to argue that "none of these are the same thing as this movie that I watch and requires nothing of me" then you are under-bus-throwing "The Well-Tempered Clavier" and countless works of Mozart's, the entire oeuvre of Chopin, stuff which was entirely designed for educational purposes, private usage, not public performance, not to mention the discipline of literature

Come on, "it requires upkeep and storage"? So does everything on earth! So does a car. Or a baby.

is getting the warp whistle in level 1-3 of smb3 art?

no, but using a second warp whistle in the warp whistle stage select screen to get to the end of the game is art.

Is Lamp art?

i wished i could remember anything about boulez for a snappy post about Le marteau sans maître but i had to google it just to spell it

maybe only terrible games are art, like ET: The Extra-Terrestrial and Custer's Revenge

burying 1000s of cartridges in the desert does sound suspiciously like a burning man piece.

hundreds of copies of ET Atari cartridges buried in the earth is def art xp shit!

feck I take an hour to cohere and type my thoughts and then it's this, well OK

i'm talking about listening not playing. like i said, if you wanna argue that as a video game player, you are an artist, i'm all ears! but i'm dubious.

― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 7:30 PM (28 minutes ago)

whoa whoa hold up, so you are saying that by listening to bach i am not interacting with it?! that seems crazy to me. i wasnt even going all in on the video game player as artist, i just assumed that would be what you were referring to and was responding to that. i know that reader response criticism is out of vogue, but totally throwing out the idea or text/observer interaction is super bizarre to me.

Is this post art

http://pad2.whstatic.com/images/thumb/2/29/Make-Melted-Crayon-Art-Step-6.jpg/550px-Make-Melted-Crayon-Art-Step-6.jpg

What about this one? It's interactive, you have to click on it

http://pad2.whstatic.com/images/thumb/2/29/Make-Melted-Crayon-Art-Step-6.jpg/550px-Make-Melted-Crayon-Art-Step-6.jpg

I had to click on the first one!

Also I think slocki's thesis of listening as being non-interactive is presuming a different definition of "interactive" than what I am using unless you take it as a given that listening to something isn't an activity.

whoa whoa hold up, so you are saying that by listening to bach i am not interacting with it?!

Interaction means it goes both ways, right? So yes, I would say you're not having any effect on the bach piece, although it may be affecting you.

xpost - it's an activity, but again I would say not "interactive"

this was fun but I got nothing done this afternoon
anybody who wants to gaze into the infinite can come over for some sugar pie and/or a game of Tetris

xp you're reacting TO it, not interacting WITH it

I've been playing final fantasy vi again and I can definitively say that video games are not art

i dont think i passively experience boulez, but there's nothing in boulez that's like the wind temple, i am not approaching boulez like it's the wind temple, both these things are ok i think. mostly i just hate that really awesome things like video games want to be 'art' in the first place, i understand why, but art can be so crabby and prescriptive, how much art is better than well-played game of tennis? but not even like the nadal-federer wimbledon finals were 'art'. everything in qn marks

i still think rules and the way the operate, the system for organizing the world, distinguishes games from art and how we xp the two.

the time i spent interacting with this thread was a total waste

I've been playing final fantasy vi again and I can definitively say that video games are not art

did you unlock the cursed shield/ring?

how can something with multiple sequels be "final" anyway

or is that just art

come on, that's not interacting with art.

In what way? Being a spectator is totally interacting with art. Without an audience a theatrical piece would just be a bunch of people standing around in a room acting at each other. Without an audience a musical performance would be some guys playing music REALLY LOUD for themselves. Putting on a play in front of a small audience of 20 of your closest friends will result in a completely different performance from putting it on in front of 20 strangers, and an even more different performance than putting it on in front of 200, or 2,000, or 20,000, etc. Simply through the act of being there and having eyes fixed at the stage, the audience is affecting the performance. Then the performers tweak what they are doing. This is interactive, is it not?

that sounds more illusory than actual give-and-take

we can vague out and say that sculptures require dusting and therefore observing ANY DUSTED SCULPTURE is like playing a video game, but i don't think it's getting us any closer to understanding here

I kinda want to go back to "is architecture art"

its not like the audience has a set of rules to make the performer do specific things ("frown to make the guitarist play a solo")

is Parappa The Rapper art?

is 'draw something' art

its not like the audience has a set of rules to make the performer do specific things ("frown to make the guitarist play a solo")

hi dere, John Zorn:

http://www.4-33.com/scores/cobra/cobra-notes.html

and i ABSOLUTELY agree that any art requires active observation on the part of the audience. but i don't think that it's the same thing as the active participation of playing a video game. i think it engages a totally different part of your brain to listen to a bach fugue, say, than to play mario kart.

there is very little feedback involved in experiencing most art—when i listen to this bach fugue on my stereo, nothing about my reaction to it is going to change the way it sounds. whereas when i play mario kart, the very ESSENCE of the activity is me giving feedback to a computer program that changes based on my reactions.

also, i think that no matter how much you argue about bona fides etc, there is no way to "fail" or "die" at listening to a bach fugue unless you actually die while listening to it

hi dere, John Zorn:

http://www.4-33.com/scores/cobra/cobra-notes.html

― they are either militarists (ugh) or kangaroos (?) (DJP), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 4:32 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

these are all cool but come on, they're exceptions, and there's a reason that interactivity like that is always going to be a curious novelty

i'd agree with mario kart being this responsive apparatus, but super mario bros as a game is a lie.

come on, you steer mario over to the mushroom, mario gets bigger. you jump on a thing and it dies.

I'm running way behind here, but you can objectively say that one player is "better" than another at a game. can you say that about the viewer/reader/listener of a work of art?

YES OF COURSE YOU CAN. (btw, I am best)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_piece_%28music%29

I don't think these things need to be mainstream in order to be relevant.

address the "exceptions" that make up the lion's share of the last 50 years of contemporary art pls

fuck no

the lion's share of the last 50 years of contemporary art are interactive pieces that change based on the viewer's input??

