Roger Ebert claims "video games cannot be art"; molests children. [Archive]

Kerensky287

04-21-2010, 04:11 AM

Exactly one half of the topic line is speculation on my part, but I'm not going to pretend to hold an unbiased stance.

So hey, guess which aging movie critic (http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html) doesn't like the newfangled games encroaching on his territory?

Having once made the statement above, I have declined all opportunities to enlarge upon it or defend it. That seemed to be a fool's errand, especially given the volume of messages I receive urging me to play this game or that and recant the error of my ways. Nevertheless, I remain convinced that in principle, video games cannot be art. Perhaps it is foolish of me to say "never," because never, as Rick Wakeman informs us, is a long, long time. Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.

What stirs me to return to the subject? I was urged by a reader, Mark Johns, to consider a video of a TED talk given at USC by Kellee Santiago, a designer and producer of video games. I did so. I warmed to Santiago immediately. She is bright, confident, persuasive. But she is mistaken.

I propose to take an unfair advantage. She spoke extemporaneously. I have the luxury of responding after consideration. If you want to follow along, I urge you to watch her talk, which is embedded below. It's only 15 minutes long, and she makes the time pass quickly.

She begins by saying video games "already ARE art." Yet she concedes that I was correct when I wrote, "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets." To which I could have added painters, composers, and so on, but my point is clear.

Then she shows a slide of a prehistoric cave painting, calling it "kind of chicken scratches on walls," and contrasts it with Michelangelo's ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Her point is that while video games may be closer to the chicken scratch end of the spectrum, I am foolish to assume they will not evolve.

She then says speech began as a form of warning, and writing as a form of bookkeeping, but they evolved into storytelling and song. Actually, speech probably evolved into a form of storytelling and song long before writing was developed. And cave paintings were a form of storytelling, perhaps of religion, and certainly of the creation of beauty from those chicken-scratches Werner Herzog is even now filming in 3-D.

Herzog believes, in fact, that the paintings on the wall of the Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc in Southern France should only be looked at in the context of the shadows cast on those dark walls by the fires built behind the artists, which suggests the cave paintings, their materials of charcoal and ochre and all that went into them were the fruition of a long gestation, not the beginning of something--and that the artists were enormously gifted. They were great artists at that time, geniuses with nothing to build on, and were not in the process of becoming Michelangelo or anyone else. Any gifted artist will tell you how much he admires the "line" of those prehistoric drawers in the dark, and with what economy and wit they evoked the animals they lived among.

Santiago concedes that chess, football, baseball and even mah jong cannot be art, however elegant their rules. I agree. But of course that depends on the definition of art. She says the most articulate definition of art she's found is the one in Wikipedia: "Art is the process of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions." This is an intriguing definition, although as a chess player I might argue that my game fits the definition.

Plato, via Aristotle, believed art should be defined as the imitation of nature. Seneca and Cicero essentially agreed. Wikipedia believes "Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more concerned with the expression of ideas...Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction."

But we could play all day with definitions, and find exceptions to every one. For example, I tend to think of art as usually the creation of one artist. Yet a cathedral is the work of many, and is it not art? One could think of it as countless individual works of art unified by a common purpose. Is not a tribal dance an artwork, yet the collaboration of a community? Yes, but it reflects the work of individual choreographers. Everybody didn't start dancing all at once.

One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite a immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.

She quotes Robert McKee's definition of good writing as "being motivated by a desire to touch the audience." This is not a useful definition, because a great deal of bad writing is also motivated by the same desire. I might argue that the novels of Cormac McCarthy are so motivated, and Nicholas Sparks would argue that his novels are so motivated. But when I say McCarthy is "better" than Sparks and that his novels are artworks, that is a subjective judgment, made on the basis of my taste (which I would argue is better than the taste of anyone who prefers Sparks).

Santiago now phrases this in her terms: "Art is a way of communicating ideas to an audience in a way that the audience finds engaging." Yet what ideas are contained in Stravinsky, Picasso, "Night of the Hunter," "Persona," "Waiting for Godot," "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?" Oh, you can perform an exegesis or a paraphrase, but then you are creating your own art object from the materials at hand.

Kellee Santiago has arrived at this point lacking a convincing definition of art. But is Plato's any better? Does art grow better the more it imitates nature? My notion is that it grows better the more it improves or alters nature through an passage through what we might call the artist's soul, or vision. Countless artists have drawn countless nudes. They are all working from nature. Some of there paintings are masterpieces, most are very bad indeed. How do we tell the difference? We know. It is a matter, yes, of taste.

Santiago now supplies samples of a video game named "Waco Resurrection" (above), in which the player, as David Koresh, defends his Branch Davidian compound against FBI agents. The graphics show the protagonist exchanging gunfire with agents according to the rules of the game. Although the player must don a Koresh mask and inspire his followers to play, the game looks from her samples like one more brainless shooting-gallery.

"Waco Resurrection" may indeed be a great game, but as potential art it still hasn't reached the level of chicken scratches, She defends the game not as a record of what happened at Waco, but "as how we feel happened in our culture and society." Having seen the 1997 documentary "Waco: The Rules of Engagement," I would in contrast award the game a Fail in this category. The documentary made an enormous appeal to my senses and emotions, although I am not proposing it as art.

Her next example is a game named "Braid" (above). This is a game "that explores our own relationship with our past...you encounter enemies and collect puzzle pieces, but there's one key difference...you can't die." You can go back in time and correct your mistakes. In chess, this is known as taking back a move, and negates the whole discipline of the game. Nor am I persuaded that I can learn about my own past by taking back my mistakes in a video game. She also admires a story told between the games levels, which exhibits prose on the level of a wordy fortune cookie.

We come to Example 3, "Flower" (above). A run-down city apartment has a single flower on the sill, which leads the player into a natural landscape. The game is "about trying to find a balance between elements of urban and the natural." Nothing she shows from this game seemed of more than decorative interest on the level of a greeting card. Is the game scored? She doesn't say. Do you win if you're the first to find the balance between the urban and the natural? Can you control the flower? Does the game know what the ideal balance is?

These three are just a small selection of games, she says, "that crossed that boundary into artistic expression." IMHO, that boundary remains resolutely uncrossed. "Braid" has had a "great market impact," she says, and "was the top-downloaded game on XBox Live Arcade." All of these games have received "critical acclaim."

Now she shows stills from early silent films such as George Melies' "A Voyage to the Moon" (1902), which were "equally simplistic." Obviously, I'm hopelessly handicapped because of my love of cinema, but Melies seems to me vastly more advanced than her three modern video games. He has limited technical resources, but superior artistry and imagination.

These days, she says, "grown-up gamers" hope for games that reach higher levels of "joy, or of ecstasy....catharsis." These games (which she believes are already being made) "are being rewarded by audiences by high sales figures." The only way I could experience joy or ecstasy from her games would be through profit participation.

The three games she chooses as examples do not raise my hopes for a video game that will deserve my attention long enough to play it. They are, I regret to say, pathetic. I repeat: "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets."

Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art? Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form. Nor did Shi Hua Chen, winner of the $500,000 World Series of Mah Jong in 2009. Why aren't gamers content to play their games and simply enjoy themselves? They have my blessing, not that they care.

Do they require validation? In defending their gaming against parents, spouses, children, partners, co-workers or other critics, do they want to be able to look up from the screen and explain, "I'm studying a great form of art?" Then let them say it, if it makes them happy.

I allow Sangtiago the last word. Toward the end of her presentation, she shows a visual with six circles, which represent, I gather, the components now forming for her brave new world of video games as art. The circles are labeled: Development, Finance, Publishing, Marketing, Education, and Executive Management. I rest my case.

I think I can agree that Waco Resurrection (which I have never played or heard of, but sounds like a garbage shooter) doesn't really count as art.

But dude, Braid? Part of his support for it "not being art" is the fact that you can turn back time, which he apparently feels is cheating. I don't think that he has any right to say a THING on the subject until he actually plays it (which I know is hypocrisy on my part due to my earlier comments on some dumb shooter). He wouldn't exactly be a good movie critic if he reviewed movies without seeing them, why can he claim that level of knowledge about games he has never played?

Goddamn aging windbag.

Mesden

04-21-2010, 04:34 AM

By his reasonable definition of art he is right on every count. Just because Braid is really good or captivating doesn't make it art.

Viridis

04-21-2010, 04:59 AM

Jerry Holkins (http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/4/21/) brings a few good points:
There are many, many replies to Roger Ebert's reeking ejaculate (http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html), from measured Judo-inspired reversals of momentum to primal shrieks which communicate rage in a harrowing, proto-linguistic state. Thatgamecompany's Kellee Santiago chose to respond to him (http://kotaku.com/5520437/my-response-to-roger-ebert-video-game-skeptic), which gave the whole thing a kind of symmetry, seeing as it was her TED speech (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9y6MYDSAww&feature=player_embedded) that drove that wretched, ancient warlock into his original spasm.

