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

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!