The die/fail aspect of gaming (which is not a universal function of gaming fwiw) is analogous once again to performing a piece of music.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_piece_%28music%29

I don't think these things need to be mainstream in order to be relevant.

― they are either militarists (ugh) or kangaroos (?) (DJP), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 4:37 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

nothing mentioned there about the audiences of those pieces getting in on the fun!

The die/fail aspect of gaming (which is not a universal function of gaming fwiw) is analogous once again to performing a piece of music.

― polyphonic, Wednesday, June 12, 2013 4:39 PM (26 seconds ago) Bookmark

i
am
not
talking
about
performers

if your playing guitar hero or rock band sure

what you do with mario is kind of inconsequential in the same way what you do with phoenix wright is inconsequential. the paths to win-state are pretty much set. the only way to get any agency back into mario is to subvert the game somehow. jump around aimlessly or something.

and again, I brought up "it needs to be dusted" because I think the necessity of non-interactivity is a dumb criterion here, not because I think the guy dusting a sculpture is a performer.

there's that big walk-in vagina at YYZ that is definitely a piece of interactive sculpture and you don't need to do anything but "walk into it" but I'd argue you don't really need to do fuck-all in MGS4 to interact with it except walk from one side of a virtual environment to another

OK

s1ocki

you're not talking about performers

what about readers of books

the lion's share of the last 50 years of contemporary art are interactive pieces that change based on the viewer's input??

Yes. See examples noted above

there's that big walk-in vagina at YYZ that is definitely a piece of interactive sculpture and you don't need to do anything but "walk into it" but I'd argue you don't really need to do fuck-all in MGS4 to interact with it except walk from one side of a virtual environment to another

― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, June 12, 2013 4:41 PM (4 seconds ago) Bookmark

interesting that you mention this, cuz i consider MSG4 part of a class of games that fails because it's trying too hard to be a different kind of experience, like a dog dressed up sitting at the dinner table

not
talking
about
performers

I am not only talking to you! I'm unpacking my thoughts on this issue as we go.

iian m. banks the reader of books

n. thomas bernhards the duster of statues

Readers of books are also not "interacting with them"

Except for Choose Your Own Adventures, I guess. Those are games.

OK

s1ocki

you're not talking about performers

what about readers of books

― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, June 12, 2013 4:41 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

do you think that there is way to read a book better than somebody else?

do you really think you're doing the same thing when you read a book as when you play super mario?

like you really think that's basically the same kind of experience, just with different dressing?

Yes I absolutely absolutely do!

100%! Actually!

i think you should read more books

[sorry]

I have been saying so all afternoon

http://www.mariowiki.com/images/e/ee/Pittrap.jpg

I think you should play more piano

Is Proteus art? Is it a game?

Readers of books are also not "interacting with them"

Uh, aside from the fact that's not true of any book, I also present you with:

http://kulturaonline.pl/resources/pictures/2008/11/09/13546/large/johnson1.jpg

a golden look-look book

Cheat codes:

http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1170531820l/59482.jpg

can't wait for gaming's finnegans wake to release on xbone

i also think that reading a book/listening to a piece/playing a video game are the same experience performed in different ways actually. w/o getting super crit theory jerk the reader/listener/gamer is interpreting a pre-defined space - that dude i think he is tall and has brown hair, that lyric is applicable in this way, that musical line is evoking this feeling, that virtual space is accessible and unpackable etc

that please note, like i said above, doesnt mean any of them are per se art!

Most airports I've been in in the past 5 years now have at least one motion-sensitive piece of art in it, from digital screens with shapes you can manipulate and move around to lights that change based on the movements around them, so the argument that art by definition is something you can't interact with falls down completely for me.

i apologize in retrospect for using the word "unpackable" in any sentence ever but idk i think you get what i mean

My favorite Eno is Video Games for Airports.

xp ooh I think I brought that word to lunch sorry

I am not 100% certain I know what you mean by "that virtual space is accessible and unpackable"

if you meant "I can go over there and do something" then please come over here so I can unpack a punch for you

hah i didnt mean anything quite that simple (although hmm it kind of works too) but that i dont think that describing the reaction of a video game player starting or playing a game as "oh shit dog, im going to learn some structural rules today" is an accurate take. i think games come at people as malleable and interpretable spaces, just like deciding what a lyric or sequence of notes "means", or feeling like you know what a character looks like when you read about them in a book with a partial or non-description.

and hey, maybe that does take the form of "huh i wonder if i can jump to that ledge and what's up there" a lot of the time, and thats ok too.

do ya'll really want video games to be art or something? cuz you'll gonna massively regret it once you see the latest game involves sneaking vito acconci into various virtual spaces to masturbate undetected

you're

do ya'll really want video games to be art or something?

NO!

do ya'll really want video games to be art or something?

A lot of people do, but I don't think the people who post here are among them.

http://www.happyplaytime.com

several xposts, was in response to amon

big lol am0n

I think there will be general consensus on TV shows being works of art long before video games are considered art. Video games shouldn't necessarily TRY to be art. But it's fun to play devil's advocate.

To be honest, I haven't really made up my mind where I stand, aside from all the 'games aren't art' arguments are terrible and easily countered.

I'd say I lean towards the Ludwig/jjj side, except I'd add that the period of flux this element of language is undergoing is actually making the term not particularly fit-for-purpose.

But then it's not really a case of answering the question 'are video games art?', it's a case of defining the term 'art'.

pinball and roller coasters are still waiting for their nea grants.

I'd say roller coasters are definitely closer to art than games are

i guess they're harder to fit in the getty.

If they had some maybe I'd go

my rule - if there is no water slide, it's not really an art museum

what's that german museum with the skate park exterior?