That was very polite of her, behaving as though she were one side of a conversation. For what it's worth. Which isn't much, honestly, because this weren't never a dialogue. He is not talking to you, he is just talking. And he's arguing

1. in bad faith,
2. in an internally contradictory way,
3. with nebulously defined terms,

so there's nothing here to discuss. You can if you want to, and people certainly do, but there's no profit in it. Nobody's going to hold their blade aloft at the end of this thing and found a kingdom. It's just something to fill the hours.

Also, do we win something if we defeat him? Does he drop a good helm? Because I can't for the life of me figure out why we give a shit what that creature says. He doesn't operate under some divine shroud that lets him determine what is or is not valid culture. He cannot rob you, retroactively, of wholly valid experiences; he cannot transform them into worthless things.

He's simply a man determined to be on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the human drive to create, and dreadfully so; a monument to the same generational bullshit (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/4/21/) that says because something has not been, it must not and could never be. (CW)TB out.

Amake

04-21-2010, 05:50 AM

Admittedly there has't been a single defining title you can rub in the face of people who say "it isn't art", like Maus for comic books, but then comics took about eighty years to get to that point. Give it a little time, and stick with Ico for the moment.

Although on a conceptual level, you have to wonder if a form of artistic expression can actually be without artistic merit.

Wigmund

04-21-2010, 06:31 AM

Summary: Hey you damn gamers! Get off my pretentious lawn!

It's like arguing with one of those damn street preachers - no matter how you go about your counter-argument, they'll change their end of it so that they're always right.

Besides, if Kellee Santiago wanted to give examples of games-as-art she could have mentioned Ico or Shadow of the Colossus.

Toast

04-21-2010, 06:33 AM

Jerry Holkins has the right idea. There really is no point in engaging in a dialogue with Ebert about this since he wasn't willing to engage Santiago or any gamer. Hell, he's not even willing to engage and experience a single game from start to finish, which makes him sound like Cooper Lawrence.

That being said, there are a few things I'd like to respond to for intellectual reasons.

Whether something is art or not is as nebulous a subject as whether something is creative or not. I've read a lot of theoretical work on creativity and it really does depend on who's writing whether there's a physical product or whether that product is popular within its genre before something is considered creative. And I disagreed with all of them because that's too narrow of a definition.

but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them
I think here he's using some kind of arbitrary hierarchical structure just so he could say that even the story of a game can not be considered art, merely a representation (i.e. not the real thing) of something that can be considered art. There are some games that have had novelizations of them (Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment come to mind) and the books generally suck because they can't encompass the array of choices possible. They're less than what they started with, but they're still art. And if that's the case, then it makes a sort of sense that what they were derived from is also art.

"No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets."
I find this statement kind of disingenuous. I can think of several games that I would willingly compare to the stale, boring works I was forced to read in high school because someone deemed them "Classics". Whether they fail, match up, or exceed those works is a matter of personal, subjective taste. But to say they can't even be compared smacks of elitism. You may not be able to compare them on all the same criteria, but there's enough similar ones you could work with.

Anything that has a narrative can be considered art. It can be bad, it can be mediocre, it can be good. That part doesn't matter.

I tend to think of art as usually the creation of one artist. Yet a cathedral is the work of many, and is it not art? One could think of it as countless individual works of art unified by a common purpose.
I really don't see how video games couldn't fall under his own definition.

Bob The Mercenary

04-21-2010, 08:07 AM

If a damn piece of rope nailed to the wall of a museum, or a canvas splattered with random streaks of paint can be art, I submit that video games can be also.

Professor Smarmiarty

04-21-2010, 08:24 AM

The definition of art always changes.
The greek definition of art was different to that of the romans to that of the renaissance to that of the enlightenment to that of the modernists to that of today. Giev it some time and our current conception of art will be outmoded.
The problem is that while the videogame industry is not interested in exploring its medium and is interested in generic titles that make the most money the movie industry is pretty much the same at the moment.
The point about the number of artists is important though. Art is about conveying something, some emotion, some response to the world and if your story- the most "art" type section of the game- is banged out by 100 people trying to fit some game mechanics, it doesn't really work. Still art just really really shitty, muddled art.

Deborah

04-21-2010, 08:28 AM

Ugh, I remember when he was first spouting this bullshit when I was back in fucking high school. I think back then I tried to write a big rambling email rant about it... aw crap, I feel another one coming on.

One aspect that I appreciate most about video games that I think justifies them as art, and which I think is pretty much unique to games, is how it can require true interaction to look into its hidden layers. Most interesting works of art have subtle details that you start to appreciate the more you study it. In a film or book or comic, this could be subtle references and hints and ironies that give you new insight to the characters, to the story's theme, or to the setting and world of the story itself. But you get these by... just watching the film again. Reading the book again. Nothing wrong with that, but in video games...

In video games, a lot depends on HOW you get to these details. When you re-read a book you might notice new things and skip by others, but in a game this can be much more literal. You can save time on your quest by walking right past an NPC that has nothing mandatory to listen to. But if you do choose to talk to them, they might mention something that shows you a little something more that helps you appreciate another aspect of the story. If you go on certain side-quests a different character might get some more time in the spotlight. They don't all have to be big serious weighty drama bombs either. Jokes hidden in Easter eggs could count too.

In games, a lot of these special optional details that add depth to the story can be optional in a much different way than other media. Sure, in film or books too you might need to "go looking" to bother catching the more subtle things, but in a game environment there's a whole different set of mechanics and a much different feel to the way you go about your explorations and investigations. Hell, if anything, the music in video games, which is art in itself (music is okay to be art still, right?) gains a new dimension beyond just the notes themselves by the way it becomes associated with different actions or characters or locations.

So yeah, how about those inferior mediums like film and books and comics, they think they're all deep and shit, but do they honestly give you a challenge to notice those subtleties, I think not! When you're flipping through Watchmen there isn't some code inside forcing you to fly to the right location or do the right task if you want to catch that aerial shot of the smiley face on Mars. You don't need to make the conscious choice of buying a pirate comic book and then use it as an item to open it and discover that whole Black Freighter business. They just spoon-feed it all to you! You want to get elitist, I say books and films are for simpletons too lazy to even push a couple buttons!

Yeah yeah, I know, not worth replying to him, I meant to just give a two-word reply:

MOTHER FUCKING 3, BITCHES.

Damn, overshot again! Okay, how about:

CHRONO TRIGGER.

And that's from back in '95.

Professor Smarmiarty

04-21-2010, 08:37 AM

The problem is that while those potentials exist- the videogame can easily be the most post-modern medium of all time and challenge the player in ways that books/film/art can't, the vast majority of them don't and it is very difficult to find games that actually present themselves as this rather than just a test of your game-playing skills, not your emotive response to themselvse.
While you could say the same thing about movies (sort of anyway) there are established classics of movie-making as art that can be used as counterexamples whereas videogames not so much.

Solid Snake

04-21-2010, 09:42 AM

Guys, guys.
There is a very simple solution to this problem.

Give Roger Ebert a copy of ICO.
Seriously, that's all that needs to be done here. And how old is ICO, now? Close to a decade? Maybe more?

(A copy of Shadow of the Colossus would also suffice, though I think ICO is the more effective title for Ebert because he seems uninterested in traditional videogaming violence and would prefer a few fun puzzles and pretty pictures to stare at.)

P.S. I still think Ebert has something of a point, he's just failing to articulate his point in a way that doesn't seem utterly hypocritical (insofar as he's apparently never played video games) and unnecessarily denigrating to the industry and its fans. I think if Ebert thought harder about the issue he'd frame it this way: Art may appear in videogames (see FFVII's pre-rendered backgrounds, just about any image in ICO, Mass Effect 2's gorgeous character designs and fluid animations, brilliantly crafted storylines, etc.), but videogames themselves are not art.

And there's something of a point there. We associate video games as art in large part because we've grown attached to a medium that's included artistic elements traditionally associated with stories we'd write or pictures we'd draw. We view videogames as art because of a role-playing game's emotionally cathartic story or the beautiful level of detail in rendering an exquisitely interactive scene.

But the elements that separate video games from other artistic mediums like, say, television shows or movies are programming ones concocted through the sheer power of modern computing. The excessive programming that creates the worlds we "inhabit" in videogames is an impressive feat, but I consider it less an art and more a science. Contemporary videogames have a superficial appearance of interactivity, but they're not truly interactive experiences insofar as there's a very limited cache of moves you can make and a very limited number of ways to "solve" the puzzles you encounter. And in fact, every enemy you fight and every boss you defeat is essentially a "puzzle" -- you're still essentially pressing buttons in different fashions and with predetermined combinations.

The art stems from the fact that artists have attached these button presses to fluid movements of a vivid avatar on the screen. And that component of videogaming is art, it's comparable to Disney's animation or a series of evocative paintings. But if the heart and soul of videogames really involves the interactivity, then it's not really an artform as a whole, in the composite, just yet -- it's a series of enormously complex alegbraic equations with an outer casing of art, yet the art itself exists in large part to make the equation-solving button-mashing more accessible to an audience used to conventional storytelling. This thesis is literally proven by all the 8BT sprite and/or text-based fan-created versions of videogames out there. You can strip the art from the game and you'd still be left with the game itself, and the game itself isn't art.

