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

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