I am going to hell for the thing I almost posted

haha oh no

and hey, maybe that does take the form of "huh i wonder if i can jump to that ledge and what's up there" a lot of the time, and thats ok too.

it's not ok with me pal

my rule - if there is no water slide, it's not really an art museum

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/125/411842915_9405a3bedd_z.jpg

close enough?

http://www.happyplaytime.com

― they are either militarists (ugh) or kangaroos (?) (DJP), Wednesday, June 12, 2013 5:13 PM

D:

lol ok i had finals and came home and am thus much chiller than i was this morning when i stormed out to the bus and when i came home (stnd) i found all these tabs open with typed-not-posted responses to various posts upthread. (only one worth keeping is that goole had said for a game the player and audience are the same person. unless you like watching other people play, which nobody does. and i'd put http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea.) anyway idk guys there's lots of interesting discussion in the difference between games and other kinds of things that people make for other people because there are definitely differences, and everybody is pretty much having that discussion upthread, but surely there are also differences between books and music and paintings? s1ocki said something about "narrative" and like painting abandoned narrative, right, and music abandoned narrative, unless you count the physical fact of the temporal narrative of you looking at the painting or listening to the music: but that's going to be present in everything we ever do (pre-godhood lol). narrative otherwise isn't a necessary part of art and it can be messed around with. s1ocki do you really think that in addition to the differences between other categories of art there's this whole other unbridgeable gulf between them and games because games are this totally new thing? i am not a scholar of this type (or any other oh god finals) but i am sure you could find people saying when the ahem montage was introduced that this brand new form of actual imposed collective dream was totally impossibly different from everything that had come before. and they would have been right! but it was still art because what's the point of focusing the conversation on this word when everyone is talking about more interesting stuff already anyway.

i dunno if it sounds like i want games to be art and btw i totally agree w s1ocki that game developers want them to be and that it's largely fucking games as a medium. i just think the word works better broader.

i don't think they're a new form though—chess and go have been around forever and no one's ever mistaken them for art.

A benefit of games being perceived as art is that they get criticized and appraised as such and hopefully increase the market for more thoughtful games, which i would appreciate. Enough with the murder simulators already.

And chess and go ARE appreciated as art in plenty of cultures... Or at least the gameplay notation is

chess and go don't have the richness of symbolism necessary to represent the world, to say something to me about my life. although yes you could see in a particular game the kind of abstract, pure aesthetic beauty mathematicians often talk about.

thoughtful games *rolls eyes and pantomimes jerking off*

a good artgame would be one where you play as s1ocki and u roast everyone in this thread alive with a flamethrwoer

Shouldn't you be busy reading Dan Brown's Inferno?

sounds better than your post history, lol

anyway i mean yes there are art installations that use games so 'games are art' but its mostly used by nerds with an axe to grind who want their hobby validated and pump up BioShock as a transcendent emotional/thematic experience because they dont actually read books

exploring ico shares more in common with playing a game of baseball than any of the things you mentioned

games are explorations of rules systems more than they are ideas/emotions/experiences or w/e. maybe that's a good way to phrase it - games are defined by the systems that govern them

― Lamp, Wednesday, June 12, 2013 1:24 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

otm

the unique gamey thing that makes games games are rules (or 'mechanics'). if there are no rules, its not a game. we can reject what an artist thinks his work is really about & supply our own meaning, but the only way to reject a game designer's rules is to not play his game. because the rules are the game. yes, a cgi cutscene is an artistic element in a game - a cut scene taken on its own should probably be thought of as art. but when you're watching one with the controller sitting on the coffee table, you're not gaming. thats why its useful to treat games like their own thing... cuz they are. there are line-blurring examples but they don't really challenge what a game means, in the same way that we don't really wonder if 4'33" means that all silences are songs. im not actually opposed to that POV at all, but if u adopt it u have to be cool with the words 'silence' and 'song' not being very useful anymore... same w/games and art imo

4'33" doesn't mean all silences are songs, it means all noise is music, just as duchamp's urinal means all objects are (or can be art). and yeah this is a productive way to think imo. fuck the academy.

- in-game character & environmental depiction/animation techniques
- title & ending screens/cutscenes/attract modes
- gamer control & interaction/instances of 'Friction' as Tim Rogers likes to say
- appropriation/recontextualization/references to other art forms
- programming prowess/console pushing/code efficiency
- box art/promotional ads/tv commercials
- international approaches towards censorship
- public reception/historical context
- legacy/add-ons/mods/hacks

you forgot:

- 2/3 of the way you discover that your character's real antagonists are hooded cultists who guard what they believe to be an ancient supernatural secret but which is actually an unusual bit of underexplained geoscience

SERIOUSLY DOES EVERY ADVENTURE GAME IN THE WORLD HAVE TO DO THIS (NB yes i am playing tomb raider right now)

categorisation isn't a science. what if it's more like a (pregnant pause) game?

just as duchamp's urinal means all objects are (or can be art)

heh well im talkin above my ass here but it sure seems to this simple country gamer that duchamp's urinal only 'works' when we don't accept that urinals are art

well in theory it's a trick that can only be pulled once but given that exhibiting an unmade bed can still produce a furore 80 years later it doesn't seem like the paradigm's been shifted that much.

ok i did not know this:

Sometime in the early 1930s, Duchamp reached the height of his ability, but realized that he had little chance of winning recognition in top-level chess. In the following years, his participation in chess tournaments declined, but he discovered correspondence chess and became a chess journalist, writing weekly newspaper columns. While his contemporaries were achieving spectacular success in the art world by selling their works to high-society collectors, Duchamp observed, "I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art—and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position."[37] On another occasion, Duchamp elaborated, "The chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chess-board, express their beauty abstractly, like a poem. ... I have come to the personal conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists."[38]

who would've expected a knockout blow from duchamp in this thread

More of an anti-commercialization statement than a "games are art" statement, and anyway, chess and go are special cases. I don't think solitare is art

OK also, I said Exploring the world of Ico = exploring the Dom cathedral = listening to Thomas Tallis = going to a concert = going to an opening.