In short: I think it's possible to argue that there's plenty of beautiful art in videogames, both in terms of artwork (beautfiully designed images of characters and settings) and narrative (storylines with intricate plots and evocative character development that outshine the best movies out there.) But that's actually different than saying that videogames themselves are art.

krogothwolf

04-21-2010, 10:21 AM

I really don't care what an old fossil has to say. Soon the old generation will die out and their views will slowly die with them, then we can write our on views on what is and isn't ar.

Then as we get older, we argue that the next big thing isn't art because the new generation thinks it is but cause we're older then them we obviously know better then those foolish whipper snappers! and they just shrug us off and go "Those crazy old people don't even know what they are talking about". Then they wait for us to slowly die out and take our views with us.

So yeah, Don't care what crazy old man thinks. He probably still thinks the world is flat anyways.

Professor Smarmiarty

04-21-2010, 10:30 AM

P.S. I still think Ebert has something of a point, he's just failing to articulate his point in a way that doesn't seem utterly hypocritical (insofar as he's apparently never played video games) and unnecessarily denigrating to the industry and its fans. I think if Ebert thought harder about the issue he'd frame it this way: Art may appear in videogames (see FFVII's pre-rendered backgrounds, just about any image in ICO, Mass Effect 2's gorgeous character designs and fluid animations, brilliantly crafted storylines, etc.), but videogames themselves are not art.

I don't think he would argue that at all because of how the representation of images comes about in videogames. He would say it's the same as everybody looking at a tree, then everybody reproducing a part of that tree designed as accurately as possible. It's not conveying anything so it's more like printing than art. You can argue about whether that is accurate or not but just recreating pretty images does not equal art as such.

Solid Snake

04-21-2010, 10:38 AM

I don't think he would argue that at all because of how the representation of images comes about in videogames. He would say it's the same as everybody looking at a tree, then everybody reproducing a part of that tree designed as accurately as possible.

It's still art.
You can draw a picture that looks exactly like a photograph, and only represents exactly that which is seen, and it's still a piece of art. It's not particularly revolutionary or inventive, but it's art.

But of course, there are plenty of fantastical representations of creatures, characters, and settings that are unique and are not mere replicas of natural phenomena. It'd be harder for Ebert to dismiss a claim that, say, a Colossus (in SotC) or a turian (in Mass Effect) were not works of art.

Nearly forgot about music soundtracks in my original post, but it's safe to say that incredible VG soundtracks qualify as art, and the mixing of matching of the music to specific scenes to engineer an emotional catharsis among players (which happens to some extent in most RPGs, as well as anything Metal Gear) is pretty damn artistic.

EDIT: But I agree with you insofar as Ebert would clearly disagree with my interpretation. I just think my interpretation is also different from the opposite extreme that's taken by many over-defensive gamers. Just because Ebert is wrong in completely dismissing videogames doesn't mean he's wrong when says games aren't, in and of themselves, works of art.

Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope

04-21-2010, 10:42 AM

To me, art is engaging and thought provoking and really good art set's the bar to what differentiates good art from crap.

Games can be engaging and thought provoking and a good game set's the bar to what games can achieve.

But that's just me and I am simply a gamer who has no other thought patterns

Wigmund

04-21-2010, 10:48 AM

But the elements that separate video games from other artistic mediums like, say, television shows or movies are programming ones concocted through the sheer power of modern computing. The excessive programming that creates the worlds we "inhabit" in videogames is an impressive feat, but I consider it less an art and more a science.

Point to refute this part of your argument: Pixar movies. They're nothing but excessive programming made possible only through the power of modern computers. But will say that if movies are art - then by this assertion the amazing works of Pixar are not?

Solid Snake

04-21-2010, 11:01 AM

Point to refute this part of your argument: Pixar movies. They're nothing but excessive programming made possible only through the power of modern computers. But will say that if movies are art - then by this assertion the amazing works of Pixar are not?

No. There's a huge difference. Let me see if I can explain it.

Because Pixar movies are a non-interactive medium, the entirety of the computer programming invested into the product is made to improve the aesthetics. It's an entirely artistic endeavor. They're creating a series of images for an audience to react to.

(Then of course there's the really evocative art of a Pixar movie, which is more the incredible storylines and less the CGI.)

But all the CGI programming is on the "visual" side. There's no coding of an independent 'game engine' designed to register exactly how much HP is taken off when your character is hit with an attack or the way enemy AI "strategically" attempt to take down the player.

By contrast, there's actually two elements of programming going on with videogames. There's the artistic side of the project, where the programming corresponds with Finding Nemo or The Incredibles; they're creating evocative images designed to register a response in the player, to convince the player that he's actually engrossed in the world presented on the screen. Then there's the algebraic side of the equation, which is really just programming artificial rules (battlefield mechanics, turn-based DnD style combat, real-world emulating physics, etc.) into the game.

The former, in my opinion, is art. The latter, in my opinion, are just a series of mathematical rules, akin to how a series of math equations ultimately comprises much of the complicated real-world phenomena we witness as science.

It's like...here's a legal analogy because I'm in a law school class right now: it's the difference between the "artistry" of a Supreme Court opinion written by Justice Scalia and the content itself. Separating your disgust with Scalia's politics with his linguistic ability, the guy's a gifted writer. Many of his opinions are scathing socio-political critiques. I'd rank at least a few as 'artistic,' in the same way a well-reported nonfiction story might constitute 'art' as journalism. His command of language, the flow and structure of his written work, the word he chooses that fits just right to complete a metaphor; that's art.

But all the legalese? All the rules Scalia's actually operating under, the Constitutional constraints that actually influence and dictate his opinion? That's not art. Those are the rules of the legal game; they're almost more scientific (or at least politically scientific) constructs. There's nothing artistic about a series of equations that Scalia utilizes to make a decision as to whether an Executive Agency meets Constitutional Qualification X or fails to meet Congressional Qualification Y.
Similarly, all that HP/MP, enemy AI, press the X button three times to progress the scene stuff...that isn't art. It's a vital component of videogaming and it's amazing stuff, that we can manipulate a computer in such a way to simulate games on a screen and program conditions that result in "victory" or "defeat" and correspond to buttons that are pressed, but it's not art.

krogothwolf

04-21-2010, 11:29 AM

In simplistic terms. It almost sounds like you believe the video game is the frame for the art itself.

Amake

04-21-2010, 12:24 PM

Like Garfield huh, it's nothing in itself, it just has the potential to become art and humor with liberal editing.

The more open-ended a game is, the more the players can make themselves, the less artful it is in itself. The playing experience itself is created solely by the player by the act of playing the game, so it's not art in the sense of something made with the intent and vision of an artist. Or something.

I'm not sure I buy that. Isn't a sandbox art? Depends on your definition of art, I guess. Everything does. Until we can get everyone to agree on a definition, it's probably pointless to ague that "X isn't art".

Bells

04-21-2010, 12:43 PM

Dear Mr Ebert,

You are not an Art critic. You are not a Videogame critic.

You are a movie critic. As such, you understand movies in a deeper, more detailed manner and may actually understand what constitutes as simple Fluff or actual artistic endeavor in film making.

However, you are not a Art Critic. I would not trust your opinion to tell me which one of two paintings is art and which one is not. I would not trust your opinion to tell me why you believe the works of Bach to be Art but never the work of a Hardcore gangsta Rapper. You are not a music critic either, and i don't expect you to have in dept knowledge of this field and it's creative process and evolution.

To be blunt and quite honest, i would take pause before considering you views about a Play in Broadway. Although you understand movies and i can relate that Theater is nothing but it's Brother... you are a movie critic and a filmmaker. I would expect you to excel in that.

So, are games Art? I don't know, i'm not a Game Critic. But neither are you. I'll tell you that i do enjoy games though, and some do capture my attention and appreciation via their stories, presentation, characterization and sometimes simply due to it's quirkiness and bold attempts at poking the "usual" and making fun of itself while being fun.

So, shut up.

Solid Snake

04-21-2010, 12:48 PM

In simplistic terms. It almost sounds like you believe the video game is the frame for the art itself.

Pretty much. I like that.
The mechanics of the game itself is not art, it's what the writers and the graphics artists and the composers collectively do with those mechanics to tell their tale that can make the experience a form of art.

Calling the game's mechanics a frame seems somewhat a disservice as I actually think the mechanical aspect of the programming is an equal component alongside the artwork, almost as if the two together create a hybrid between a rules-based interactive game and an evocative storytelling device. When I say this aspect of videogame creation is not art, believe it or not, I don't mean it as an insult... it's more a way to distinguish between two elements that, when combined, create a hybrid product I consider in many ways superior to "mere" novels or portraits or movies, which may succeed as "works of art" but lack that gaming component in which viewers can also engage as active participants.

The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk

04-21-2010, 12:51 PM

Yeah... I wouldn't take anyones opinion/criticism on anything unless they've experianced, even to the slightest degree, whatever it is they're opinionating on/criticising.

By his own admission he has not played a single videogame, so how can he say anything about them? Robert Eberts opinions on games is henceforth ignored by me until he sits down and plays something.

synkr0nized

04-21-2010, 12:59 PM

It seems to me folks confuse what is and isn't art with what they think should be art or is "good" art.

So a guy can throw a bunch of paint at a wall and call it art, directors and writers can oversee a bunch of actors and record them and call it art, but digital creations that individuals or groups can interact with aren't art? Sounds like people are attributing a set of opinions about art to a definition of art which isn't necessarilly correct.

bluestarultor

04-21-2010, 01:14 PM

Kerensky287

04-21-2010, 01:19 PM

Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope

04-21-2010, 01:21 PM

Re: Video Games as art: Okami.

I've been saying that for such a long time now, along side Ico and SotC

bluestarultor

04-21-2010, 01:26 PM

BattyAsHell

04-21-2010, 01:30 PM

BattyAsHell

04-21-2010, 01:35 PM

I think that art is COMPLETELY subjective, which is why Roger Ebert has his head way up his ass claiming that videogames can objectively never be art.

I mean, I don't get "fine art", but if the multitude of pranks/quiet studies making fun of art critics have been any indication, NOBODY does. Art critics are absolutely full of shit. Why? Because they're trying to objectively define something that is, by definition, subjective.

Ebert is a successful movie critic because he puts a lot of thought into the movies he watches.... or tends to agree with the public opinion or something. Well-thought-out arguments for why a movie is art tend to be successful, but arguments the listener agrees with are a lot easier to make.

Re: Video Games as art: Okami.

Heh, there's this one artist who has a webpage showing off material for T-shirts.. Really geeky stuff, like Mario Bros. related.. On his "About me" page, he claims he'll never try and succeed in the conventional "art" circles, because he's discovered it's basically a cliquish bunch where you need to like the same things they like, and turn your nose up at the same things they reject, and there's very little room for innovation...

I think there's truth of that in lots of things, personally.. The people who define what's what, are usually the one's with a vested interest in the status quo: e.g. the people who broke into and inhabit the industries. In addition, the masses tend to like familiarity, so it's really hard for innovation to win them over.. That's why a lot of artists considered great today, were only considered this after their deaths... By then, the worlds moved on.

CelesJessa

04-21-2010, 02:23 PM

I'm of the school of thought that anything can be art. I mean, there have been art pieces using video games as a medium so someone just drawing a line and saying "THIS CAN'T BE ART" is kind of silly.

I spend a lot of time having to watch crazy video art pieces (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drDPbKquQVw) and discussing why it can be art and I've pretty much learned that trying to make a blanket statement about anything in terms of "what is art" is pretty close minded when you look at the rest of the art world.

Honestly, his claims bother me more as an artist than as a gamer. XD

POS Industries

04-21-2010, 03:04 PM

Honestly, his claims bother me more as an artist than as a gamer.
This is where I stand on it, as well. My view of art is that it is any form of creative expression. What sets video games apart from chess or football as an artistic medium is their ability to engage the player on a meaningful emotional level not from the results of the player's performance as Ebert seems to believe but from their capability to involve narrative, visuals, music, etc. The interactivity of the medium doesn't change the artistic impact of the work itself, because all the pieces of the work were still created and put in place by the artists. The interactive medium only serves to change what the viewer sees at any moment, but the viewer has no real impact over the work itself.

Ebert's assertion that a video game cannot be art because it is made by a team of countless individuals crafting different parts of the project is flawed as well, and beyond his cathedral analogy. A film or television show is also the result of similarly sized teams of creative individuals working toward a common goal. His analogy also discounts music written by a band rather than a single songwriter. Collaborative art is still art.

And, finally, his apparent demand that he be shown a game that he can deem art is both a massive burden of proof fallacy and and an ultimately impossible one to overcome, as he will never deem a game art. That said, my personal choice for a game that uses the medium as an artform for the creative expression of a single person would be Eversion, but it's unlikely that a man like Mr. Ebert would see it as anything more than some pixelated bleeps and bloops for the maybe minute and a half at most he'd care to look at it.

Aerozord

04-21-2010, 03:40 PM

its all subjective, and depends on what you call art. There are people that view only paintings as "art" after all. The very fact games are interactive might dismiss it as an artform. Seems he is one of them, by how he sites that being able to correct errors removes any real impact of what you do. He is entitled to his opinion

My only complaint would be if he is making this as a critique because he clearly judges games with a bias. To him their very nature keeps them from being art and to be what he calls art they'd cease to be games. He isn't insulting gamers, he isn't saying games are childish, evil, simple, or anything negative about those that play them. Just that he would not classify it as an artform.

I think he's wrong, but isn't saying anything that deserves my ire and hatred

Fifthfiend

04-21-2010, 04:23 PM

He is not talking to you, he is just talking. And he's arguing

1. in bad faith,
2. in an internally contradictory way,
3. with nebulously defined terms,

so there's nothing here to discuss. You can if you want to, and people certainly do, but there's no profit in it. Nobody's going to hold their blade aloft at the end of this thing and found a kingdom. It's just something to fill the hours.

Big Eebs is plainly trolling, but on the whole it's for the best because it's led to a lot of actually interesting thoughts and discussion on the nature of art and games' relation to it.

Archbio

04-21-2010, 04:52 PM

Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?

Why were filmmakers so intensely concerned, anyway, that they be considered artists?

Really, this is typical Ebert. Who is not, after all, a film critic, but rather a movie reviewer.

bluestarultor

04-21-2010, 05:02 PM

There are people that view only paintings as "art" after all.

Those people would be obviously wrong. Even accepted art forms include sculpture, pencil/ink sketches, and other things I won't list. That's totally ignoring drama, music, poetry, and prose.

The very fact games are interactive might dismiss it as an artform.

I disagree. Theater is an art form, after all. What's a game if not a play taking place on a screen with input from the observer? A movie where the player becomes an actor in the story? The same kind of time and effort goes into both games and movies. The only difference is who the star is.

My only complaint would be if he is making this as a critique because he clearly judges games with a bias. To him their very nature keeps them from being art and to be what he calls art they'd cease to be games. He isn't insulting gamers, he isn't saying games are childish, evil, simple, or anything negative about those that play them. Just that he would not classify it as an artform.

I think he's wrong, but isn't saying anything that deserves my ire and hatred

Ire and hatred, perhaps not, but a correction, maybe so. The people at the head of the artistic gaggle, as it were, are the very ones who should be fostering the arts, not defining them. Look once at comics and their terrible reputation. Nobody takes them seriously because of bad marketing. Slap the term "graphic novel" on them? Instant respect. It's the same product, but the marketing is different. Rather than setting up an example of the potential comics hold, people instead had to give them a different name in order to bypass the image comics have been ascribed by people who frankly just don't like them. That would be like letting your worst enemy name your children. You can bet it won't turn out well. The same goes here. The heads of the art community shouldn't be excluding what by all means should be their fellows, but rather supporting and nurturing them. Yes, games fall under an almost totally different model of production, with vast amounts of time and money thrown into them, but as I said, movies are in the same boat in that regard, and those clearly have a place.

If it were anyone else saying it, I could forgive them. Maybe games aren't art. Then neither would be movies, or modern music. I could dig that view. "Keep it to the old and true." But to draw a line between movies and video games is hypocritical. They're not that different.

Daimo Mac, The Blue Light of Hope

04-21-2010, 05:09 PM

Someone should ask him if the movies he's written screenplays for would be considered art.

BitVyper

04-21-2010, 05:27 PM

Roger Ebert claims "video games cannot be art"

Who cares?

Azisien

04-21-2010, 05:49 PM

bluestarultor

04-21-2010, 06:04 PM

A) I mirror the view of "Why are we so concerned that games be considered art?"

B) If games are art, which I might say only a minority are, then they're pretty shitty art. And I say that on top of being heavily biased in thinking art is really, really boring.

C) Robert Ebert liked Knowing. Fuck that guy.

A) You say that, but I again direct you to the comics example. By applying a blanket statement over a media that prevents it from being considered art, you crush it. Then it never will be, and people will never take it seriously. Yes, "artistic" games are few, but the same could be said for movies. Yet movies are considered an art form. The ability to call a work art brings a respect and acceptance to it.

B) Again, the same could be said for movies. Or anything for that matter. 90% of everything is shit. Take Persona 3. A wonderful game, not particularly graphically advanced compared to other titles, but absolutely dripping with symbolism. If it were a movie, Ebert would likely praise it for the set design, music, and message. It's definitely in the 10% of things that are good. It is art. Maybe not "artistic" in some snooty sense, but the sum of the whole is a masterwork about loss and mortality and living on.

C) He gave Glenn Beck both barrels, though, so he's not ALL bad.

Solid Snake

04-21-2010, 06:04 PM

B) If games are art, which I might say only a minority are, then they're pretty shitty art.

So, you've never played ICO, eh?

Raiden

04-21-2010, 06:04 PM

As a movie buff, I really respect Ebert's opinion on films.

Films.

On the same token, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Their opinion.

The only way an opinion gains weight is when people either obsess about it or give it credit by giving it undue attention. It's the opinion of a guy who loves movies and doesn't really get video games. My grandfather's extent to video games was Robotnik's Evil Bean Machine on the original sega genesis, so I'm not really going to ask my grandfather whether he believes video games to be a valid artistic media. Also, video games have only been around in a form we can recognize for a few decades. They haven't even been out for a full century yet. So it will take a while before it is considered an artistic medium.