And Lamp said exploring ico shares more in common with playing a game of baseball than any of the things you mentioned (and I think that's preposterous because baseball involves the outdoors)

and then Lamp said games are explorations of rules systems more than they are ideas/emotions/experiences or w/e. maybe that's a good way to phrase it - games are defined by the systems that govern them

And I can't figure out how exploring the Dom, listening to Tallis, attending a concert or an art opening do not constitute the same "exploration of rules systems".

I wasn't just rattling off a list of artsy shit I was specifically mentioning art experiences that were explorations of spaces

'rules' in games doesnt refer to eg. the kind of rules at the cathedral telling u not to throw rocks at the stained glass

http://www.raphkoster.com/2011/12/13/rules-versus-mechanics/

Architecture requires some pretty strict rules in order for it not to be riddled with bugs (i.e. fall on your head)

uhh okay... nachos are a secret off-menu item at Chipotle... since we're bringing up shit that doesnt matter

I'm w emil.y
Also see "Palestrinian counterpoint", but I must admit I can't really stand behind everything I've said so far because I think I might be confusing creative and consumptive activities

The slotting of chess players as artists makes chess the canvas rather than the art.

I think that's preposterous because baseball involves the outdoors

What if I take my console outside on a sunny day? (I think this is an excellent demonstration that in all this talk of definitions, one person's crucial factor is another's triviality.)

Well now that video games are featured in real art galleries, I think it's safe to say that at least THOSE games are art.

Architecture requires some pretty strict rules in order for it not to be riddled with bugs (i.e. fall on your head)

― emil.y, Thursday, June 13, 2013 9:18 AM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark

those arent required rules, theyre just suggested if you want to build something worth a shit. if u build a bridge out of dead cats and the first car that drives over it gets stuck and slowly sinks into the catmass, well, you still built a bridge. you're talking about the qualities that make architecture good (safe, functional), not what makes architecture architecture. you cant escape from the mechanics of Super Mario Brothers... except by not playing it. if you change them with a mod or something, then you've created a new game. the inescapable qualities are what makes games games

im not nec interested in narrowing what art can be, its more about digging things for what they are. lets say games are art (they arent), the fact that games are games is still way more interesting than however they might fit on the art continuum

But a lot of video games aren't games, or they are fake games, so they might as well go towards the art axis

@ ledge my to tongue was in cheek

haha ok! i don't know if it's the craziest opinion on this thread though.

Hungry4Ass, you're comparing a single game to a discipline there. This: if u build a bridge out of dead cats and the first car that drives over it gets stuck and slowly sinks into the catmass, well, you still built a bridge would be a reasonable comparison for something like "if you build a game out of half-assed code and it just barely manages to load before you run into some game-killing bug, well, you still built a game". But it is NOT a reasonable comparison to playing Super Mario Brothers.

I actually *would* be interested in narrowing the definition of art, as long as we added extra vocabulary to supplement some of what we try to express when talking about art.

Would you all agree that if it is exhibited in an Art Gallery, that it is Art?

this is Art:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ylkp_kmlYEk/UVoaXF5bD6I/AAAAAAAANzo/jyVlHooGDeE/s320/art+garfunke.jpg

the catbridge was an example to illustrate that you're raising points that have nothing to do with the discussion. mario is an example that holds true across all games re: the other, separate point i was making

real art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfAoEg1xHks

anyway i mean yes there are art installations that use games so 'games are art' but its mostly used by nerds with an axe to grind who want their hobby validated and pump up BioShock as a transcendent emotional/thematic experience because they dont actually read books

― i wanna be a gabbneb baby (Hungry4Ass), Thursday, June 13, 2013 7:02 AM

word up

man i knew as soon as s1ocki dropped the chess-bomb someone would immediately adjust their spectacles and pipe in with duchamp. "i found an exception, your arguments are invalid"

happy go lucky mario 3 music is badly offset by the gravitas of the moment.
also, who gives a shit about points in SM3
and how would they know how to play if the game was brand new
this movie was so flawed

im not nec interested in narrowing what art can be, its more about digging things for what they are. lets say games are art (they arent), the fact that games are games is still way more interesting than however they might fit on the art continuum

― i wanna be a gabbneb baby (Hungry4Ass), Thursday, June 13, 2013 10:17 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

this is exactly what i'm saying

you are actually doing games a huge disadvantage by trying to think of them as art imo

A benefit of games being perceived as art is that they get criticized and appraised as such

i don't understand your point really

a benefit of games being perceived as art is that people... perceive them as art?

wouldn't it be more interesting if there was more intelligent criticism/curation/theory/etc of games as games?

rather than more "crash bandicoot is the l'avventura of the playstation vita" nonsense?

games as art = media support for auteur games helps sell art titles, leading to more willingness to take risks by companies

games as commodities = more cod dogs

the movie analogy fits here.

i think he's saying the benefit would be games getting taken more seriously if they're seen as art rather than lowbrow-culture

the way media perceives things matters in their making. times coverage of games goes in art, not business and that's a new development.

or not... what are "art titles"??

i don't understand your point really

there are tangible and intangible benefits to having your work perceived as 'art' rather a game or a craft or w/e.

you think people will only buy auteur games if we pretend they're art?

"art titles" = "more thoughtful" = honestly, "better games" really

i guess i see the pragmatic logic there but it bothers me that we have to bullshit ourselves in the hopes that the ny times will take our favourite games seriously or wtv

we don't have to pretend!

to me that's just the inferiority complex at play

i mean, that's not an argument that games ARE art, you're arguing that they SHOULD BE art so that important people take them seriously. you're arguing from the conclusion there.

i don't give a fuck what people think about my gameplaying habits; i don't have some need to have my hobbies taken seriously any more than i need a hug from times critics to approve of me listening to taylor swift. i like what i like. but this stuff feels like art to me and impacts me in the same way other arts do.