So yeah. I can kind of see why some people might get upset, but in truth video games really haven't earned the Art Cred yet. Just a simple fact.

Aerozord

04-21-2010, 06:15 PM

but who cares whats classified as art? Its by no means a statement of quality, there are alot of bad art, or things called art by some and not by others.

Maybe its because I'm not an art snob but ALL I care about is that I personally get something out of it. I can appreciate a good painting but I honestly care only that I find it visually pleasing. Most "art" has no real value to me because as soon as I am done analyzing it, I'm done with it. Which for most takes a few seconds.

Matters none to me if games are "art" and even less so what a single individual thinks. It entertains me, and adds more to the core of my being then most "art". I spend alot more time discussing Portal then Mona Lisa, and considering I'm a Da Vinci admirer thats saying something

Azisien

04-21-2010, 06:24 PM

A) You say that, but I again direct you to the comics example. By applying a blanket statement over a media that prevents it from being considered art, you crush it. Then it never will be, and people will never take it seriously. Yes, "artistic" games are few, but the same could be said for movies. Yet movies are considered an art form. The ability to call a work art brings a respect and acceptance to it.

B) Again, the same could be said for movies. Or anything for that matter. 90% of everything is shit. Take Persona 3. A wonderful game, not particularly graphically advanced compared to other titles, but absolutely dripping with symbolism. If it were a movie, Ebert would likely praise it for the set design, music, and message. It's definitely in the 10% of things that are good. It is art. Maybe not "artistic" in some snooty sense, but the sum of the whole is a masterwork about loss and mortality and living on.

C) He gave Glenn Beck both barrels, though, so he's not ALL bad.

These arguments are really good. Better if you value art. I don't, really. Because the definition is kind of up in the air anyway, so much so that either anything is art, in which case the word is meaningless, or whatever the writer thinks is art is art, neither of which satisfy me. Ebert himself, and the lady he's rebutting both admit there's easily three or four definitions right off the bat.

The interactivity of games seems to be some kind of block in this case. For some reason there's a notion you have to sit back and...just appreciate art? I don't really know. The fact that you play a game and play it to win excludes it from the art category. I don't see why these things have to be mutually exclusive.

His definition was....things that stimulate senses and emotions? So like, granulated sugar is art? Oh, artifically produced. Hey I guess that works! I mean you are literally arranging elements and shit, woo!

Ebert kind of admits games are art anyway, just really really horrible art at this point. I generally agree, even while knowing I've developed actual emotional connections to like, fucking Mass Effect characters.

So, you've never played ICO, eh?

No, though I'd probably try it if it wasn't rare as hell and like sixty bucks when it does show up. If it's anything like SotC, I don't know if I would be that impressed. Plus it has enough hype to choke an elephant and that rarely flies well with me.

BattyAsHell

04-21-2010, 08:29 PM

Who cares?

http://www.nuklearforums.com/images/icons/icon13.gif

No, though I'd probably try it if it wasn't rare as hell and like sixty bucks when it does show up. If it's anything like SotC, I don't know if I would be that impressed. Plus it has enough hype to choke an elephant and that rarely flies well with me.

I'm pretty frugal myself (Read: cheap), and can relate to buying into hype only to be disappointed.

But if you have any interest in playing certain old, rare game like Ico, sometimes you just have to hold your nose and cough up the cash.. Otherwise, it'll just get more expensive down the line and than you'll never play it.

I certainly didn't want to spend nearly 60 bucks on the Zelda Bonus disc for my Gamecube that many people got for free, but considering it's about 15 bucks per cart on the original systems, it's stil about as good a deal as you'd find collecting them separately.. And more convenient.

And you only live once, so why live without experiencing them just to save a few dollars?

I try not to think about the fact the disc is a lot cheaper now.. v_v;

Yumil

04-21-2010, 08:46 PM

ICO is summed up pretty well in this video. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTrm4Yie4ow)

Ok, not so much, but still it got really annoying>.< I wont deny it's got quality over the gameplay, but I wouldnt buy it for $60.

Solid Snake

04-21-2010, 08:58 PM

Ok, not so much, but still it got really annoying>.< I wont deny it's got quality over the gameplay, but I wouldnt buy it for $60.

...

...Blasphemy.

Yumil

04-21-2010, 09:06 PM

...

...Blasphemy.

By the time I played it, I hated escort quests, so that may have tinted my view.

Azisien

04-21-2010, 10:11 PM

And you only live once, so why live without experiencing them just to save a few dollars?

One part doubt that Ico is some kind of "I HAVE to play this before I die OR ELSE" and one part so I can spend those few dollars on other games, or parts of cars, houses, solar panels, thermite. You know, the good stuff!

BattyAsHell

04-21-2010, 10:24 PM

One part doubt that Ico is some kind of "I HAVE to play this before I die OR ELSE" and one part so I can spend those few dollars on other games, or parts of cars, houses, solar panels, thermite. You know, the good stuff!

That's good too.

Not saying owning a game (Or anything else) is a do or die thing. I'm just talking as someone who usually deprives himself on things, and realized sometimes you just have to splurge.

My other motto is "When it doubt, do without" though. So it's all good. ;)

Premmy

04-21-2010, 11:11 PM

The idea that art recquires passive enjoyment kinda goes against the fact that pretty much EVERYONE considers Dance and theater art, and they aren't things designed to be passively enjoyed.

Aerozord

04-21-2010, 11:43 PM

The idea that art recquires passive enjoyment kinda goes against the fact that pretty much EVERYONE considers Dance and theater art, and they aren't things designed to be passively enjoyed.

they are by the audience, atleast in most forms. Not like during Hamlet a random audience member play MacBeth and the other actors have to improv around it.

but that does sound kind of awesome though

Premmy

04-22-2010, 12:04 AM

they are by the audience, atleast in most forms. Not like during Hamlet a random audience member play MacBeth and the other actors have to improv around it.

but that does sound kind of awesome though

Yes, but Films are made to be Made once, then watched again indefinitely.

Dance is a performance art, Dances are Made to be dance, Plays made to be performed, and Video Games made to be played.

You as an audience member observing is nice and all, and it's how they make money, but that's not their purpose, they're made to be DONE, whereas a Movie, Painting, Comic,or Novel are Explicitly made to be observed.

I personally don't consider, say, a video of someone dancing to be an example of dance exactly, but more like a very simple film.

Donomni

04-22-2010, 12:19 AM

From what I've seen in my limited experience with this whole thing, Ebert thinks art more along the lines of Shakespeare and Picasso than anything else. You know, things we're taught in high school and such about stuff dead guys made(Not that it's not art, natch).

So not only is he trying to talk of a subject he's not entirely researched in, not to mention being unwilling to research it anyways, but his definition of art is rather skewed for a lot of people. I wouldn't worry too much.

I can understand why people wish to defend games as art, though. I mean, it's Roger Ebert. Like it or not, he's still a name in the media biz, and also one of the biggest. Having his approval of gaming's artistic merits would be nice for gaming as a whole, if only because the mainstream would be receptive to him.

I mean, no, it doesn't exactly matter in the end, but it'd be nice if he gave games some credit.

bluestarultor

04-22-2010, 12:21 AM

You know, there's a certain amount of involvement in most art forms. I don't know about anyone else, but at the very least, I consider the analysis of a work to be a form of effort. Your media has to be pretty brainless for people to not do at least that, even if it takes only two seconds for them to deem it trash and move on. If I wanted to be petty, I'd say that reading, one of the older art forms, involves an active effort on the part of the audience to actually absorb the words and turn the pages and, hopefully, to visualize the action. I can't personally imagine reading as just the words on the page. That's just information. A story is an experience that words cannot contain on their own.

To say that art is something that you blankly sit in front of and shut up for the duration for is by far the worst argument I've heard come from a critic.

Edit: ninja'd

CelesJessa

04-22-2010, 12:47 AM

Also, video games have only been around in a form we can recognize for a few decades. They haven't even been out for a full century yet. So it will take a while before it is considered an artistic medium.

To be fair, video art has only been in existence for about 30-40 years, and internet art even less, but I've already studied and used both as an artistic medium as part of my required curriculum in fine art.

I'm just saying this because I'm bitter over having to sit and watch crazy art about creepy people staring at cameras and guys making out and- wait, maybe it's not that bad. (thank god for Andy Warhol)

...Speaking of Andy Warhol, I am immediately reminded of the art piece where Cory Archangel moded an NES cartridge to make a new game as a piece of art called "I shot Andy Warhol" (http://www.movingimage.us/alt/culture.html), and there have been lots of other art pieces that are similar. Hell, I've seen artists using that online game Second Life as a medium for their artwork.

That being said, I'm not saying I think video games are all high brow and should be featured in art galleries (except maybe the ones that are actually made to be "art" and not just to make money), I just am against the idea of making blanket statements about what could be considered art.

Kerensky287

04-22-2010, 01:45 AM

That being said, I'm not saying I think video games are all high brow and should be featured in art galleries (except maybe the ones that are actually made to be "art" and not just to make money), I just am against the idea of making blanket statements about what could be considered art.

To be fair, if Shadow of the Colossus was widely considered to be "art" then the Louvre would suddenly KICK ASS.

Professor Smarmiarty

04-22-2010, 02:48 AM

Aerozord

04-22-2010, 12:49 PM

I believe it. but he wasn't saying the interactivity is why its not art, but the fact you can redo what you've done. He views video games more as a really elaborate choose your own adventure book

and remember I am just elaborating one what he means. I in no way agree with it and am fully aware of the examples that give evidence to the contrary. Just hoping to point out that ultimately, to him, video games aren't art because they are video games. So its impossible to debate the fact to him. As well as stating that this is just one persons opinion, no reason to get upset over it.

Osterbaum

04-22-2010, 01:13 PM

I believe Kerensky already said it, but I'll repeat my own simple view on the subject as well: Art is subjective.

Ecks

04-23-2010, 06:48 PM

I have played Ico before. Gotta admit, I WAS impressed by the visuals and the overall story.

I'm not dead yet.

So, WHOO I win the "He who has played Ico before dying wins" game. What do I get? An achievement? Some Rep points? Unlockable bonus content?

Seriously. As much as Ico is considered a highly artistic... piece, I could say the same about Super Mario Bros. 3 and not be wrong. Because, in my subjective opinion, anything that delves into my psyche and brings out emotion (whether that be rage, joy, satisfaction, whathaveyou) is worthy of being called art. Hell, a good joke is art to me. If I can laugh until I cry, that's bringing forth some powerful emotion.

Ergo, defining art is like defining normal. There is no universally accepted definition for either, and because the human race is a race of individuals, there never will be.

I submit that BOOGERS are art. Because I say so.

Mike McC

04-23-2010, 08:43 PM

Adam Sessler brings up some excellent points on this issue, of which I fully agree with:

http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/704081/Sesslers-Soapbox-Adam-vs-Ebert---Can-Video-Games-be-Art.html

Krylo

04-23-2010, 08:56 PM

Mike McC

04-23-2010, 09:01 PM

So when Sessler says that one of the differences between art/vg is that the way people interact with them can show where we are as a culture... how, exactly, is that different than Literature, Painting, Music, etc.?I think that it is due to the assumption that there is really only one way to go through it, to see it, to read it, without intentionally subverting the experience. Video games differ by you have freedom to choose how you go through it. You can leave a path of death and destruction, you can intentionally not hurt any enemies but the bosses, etc., and that changes the overall experience.

His point about the author not wanting to make a game because players could change how his characters would act is an excellent example of this.

Interacting with something is seperate from interpreting it in this instance.

Aerozord

04-23-2010, 09:01 PM

So when Sessler says that one of the differences between art/vg is that the way people interact with them can show where we are as a culture... how, exactly, is that different than Literature, Painting, Music, etc.?

because when little Roger was in school he was told XYand Z are "art", since video games weren't among those they called art when he learned the term, its not art. For most of his life he knew video games were art, granted thats because they didn't exist, but point is he's spent this long with a list of what is art and he is not going to add or subtract anything from that list

ever

Mike McC

04-23-2010, 09:06 PM

because when little Roger was in school he was told XYand Z are "art", since video games weren't among those they called art when he learned the term, its not art. For most of his life he knew video games were art, granted thats because they didn't exist, but point is he's spent this long with a list of what is art and he is not going to add or subtract anything from that list

everHe was talking about Adam Sessler's points and his personal views (not Ebert's, Sessler's) in the video I linked, which really is a definition and interpretation worth debating. Way to bring Ebert into this in such a way. I applaud your maturity.

Honestly, I think this helps show Sessler's point that this need of validation of video games as art really illustrates the underlying insecurity that gamers have.

Seriously, one man, one critic, disagrees with one group's assumed consensus over something ultimately inconsequential, and a lot of people go fucking apeshit over it. This is not a healthy response.

BattyAsHell

04-23-2010, 09:19 PM

I think the King of the Hill ep playing now hits the nail on the head..

"Interesting. So what do you think?"

"It's interesting. But what do you think?"

"What do you think?"

"Well, who's the artist?

"Aren't you a school teacher? You're not a real artist! This art is terrible!"

"I agree!"

Not an exact recreation, but that's the jist. :D

Krylo

04-23-2010, 09:29 PM

I think that it due that there is really only one way to go through it, to see it, to read it, without intentionally subverting the experience. Video games differ by you have freedom to choose how you go through it. You can leave a path of death and destruction, you can intentionally not hurt any enemies but the bosses, etc., and that changes the overall experience.

His point about the author not wanting to make a game because players could change how his characters would act is an excellent example of this.

Interacting with something is seperate from interpreting it in this instance.

I'm not sure how this is different from how interacting is different than interpreting it in this sense, however.

Any two people with sufficiently differing view points as to play a game entirely differently, are going to walk away with equally different experiences after watching a movie, reading a book, viewing a play, going to a gallery, or listening to a song.

The game itself IS static, short of some very new procedural things like L4D.

The enemies will always spawn in the same place. The areas are always going to be in the same place. And, in many games the play through is going to go the same way. The Dunwich building will always be full of ghouls. World 1-1 will always be the first stage you play on Mario Brothers, and the blocks will always have the same shape.

How you play a game isn't really any different than how you interpret a work of art, in so far as this goes.

Whether I go east or west out of Megaton, decide to head straight to Vault 15, murder every undead on the ship, or use the warp pipes to get to world 8 as soon as possible, is of little difference within the context than whether I believe Gollum to be a tragic or villainous figure, whether I believe Ahab's vengeance to be justified, whether I believe that Lord of the Flies is a valid interpretation of how mankind falls to its primal instincts when devoid of culture, or even whether I interpret the killing of the pig as a hunting scene or a rape scene.

Obviously the experience will be altered, but the fact that every person who views a piece of art has a different experience with it. That is one of the key features of art--that it is personal to the viewer.

Further: Sessler himself mentions plays, and is quick to acquiesce that they are only static in the written form. A play changes every time it is put on, and are we going to argue that playing MacBeth or Hamlet isn't experiencing the artistry of Shakespeare just as much, if not more than, watching or reading his works?

If anything, the 'static' form of plays--reading them--is the weakest link to the artist.

That alone takes a rather large chunk out of Sessler's assertion that art is static. That is his, completely arbitrary, definition. Which he admits.

And it's not one that has not been backed up by any actual art critic or definition that I've ever read.

Honestly, I think this helps show Sessler's point that this need of validation of video games as art really illustrates the underlying insecurity that gamers have.

Seriously, one man, one critic, disagrees with one group's assumed consensus over something ultimately inconsequential, and a lot of people go fucking apeshit over it. This is not a healthy response.

Speaking of which, Ad Hominem.

If he can't make his point without arguing that this entire thing is just a case of gamers the world over being insecure, he really has no case to make.

Couldn't be possible that this is actually kind of an important thing for video games to be taken seriously as a media form and not get relegated to the same social status as tabletop gaming or comic books, and all the financial issues (in the latter case) that comes with that.

BattyAsHell

04-23-2010, 09:42 PM

I'm not sure how this is different from how interacting is different than interpreting it in this sense, however.

Any two people with sufficiently differing view points as to play a game entirely differently, are going to walk away with equally different experiences after watching a movie, reading a book, viewing a play, going to a gallery, or listening to a song.

The game itself IS static, short of some very new procedural things like L4D.

The enemies will always spawn in the same place. The areas are always going to be in the same place. And, in many games the play through is going to go the same way. The Dunwich building will always be full of ghouls. World 1-1 will always be the first stage you play on Mario Brothers, and the blocks will always have the same shape.

How you play a game isn't really any different than how you interpret a work of art, in so far as this goes.

Whether I go east or west out of Megaton, decide to head straight to Vault 15, murder every undead on the ship, or use the warp pipes to get to world 8 as soon as possible, is of little difference within the context than whether I believe Gollum to be a tragic or villainous figure, whether I believe Ahab's vengeance to be justified, whether I believe that Lord of the Flies is a valid interpretation of how mankind falls to its primal instincts when devoid of culture, or even whether I interpret the killing of the pig as a hunting scene or a rape scene.

Obviously the experience will be altered, but the fact that every person who views a piece of art has a different experience with it. That is one of the key features of art--that it is personal to the viewer.

Further: Sessler himself mentions plays, and is quick to acquiesce that they are only static in the written form. A play changes every time it is put on, and are we going to argue that playing MacBeth or Hamlet isn't experiencing the artistry of Shakespeare just as much, if not more than, watching or reading his works?

If anything, the 'static' form of plays--reading them--is the weakest link to the artist.

That alone takes a rather large chunk out of Sessler's assertion that art is static. That is his, completely arbitrary, definition. Which he admits.

And it's not one that has not been backed up by any actual art critic or definition that I've ever read.

Speaking of which, Ad Hominem.

If he can't make his point without arguing that this entire thing is just a case of gamers the world over being insecure, he really has no case to make.

Couldn't be possible that this is actually kind of an important thing for video games to be taken seriously as a media form and not get relegated to the same social status as tabletop gaming or comic books, and all the financial issues (in the latter case) that comes with that.