"more thoughtful" "better games" according to ?? where does that get decided?

i'm arguing it's a benefit of games being perceived as art that that perception will lead to better games.
you keep asking "why does it matter", that's part of why it matters.

you are actually doing games a huge disadvantage by trying to think of them as art imo

I think that is entirely dependent upon your definition of "art"

This is one reason why I keep coming back to rhythm/non-narrative games like Tetris as clearer examples of videogames as art over narrative-driven things like the Bioshock series (with my big exception being Planescape: Torment); I feel that the game-as-art qualities don't arise from how pretty the graphics are or how involving the narrative is, but whether the game mechanics themselves evoke an emotional response, and in my experience that is much more likely to happen in a rhythm game partially due to the trance aspects inherent in the right type of repetitive movement. Similarly, games like the first few Tony Hawk games and Jet Set Radio approached art for me in how you could use your environment to chain together increasingly long series of complicated tricks as the game went on; that process has strong emotional resonance for me and evokes in me emotional responses similar to both singing and listening to music.

That's what I'm talking about when I talk about "games as art", not games that try to be as much like movies as possible.

most things that take more thought tend to be better? "better conceived" might be a better way to put it, sub in your own descriptive superlatives

i actually believe in a very broad category of art. i honestly think anything can be "art." like if i were to call me, sitting at this computer, typing this, a performance piece, then sure, it's art. if i call me looking at a sunset art, it's art.

but that doesn't mean that's ALL that it is, or that it's the most useful way of looking at, say, a sunset.

like, if you say that playing a rhythm game is an artistic experience, i'll totally get down with that. but i still don't think that video games, as a category, are an expressive art form, the same way that i don't think of sunsets, as a category, as an art form.

rather than more "crash bandicoot is the l'avventura of the playstation vita" nonsense?

― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Thursday, June 13, 2013 12:17 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

lol

surely crash bandicoot is the hidden fortress of the vita

guys, guys. crash bandicoot is terrible.

okay so it's the expendables of the vita

There were plenty of art games and an audience for them before. I think there are less now because this sort of videogames as art discourse is gaining currency, and the kind of art games made now are of a narrow, academicky sort of genre that caters to that discussion, so to me it's had a chilling effect.

cool post DJP

That's what I'm talking about when I talk about "games as art", not games that try to be as much like movies as possible.

i kinda find it interesting that there are two directions the 'games-as-art' legitimization is going. stuff like the moma exhibition have prized non-narrative, mechanically inventive and often aesthetically pure games like tetris or cananbalt over other games. but in more middlebrow and populist spaces the argument for games artistry is often advanced by elaborate, deep-world games with narratives like bioshock or gta. i think the latter argument is the more pernicious because it emphasizes aspects of games that arent the best part of gaming but also because its the more beneficial to game developers. like its all well and good for some nerd to build an empire in dwarf fortress for the venice biennale but game devs/players wanna be taken seriously as like movies

canabalt has a weird narrative but I never got past whatever level it was to figure out what those robots in the back were doing

killing

destroying

charring

eviscerating with extreme prejudice

living their lives

speaking of which, it'd be pretty interesting, by which i mean horrifying, if 95% of all gallery exhibitions were wall-to-wall representations of brutal murders

games need to be taken seriously as books

in what way?

some of the "art" that i appreciate is "art within" a certain narrow frame of what games are or have been recently. idk if this makes them closer to a craft, as a definition. as in, something like furniture design or something. people have already made this point.

ie the choices that are made that make this marquee-title shooter or open-world quester distinct from others in their genre, how much wit and intelligence has been applied to what have become pretty narrow requirements to be that thing. how well is it doing at being what it is, kind of a thing

just playing the non-sequitur card

is it worth thinking of video games as something like pornography?

no matter how much you dress up porn or try and make it smart, it seems like people just want to elbow past it and get to the "good stuff"

DJP

the rhythm/trance aspect to non-narrative games is interesting, i def had that happen with dr. mario

is it worth thinking of video games as something like pornography?

mod communities would certainly be on board for this ;)

getting in the zone is more a property of game than art

tell that to a dancer

everything is art, fascist!

tell that to a dancer

― they are either militarists (ugh) or kangaroos (?) (DJP), Thursday, June 13, 2013 12:29 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thanks, i will!!

the dancing/sports connection has already been exhausted by that movie where that hockey player is redeemed by ballet

I wonder if there is an (unintentional? subconscious?) tendency to view art as the end result of an intentional expression of a specific craft, oftentimes without specific purpose, that puts the activity of videogaming outside of some people's parameters of what defines art.

Like for example, Shawn White stringing together a series of dazzling tricks in a snowboarding competition is in service of scoring enough points to win, whereas a dancer is performing dazzling choreography in service of expressing the choreography, making the former "not art" and the latter "art".

Or say, putting a refrigerator in a kitchen is a utilitarian design parameter but deciding to make that refrigerator a glass-doored pantry-style series of shelves over in the corner is an artistic decision.

So, following on from that mindset, the entire enterprise of videogames becomes abstracted from art because the process is too convoluted and (compared to other things that might be considered "art") too new for the average person experiencing them to identify the craft behind its making, plus the driving force behind the creation of the modern game privileges making money over expressing a mechanic? Kind of making up shit here obv.

Performing snowboarding/skateboarding tricks is definitely art but inventing the snowboard and skateboard and chess isn't art.

I mean you could make it art but often at the cost of making a good game. Basically media are poor media in which to express yourself.

So, following on from that mindset, the entire enterprise of videogames becomes abstracted from art because the process is too convoluted and (compared to other things that might be considered "art") too new for the average person experiencing them to identify the craft behind its making, plus the driving force behind the creation of the modern game privileges making money over expressing a mechanic? Kind of making up shit here obv.

― they are either militarists (ugh) or kangaroos (?) (DJP), Thursday, June 13, 2013 1:44 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

i dunno, could say the same thing about transformers movies

You could. In fact, you could say that about the modern blockbuster in general.