Well, comics do have Sandman and some other "adult oriented" material.. Personally, I think a good argument can be made that comics are art, as much as video games..

But yeah, they're basically on par with games in the "trivial distraction yes, art no" scale.

POS Industries

04-23-2010, 09:45 PM

I think that it is due to the assumption that there is really only one way to go through it, to see it, to read it, without intentionally subverting the experience. Video games differ by you have freedom to choose how you go through it. You can leave a path of death and destruction, you can intentionally not hurt any enemies but the bosses, etc., and that changes the overall experience.

His point about the author not wanting to make a game because players could change how his characters would act is an excellent example of this.

Interacting with something is seperate from interpreting it in this instance.
But as I've mentioned previously, there is not really a point during one's gameplay experience where they aren't doing something the designers intended for them to be able to do, unless there's a glitch or exploit involved, which is altogether akin to cutting apart a book and pasting it back together in a different order.

As such, it wouldn't actually be the players changing the behavior of the author's characters so much as the game developers adapting the original work to allow for changes in the characters behavior, similar to such changes being made in the adaptation of a book to a movie.

I also feel that the idea of artistry being involved in the creation of games but the games themselves not being art is a copout and entirely untrue. As Jerry Holkins' strikingly taller, thinner, and less bald self-insert character put it, "If a hundred artists create art for five years, how could the result not be art?"

Krylo

04-23-2010, 09:49 PM

Well, comics do have Sandman and some other "adult oriented" material.. Personally, I think a good argument can be made that comics are art, as much as video games..

But yeah, they're basically on par with games in the "trivial distraction yes, art no" scale.

No no, those are 'graphic novels', because calling them 'comic books' makes them invalid.

And yes, comics are art, but the fact that they had to rename themselves to something without 'comic' in the name to get appreciation in works like Sandman, The Watchmen, V, etc. goes a long way to proving the whole 'this isn't just an insecurity issue, but rather a 'social acceptance has actual real world ramifications on media' issue' thing.

As much as it PAINS ME TO THE CORE to repeat something Blues pointed out, he was right. For once.

Something about broken chronometers goes here, I'm sure.

CABAL49

04-23-2010, 09:50 PM

Mike McC

04-23-2010, 10:17 PM

All those things can also be in a Ford Pinto, but does that make it art?

POS Industries

04-23-2010, 10:18 PM

All those things can also be in a Ford Pinto, but does that make it art?
Yes.

Yes it does.

tacticslion

04-23-2010, 10:19 PM

Also, in which I was ninja'd because I'm a Pompous Windbag.
I apologize in advance for any maming of the English language and/or names of the (in)famous. And if I am highly insensitive to some issue, I whole-heartedly take all the blame for my own hubris and mangled ways of saying things.

Honestly, I think this helps show Sessler's point that this need of validation of video games as art really illustrates the underlying insecurity that gamers have.

Seriously, one man, one critic, disagrees with one group's assumed consensus over something ultimately inconsequential, and a lot of people go fucking apeshit over it. This is not a healthy response.

Meh. While I agree gamers often need more maturity (myself included) I would challenge you to find an artistic community that would respond differently. If, say, Stan Lee (famous comic book creator) or even better Scott MacCloud (famous comic book student and professor) suddenly and publically declared that, say, Internet Sprites (including webcomics) are not Art, there would be an uproar within the online community - a backlash against a careless and obviously incorrect definition of art. To clarify more, if Picasso had ever declared that Bethovan was nothing more than a mere blind man with an acceptable sense of rythm, but not an artist, such a quote would be continually derided until today, even as people admired his work. Indeed, when a prominant and powerful person, influential in a certain wider circle declares definatively that "this group, who is only on the edge anyway, is considered forever out of this circle, and cannot enter", there is going to be a backlash. So, while I agree that hating him is a pointless response (though I do get a chuckle from the insults), similarly leaving things alone is pointless response. Discussion, even amongst fellow gamers becomes vital.

In a sense, this is the same (rational) response of any people recieving injustice.
WARNING: CRAPOMETER ABOUT TO BE NECESSARY
(In other words, I am fully aware that the comparison I am about to make is dissimilar in the extreme: it is a hyperbole, not meant to offend, but only to make a point)
For example, when, in Scottland, the male English Nobles were - by law - required to strip the virginity of any Scottish woman on her wedding night - the latest in a long series of injustices perpetrated against the conquered Scotts - the Scottsmen (and women) had an escalating series of responses: first, they allowed, then they talked, then they got angry, then they revolted. They were angry that their rights were being violated. They spoke before they revolted, but a revolution - and thus change - occured.
Second Example: Segregation. When, in the United States, it became increasingly obvious that those with were freed after the Civil War, yes, but still subject to numerous and horrendous injustices; among such there was at first silent frustration, but grudging permittance and acceptance; soon there was talk - first amongst themselves, then publically; and finally a revolution occured that changed the way they (and others) percieved them.
END CRAPOMETER

I understand - I fundamentally understand and hereby attest - that declaring 'video games' to be invalid for the 'art' category is a utterly and rediculously minor injustice compared to the two mentioned above. That said, I bring those up to show the similarity in pattern when percieved injustice occurs. First, a people (a group, category, whatsoever have you) generally accept, because they truly find themselves too weak, because they, too, desire to keep the status quo, or just because they are afraid; the reasons are varied, but the response similar. After this, as the percieved injustice continues in the face of inaction, the people group who feel the injustice is against them begin to talk amongst themselves about the fact that there is an injustice. It is only with this recognition that change can be made for the better.

Now, in refutation of my own point: I recognize that 'art' is a contentuous subject at best, ill-defined, and constantly argued. But I am presenting to you a valid psycho-social reason for the angry response from "Gamers" and some "Artists" alike: a person, well-respected in the wider "field" of "Art" (as movies are), has socially snubbed them, declared them Unworthy to be part of the Clique. This is a percieved injustice, and thus the natural response is angry talk. Angry talk itself, however, can only take people so far. Ultimately, a demand and a challenge is laid down by the words. The real test, now, is to see if the broader Gaming Community is willing to step up to the challenge. To some extent, that is what has happened. Ico. Shadows of the Colossus. Chrono Trigger. Legend of Zelda (take your pick, save the first two). Final Fantasy (I'd point to Tactics for story, though I'm biased, so I'll stick with VI). Spore and Okagami (or so I'm given to understand of those two, as I've not played myself). But as a community, these things which most who've experienced are proud of, have been rejected outright. As being inferior because of what they are, and thus not subject to the 'rights' or 'honors' (as ephemeral as those may be) of being declared "Art". This is truly what frustrates people, I think: what they have been moved by, touched by, molded by, and responded to on a primal level is called "inferior" by a person who - "by all rights", many think - should know better, as he is respected by the general public. Thus he hurts the general acceptance of Games into the wider world - as an Art, yes, but also just as an acceptable thing at all, by demolishing it and dismissing it.

TL;DR Version: He's a jerk and a troll, and it makes us feel better to talk badly about him behind his back.

NOW! To LONGWINDED DIATRIBE NUMBER THE SECOND!

There's a huge difference [between programming code for visuals and games]. Because Pixar movies are a non-interactive medium, the entirety of the computer programming invested into the product is made to improve the aesthetics. It's an entirely artistic endeavor. They're creating a series of images for an audience to react to.

But all the CGI programming is on the "visual" side. There's no coding of an independent 'game engine' designed to register exactly how much HP is taken off when your character is hit with an attack or the way enemy AI "strategically" attempt to take down the player.

By contrast, there's actually two elements of programming going on with videogames. There's the artistic side of the project, .... Then there's the algebraic side of the equation, which is really just programming artificial rules (battlefield mechanics, turn-based DnD style combat, real-world emulating physics, etc.) into the game.

The former, in my opinion, is art. The latter, in my opinion, are just a series of mathematical rules, akin to how a series of math equations ultimately comprises much of the complicated real-world phenomena we witness as science.

While your posts are eloquent, cleaver, and insightful, I refute thee! For, you see, the very thing you compare to Science is, in itself, Art! Have you never seen a machine that is a piece of Art? A Bycicle can very much be art: it is a machine, but it can be designed in and of itself to be an artistic expression. Visually, yes, but also functionally: so that the function (to move a person) is performed in an eloquent and elegant way. There is even now a show on Television that highlights the artists' work in creating a motorcycle (I can't recall the name, but it's been advertized on thatguywiththeglasses.com) - a machine and device meant to perform a function in a scientific way, but also in an artistic way. The finished product, as a whole, would be called "Art", even though it has functional, scientific elements to it, and is based on scientific principles of chemistry and physics, like internal combustion. While one would not (necessarily) define the printing press as art, nor the language a book may be written in, the book itself certainly can be taken as such - the entire thing, physical binding and content both - though the binding can be very different in different editions! Indeed, while English is not - in and of itself - Art, any more than, say, unused paint in a bucket is, it is the Code, if you will, upon which, from which, and through which art comes to us: the element of expression by which we interact with the Art of a novel. Indeed coding that underlies gaming can be itself an Artform - it is the act of creating highly functional "Art".