Basically I think what I'm asking-but-not-asking here is "Are all films/movies considered 'art' and, if not, why can't some videogames be considered 'art'?"

Yeah i was gonna bring up that video games are primarily commerce driven but if that is a strike against art then just take a look at art history and you'd have to throw out a LOT of important stuff.

That's definitely where the thesis falls over but I also think some of those concerns for the people outside of those immediate areas of expertise that would tempt one down the "not art" path are smoothed over by time.

I'm coming back to the conclusion that something is "art" if society in general looks back at it after X amount of time and decides that it is art.

Basically I think what I'm asking-but-not-asking here is "Are all films/movies considered 'art' and, if not, why can't some videogames be considered 'art'?"

not all but some, the 'art film' is a genre at this point. and videogames can be considered art, no one is disputing this itt (i don't think), they just don't need to be considered as such

if you mean videogames that are really games, then I don't agree that they could function well as art, but very few videogames are games

We're all on the same page here
Some folks look at the highest moments of computational bliss and say "this is art"
Other folks think the world is full of insecure nerds who need their hobby legitimized
Everyone likes Tetris
Stevie D likes Earthbound

H4A that mechanics vs. rules response was very cool and I learned a new word (ludeme)

you can get an NEA grant for a game, case closed

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/13/arts/video-games/pixels-floating-on-the-art-worlds-margins.html

but this is totally convincing me you guys may be right if the "games as art" help support these kinda dumbass arguments: http://www.edge-online.com/features/junk-food-for-thought-why-microsofts-dew-and-doritos-deal-is-an-insult-to-our-industry/

DeeJayDragon says:
01:41pm June 14 2013
You only bring this up now, but these promotions have been happening for years. World of Warcraft, Modern Warfare and Halo to name a few off the top of my head. If you were really so concerned about it, and not just getting a cheap shot in at Microsoft, you would've mentioned this a long time ago.

i thought of a really good point to bring up in this thread last night as i fell asleep but i cant fucking remember what it was :(

i think it went vaguely like this:

when i'm playing poker, everything about the game as i experience—my competitive spirit, the way i interact with the other players, the way i analyze the game and make choices—is so distant from any way i experience any of the "7 arts" that i have to conclude that "playing poker" is CATEGORICALLY different from experiencing art.

what it's not that different from, is "playing super mario" or "playing settlers of catan" or "playing drop7." therefore, game-playing is, to me, in a completely different column than art.

i'm not denying any overlap—i absolutely think you can have aesthetic and emotional experiences playing games. but i also think you can have aesthetic experiences riding a train, or feeding the ducks, or eating a big mac, but i wouldn't put those activities in the realm of "art" either.

and YES, i do think you CAN call anything art, but i think that's an evasion when it comes to this question. you can say anything is a game too. that doesn't help us understand these things any better.

we've done this before of course
http://www.ninthart.com/

to me there's absolutely debate about whether comics are art or not

they're not

just kidding, of course they are.

i don't think that debate is material at all to this discussion because it all hinges on the "debasedness" of comics which i think, at least on ILX, is a thoroughly discredited criteria for whether something is art or not (or whether it is good art or not)

Dan clowes had a semi satirical booklet arguing why comics is the ideal medium for a singular artist who wants total visual control, and is especially sneering to newer media where this control is ceded to the audience.

when you play poker you are not the audience, you are the artist so of course your experience is different.

like... novels?

when you play poker you are not the audience, you are the artist so of course your experience is different.

― Philip Nunez, Friday, June 14, 2013 11:44 AM (14 seconds ago) Bookmark

i don't think this distinction exists in games.

the question of whether or not vidya games are art is VERY similar to the question of comics being a separate "new" art: both are amalgams of different established arts (design, drawing, architecture, music, etc) and the question was always if they should be judged within their peers as a unique art form or held up against ART... the old "is any comic as good as moby dick" fallacy argument. Which is another reason to consider games as their own art form: you get comparative criticism that's rigorous but not out of place in its assessments.

& i think the idea that the poker player is an artist or is engaged in a creative/artistic act is just ridiculous, sorry

the question of whether or not vidya games are art is VERY similar to the question of comics being a separate "new" art: both are amalgams of different established arts (design, drawing, architecture, music, etc) and the question was always if they should be judged within their peers as a unique art form or held up against ART... the old "is any comic as good as moby dick" fallacy argument. Which is another reason to consider games as their own art form: you get comparative criticism that's rigorous but not out of place in its assessments.

― i didn't even give much of a fuck that you were mod (forksclovetofu), Friday, June 14, 2013 11:46 AM (25 seconds ago) Bookmark

comics still work as every art form does, with a passive audience reading/watching/etc and digesting it as such

they're only similar in that people have argued about them being art or not, which doesnt prove anything

so it's not art if it requires active participation from the viewer, is that your argument?
am i gonna have to reference scott mccloud's "gutter" argument here?

xp i don't get why you're so hung up on these fixed roles for audience and creator, like art only works if the Artist hands down his works from the mountaintop

no, that's not my argument—i think games require a DIFFERENT kind of participation from the viewer, and that kind of participation for the most part has nothing to do with the way we experience art

The distinction is very much made in games when people talk about game creators as the artist which causes the confusion because they are no more an artist than the guy who makes the canvases for a painter.

wow, don't agree with that statement at all

so your argument is that video games are art, but the players are the artists, and not the creators?

sorry but this is such a tortured way of trying to shove video games into the category of art, it's really not convincing

In saying video games aren't (if they are actually games) art because they are media.

movies can have hundreds of ppl working on them. we don't limit the 'artist' category to just the director (unless you're still a particularly hardcore auteurist theorist in 2013). once we've allowed bodies of work to have multiple 'artists' working on them from different angles, why not include the audience participant as well?

This whole idea of 'In Your Face' theatre really affected them. The conceptualization, the whole abstraction, the obtuseness of this production to me was what was interesting. I wanted the audience to feel the heat from the fire—the fear—because people don't like fire, poked, poked in their noses. You know, when you get a cinder from a barbeque right on the end of your nose, and you kind of make that face, you know?

i think i see the our main difference here - i don't see the definition of art as something that has to be experienced a certain way, but more important is the intentions of the creator and what they are creating

we tend to blame singular people for the vision expressed by a movie even though an actor and a team of writers and artisans were responsible for jar jar

well if someone wants to make the argument that the player is an artist and that each play-through of a video game or poker is a unique work of art, i'd like to hear it, but i'm dubious! it seems like you're just looking for a way to define video games as art because you want them to be (as forks has kind of admitted to doing)

in this reader's opinion, it's more that the arguments against are not convincing so games might as well be art whether or not anyone can pinpoint why

xp lucas signed the checks!

s1ocki i think you may be leading a little bit here. video games are products created by individuals or team of artists, often self-described as artistic works with artistic intentions. isn't that enough to go on without the accusations?

i think games deserve to be "taken seriously," and written about well. i wonder if the wish to call them art doesn't consist of basically just that.

I'm really more descriptive rather than prescriptive, but my preference would be for video games to be exempt from art altogether so that we can get more video game equivalents of the shaggs not being compelled to do 4/4 time because of these art expectations that are thrust upon them.

so your argument is that video games are art, but the players are the artists, and not the creators?

Achievement Unlocked: Cried in Front of Marina Abramovic

it seems like you're just looking for a way to define video games as art because you want them to be (as forks has kind of admitted to doing)

i think games deserve to be "taken seriously," and written about well. i wonder if the wish to call them art doesn't consist of basically just that.

― goole, Friday, June 14, 2013 12:04 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

i totally agree with this!

i think that there are more interesting ways to write/think about games than slotting them into the art category, and that trying to wrestle them into the art cage limits the way we think about them

But re: players as artists -- you express something through play and players at the top level are expressing more than simple button presses

s10cks, you're kinda lumping all and any arguments here into a target for your larger point which seems to be games aren't art because... because why now?

that's what i've spent this entire thread trying to unpack d00d :)

xp to philip: i don't feel video games are being forced by expectations to conform as a medium. for AAA million dollar projects, yes, but that's no different from the film industry because of the money involved. if anything, the tools to make games are more accessible and easier to use than they've ever been, which lets more people make anything they want in flash, unity, whatever

btw forks completely otm here, thanks for expressing these things coherently

i'm not gonna cosign with "gamers as artists"... maybe closer to athletes i guess? there are exceptions, games that allow the gamer to create from within and some of those games are interesting and allow for artistic achievement (say, sound shapes for instance) but that's mostly art at the lego level: potentially interesting but as a rule more about playing within a set of parameters

let's just keep the commercial aspect out of this, i think it's well-established that commercial concerns have nothing to do with whether something is art or not

sorry i meant "athletes"

hand/eye coordinathletics

that's mostly art at the lego level: potentially interesting but as a rule more about playing within a set of parameters

Does anyone else think this is a meaningless statement? AFAIC, all art is about playing within a set of parameters.

I think critical expectations can be just as damaging and constraining as commercial ones. In clowes manifesto he cites comic debasement as a strength in that respect

again i need to emphasize that my conviction that games are not art has nothing to do with how "low" or "gutter" the medium is, it's based on my experience with video games as being categorically different from the way i experience literally any kind of art—i think there is something going on in games, something very interesting, that is distinct, that very likely uses a different part of your brain

and for the millionth time, there's of course gonna be overlap, there's gonna be games that are art-like and art that is game-like, but i don't think that proves anything either way

idk why but this thread put me in mind of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedge_maze

AFAIC, all art is about playing within a set of parameters.

I think this thing that goes on in your brain when playing games will map quite readily to that thing painters or writers experience in the midst of their creative fevers

ie something made to have a pleasurable experience purely of geometric space. sure there's a "narrative" in the sense of "i went in, i turned this way, i turned the other way, i got lost, i turned around" -- but idk if events merely taking place in time rly qualifies as narrative fwiw -- but story is not the point, experience in itself is

maybe, this, too?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala

but i'm out of my element there

http://i.imgur.com/xQnJTqe.gif

A+ gif, would watch again

portrait of the artist as a young snake

oh my god

that gif was literally the most thrilling thing i've seen all year

could feel my blood pressure going up tbh

I think this thing that goes on in your brain when playing games will map quite readily to that thing painters or writers experience in the midst of their creative fevers

― Philip Nunez, Friday, June 14, 2013 12:19 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark

i don't think the way i, as a gamer, make decisions in the middle of a game of poker or mario or whatever, has anything to do with the way i make decisions when working on a creative project. at all. there is nothing aesthetic at all about a decision i make to fold or raise. sorry but i dont buy this.

I guess... Get better at poker?

yeah i'm skeptical of that too but idk anything about the brain so who knows

what i've read about the 'flow' state of the brain while people are at work doesn't really line up with playing a game to me

xp lol zing damn

getting deathdroney up in here

comparison of games to art is one thing, but what about the comparison of games to work?

do you games-are-arters think that sports are an art form as well? is football art?

if not, i'd like to know why.

when you practice any activity a lot it becomes internalized and much of it becomes automatic so it's at that level that expression is really visible.
but even as a beginner some expression leaks through but mostly it's frustration

if i want to express myself through creating a video game, i can. i can make a video game about another world or about school shootings or about geometry or about football. if i want to express myself through football...

what if the creator of football wanted to express something about human dynamics or war or something?

in your first case, you're a creator, in the second you're a player, so i don't think that works

because one gives you the opportunity to create and one doesn't!

is football art?

― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Friday, June 14, 2013 10:35 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if not, i'd like to know why.

― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Friday, June 14, 2013 10:35 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

now u know dog

is horseshoe throwing art?

i guess we're at the that point in the thread now, huh

because one gives you the opportunity to create and one doesn't!

― sleepingbag, Friday, June 14, 2013 12:42 PM (33 seconds ago) Bookmark

what? i don't get your point here at all. you're using two totally different set of criteria for each.

well is it? is horseshoe throwing art? if not, what makes it different than pong?

comparison of games to art is one thing, but what about the comparison of games to work?
― goole, Friday, June 14, 2013

what? i don't get your point here at all. you're using two totally different set of criteria for each.

― we're up all night to get (s1ocki), Friday, June 14, 2013 10:44 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

because they're two categorically different things, qed

xp tbf that was before BIOSHOCK INFANTTIT

because they're two categorically different things, qed

― sleepingbag, Friday, June 14, 2013 12:47 PM (33 seconds ago) Bookmark

you're saying video games are art, because you can express something by CREATING a video game
but that football isn't, because you can't express something by PLAYING football

An interesting analogue is operating systems where creators certainly express a certain philosophy about how to do things, but like games (and you can think of operating systems as a kind of game), the constraints of what make for a good os will forever blunt your expressive capacity.
For example I'm pretty sure everyone would be happier if ios7 were approached by apple as a craft rather than an art.

xp you can create another football with different aesthetics i guess if you want, and maybe if others join in you can start a burgeoning artform that way, but the way they exist now means you can create a video game to express something particular where you can't really do anything analogous in the realm of sports far as i can tell

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/55/Baseketball.jpg/220px-Baseketball.jpg

ur flailing a bit s1ocks

i think of athletes as artists to the extent that athletics when done well are creative motion and displays of improvisational and choreographed movement at peak efficiency and grace, so sorta related to dance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__SoKrmlHn4

Vince McMahon expressed something in particular in forming xfl

i wouldn't argue Pong is art. but are you seriously comparing horseshoes to Parappa the Rapper, Final Fantasy, Shadow of the Colossus, the entire canon of all videogames created in the last 30 years, etc. etc.?

is horseshoe throwing art?

let's ask her

Pong can be art!
http://www.citypaper.net/cover_story/King_of_Pong.html

i wouldn't argue Pong is art. but are you seriously comparing horseshoes to Parappa the Rapper, Final Fantasy, Shadow of the Colossus, the entire canon of all videogames created in the last 30 years, etc. etc.?

― Nhex, Friday, June 14, 2013 12:54 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

um... yes?

in the same way that i could compare a mondrian painting to a jerry bruckheimer movie—one is way bigger and more detailed but they're both recognizably "art"

xp whoa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=eFh8aI9TbQw

like i said above, more than once, i do agree that you can call basically ANYTHING "art"

so yes, you can say that pong on a skyscraper is art, especially for someone just watching it

but that doesn't get us closer to the real question, which is "is playing pong an artistic experience?" nothing in this thread has convinced me of this

i think of athletes as artists to the extent that athletics when done well are creative motion and displays of improvisational and choreographed movement at peak efficiency and grace, so sorta related to dance.

are soldiers in combat artists?

the motivation for any given action in sports or in games derives from non-aesthetic considerations. this is a huge & fundamental difference

commercial considerations really ought to be let into play then if that's the route.

describing it as art might be a neat or illuminating (or metaphorical) way to "think about it," sure, but it seems like you're missing the bigger picture there

and i think a lot of that comes from a sense that video games will only be recognized as "worthy" in some way if we can convince everyone they're works of art. why not exalt them as ludic masterpieces? as their own and awesome category of Things Humans Do?

A really great game to me would be exalted more like a really great pencil or brush is exalted and there isn't a center for critical writing utensil studies necessary

xp s1ocki i think the answer to that is because they are v. obviously artistic to at least some extent, if you want to stop short of calling them art that's fine if you have justifications for it that make sense to you, but clearly games come from creators and allow for expression (from those making them, as well as sometimes from those playing them) of ideas and aesthetics, which to me seem to be commonalities of artforms.

are soldiers in combat artists?

the motivation for any given action in sports or in games derives from non-aesthetic considerations.

Hmmm, I've always thought of the "art" in a game is the game mechanics, what those mechanics are modelling, and what that model says about stuff. Most obviously this is in the sims, where life is described as a series of needs and wants that the player must fulfill, culminating in the luxury of being able to get nicer virtual things. Tetris is about exploring the game mechanic and having fun organising randomness. A great deal of the pleasure in xcom is the way it forces teamwork to overcome incredible odds. I suppose fpss are the least gamey on this scale, cos its always essentially run, shoot some guys, end.

I think craft can become an art when practiced at the highest level, but mechanics to me are the province of craft -- constrained and motivated by environment rather than internal expression.

the one facet of this where i can kind of see s1ocki's point is that i think games can be more than art, which i guess is a way of saying 'different than art', in that games can be sports, games can be trivia, games can be simulations, games can be war (drones/enders game lol) etc... but i don't see anything that categorically excludes games from being art either! i do see something though that excludes sports or war from being art, the absence of creation.

Rumsfeld as architect of war

lol i don't think slocki is flailing nor is he being disingenuous

the fact that in a sport any action taken on the field is always and primarily for the purposes of winning and not aesthetics seems insurmountable to me

yeah I don't think that's a particularly controversial position either

i think that distinction is enough to render games different from art (if not "not art", idk?)

but again "pure" games are on a different plane from the competitive games of sports, going back to my crap up there about mazes and experience. or thinking about non-video games like, idk, those annoying old-timey catch-the-ball-on-a-string-in-the-cup. meaningless time wasting, a challenge w/o purpose, meant just to be fun to keep your hands and eyes occupied

any action taken on the field is always and primarily for the purposes of winning and not aesthetics seems insurmountable to me

well yes, everyone knows that Tebow is art

I mean:

http://www.imagecpr.com/imagecpr.com%20uploads/2012/09/TEBOW-HELMET.gif