Even devices such as chairs are considered art. Why? Because they are made of wood? No: wood is not Art by its lonesome - it is a substance (though many can find artistic inspiration in wood). Instead, it is the way in which the wood is shaped and used for a purpose that becomes art - the final product of the chair would not be itself without the base wood, and the whole is considered art. Wood is not art, but the wood that makes up the chair makes up the art. Further, the wood-carver is an artist. The act of creating the chair is artistic expression (or can be: it can also be dull, mindless labor, if you want it to be).

Replace Wood with Code and Chair with Video Games. I recognize the validity that you are hinting at: base tools, or 'substance' such as unused Code are not of themselves Art to most. But Coding, crafting carefully laid-out structures to function just so in order to acquire just such a reaction, in order to make only this happen - that is both art and an artform.

You may disagree. I find this acceptable. But I thought I'd show you how - subjectively - even the code that defines the game performance and rules - is itself an Artform, even if such a thing as generic, undefined "Rules" is nothing more than a non-anchored concept void of any use outside of a context.

Also, I recognize you added "from my point of view". So, yeah, I think you get that some would disagree with you too. But I'm jus' sayin'!

TL;DR: ZOMIGOSH, EYEZ TOTALLY TEH SMAHTUR WAN!1!One! N00b!1!One! U ddn't evn gt teh cncptz eyez talkin' 'bout!1!One! Also, I'm just saying your ideas are valid from a point of view, but I respectfully disagree.

Short Version: read Krylo's and Blue's earlier posts. They are much more succinct and eloquent.

Mike McC

04-23-2010, 10:28 PM

Yes.

Yes it does.What if the music was....

Nickelback?

POS Industries

04-23-2010, 10:31 PM

What if the music was....

Nickelback?
Just because something isn't good art doesn't mean it's not still art.

Mesden

04-23-2010, 10:32 PM

If music is are art. If movies are art. If drawing and writing are art, then how aren't video games art? They have music, animation, writing and design. Everything that Ebert says is art, are in video games.

Ebert's argument is that games by general definition have some sort of ulterior goal that you're trying to achieve, as opposed to something you experience without work through a pre-laid out system as to how you're supposed to experience it.

Not that I agree, but you can't just list things that are in games that can be art and completely ignore what his actual argument is.

tacticslion

04-23-2010, 10:40 PM

Ebert's argument is that games by general definition have some sort of ulterior goal that you're trying to achieve, as opposed to something you experience without work through a pre-laid out system as to how you're supposed to experience it.

Not that I agree, but you can't just list things that are in games that can be art and completely ignore what his actual argument is.

Got it. So, because we use our five (predetermined) senses (actually, at most, three, and usually unless we particularly enjoy sniffing or tasting odd substances) all forms of primary communication by way of artistic expression are made by way of a pre-laid out system of how we are 'supposed' to experience things, nothing we experience can ever be art? Admittedly, I am abusing your wording, so sorry. I mean no offense, only fun.

That said: a book. A book has a begining, a sort of ulterior goal that the author is trying to achieve: the author is attempting to get us to go through a particular set of movements and motions for our bodies, using the ambient reflected light, to acquire visual images which our brains process and translate into a cohesive concept - their 'story'. Interestingly, no one fusses about books (of which I am an avid fan, in general) whether they are printed on paper or on a Kindle or Nook (or iPhone or iPad, though the latter may suffer name-jokes). Video Games? The same thing. A predetermined series of actions in order to get information communicated to the player across a varied and multifaceted medium.

Mike McC

04-23-2010, 10:53 PM

Got it. So, because we use our five (predetermined) senses (actually, at most, three, and usually unless we particularly enjoy sniffing or tasting odd substances) all forms of primary communication by way of artistic expression are made by way of a pre-laid out system of how we are 'supposed' to experience things, nothing we experience can ever be art? Admittedly, I am abusing your wording, so sorry. I mean no offense, only fun.

That said: a book. A book has a begining, a sort of ulterior goal that the author is trying to achieve: the author is attempting to get us to go through a particular set of movements and motions for our bodies, using the ambient reflected light, to acquire visual images which our brains process and translate into a cohesive concept - their 'story'. Interestingly, no one fusses about books (of which I am an avid fan, in general) whether they are printed on paper or on a Kindle or Nook (or iPhone or iPad, though the latter may suffer name-jokes). Video Games? The same thing. A predetermined series of actions in order to get information communicated to the player across a varied and multifaceted medium.A book has no variation in it's path without intentional subversion of the intent.

A videogame... I can choose to spare the goombas. I can warp to level 8. It's not a concrete path. it is very fluid, and alterations can be made to the experience. There is only a generalized sense of how to experience it. It is only a framework. It is, in essence, incomplete, because it requires a user's own personal input to complete it.

And every time it's completed it is likely different.

Krylo

04-23-2010, 10:59 PM

A book has no variation in it's path without intentional subversion of the intent.

A videogame... I can choose to spare the goombas. I can warp to level 8. It's not a concrete path. it is very fluid, and alterations can be made to the experience. There is only a generalized sense of how to experience it. It is only a framework. It is, in essence, incomplete, because it requires a user's own personal input to complete it.

And every time it's completed it is likely different.

Gonna stand by this: Whether I go east or west out of Megaton, decide to head straight to Vault 15, murder every undead on the ship, or use the warp pipes to get to world 8 as soon as possible, is of little difference within the context than whether I believe Gollum to be a tragic or villainous figure, whether I believe Ahab's vengeance to be justified, whether I believe that Lord of the Flies is a valid interpretation of how mankind falls to its primal instincts when devoid of culture, or even whether I interpret the killing of the pig as a hunting scene or a rape scene.

And further this:
But as I've mentioned previously, there is not really a point during one's gameplay experience where they aren't doing something the designers intended for them to be able to do, unless there's a glitch or exploit involved, which is altogether akin to cutting apart a book and pasting it back together in a different order.

As such, it wouldn't actually be the players changing the behavior of the author's characters so much as the game developers adapting the original work to allow for changes in the characters behavior, similar to such changes being made in the adaptation of a book to a movie.

I'm not seeing how deciding not to jump on a goomba's head or warp to level 8 and getting a totally different experience is any different than me reading Lord of the Flies and calling the hunting of the pig a metaphor for rape, while other people in my highschool literature class called it hunting.

I'm also not seeing how what you decide to do within the game deviates from what the artists wished for you to do.

And it still provides a much more static presentation than say, seeing Midsummer's Night Dream as performed by two entirely different casts/directors/etc.

krogothwolf

04-23-2010, 10:59 PM

The issue the people have against video games as art is because gamers create their own experience within the game it doesn't come off as art. It really makes no sense to me to use that as an excuse because everyone takes something different from a set of art. Some hidden meaning they believe the author or painter hide within it.

I just think they all fear change.

tacticslion

04-23-2010, 11:02 PM

A book has no variation in it's path without intentional subversion of the intent.

A videogame... I can choose to spare the goombas. I can warp to level 8. It's not a concrete path. it is very fluid, and alterations can be made to the experience. There is only a generalized sense of how to experience it. It is only a framework. It is, in essence, incomplete, because it requires a user's own personal input to complete it.

And every time it's completed it is likely different.

OBJECTION!

What of "choose your own adventure" books? What, then, of shared, persistant worlds by multiple authors with conflicting continuities (Star Wars Expanded Universe, say)? What singular "path" would one take there? What if a typo or plot hole appears in a book, or that book is written in such a way as to be purposefully ambiguous in its meaning or ending? What of Final Fantasy XIII in the non-linearity arguement?

EDIT:
I just think they all fear change.
I know I do. Man, can those pennies get heavy after a while. Oh! Ooooooooohhhhhhhhh! Oh. THAT kind of "change". Right. Oh yeah, They totally do. Also, I'm not afraid of anything. Nope. *runs and hides in the fear of pennies*

EDIT 2:
And it still provides a much more static presentation than say, seeing Midsummer's Night Dream as performed by two entirely different casts/directors/etc.
As my wife is a drama teacher (in addition to her English duties) I can attest this is entirely accurate from experience. Further, what of those famed theater pieces that beg or even require audience interaction? Even more, what of ImprovAnywhere - is what they do any less 'art', despite the fact that it can, inherently, only be done once to its full effect (unlike, say, seeing a movie or showing a painting)? Or is it more of an art because of that, in which case repeatable experiences, such as viewings of movies and painting would be diminished.

Or then again, an orchestral arrangement by Bethovan is a masterpiece - a masterpiece interpreted slightly differently by every single orchestra that plays it. Oh, wait, that's not art - it's played, after all, in a strict, straightforward pattern exactly as the creator intended, following rigorous rules to get from one path to the next.

Similarly, Mozart. Oh, but there is relief in sight: it has no choice! Or does it? Can it be played on piano? Of course, as that was how it was written. Or on a keyboard? Well... those are similar enough. What about on a synthasizer, electrically created with no keys or strings? Hm. Perhaps it can be elegantly distributed to various persons - a band of pianists - to create a duet (or larger) when none was originally intended? Indeed each person who plays a piece of music can play it to their own instrument, their own way of thinking, and can redistribute the notes as they see fit: minor, personal touches throughout the whole, creating a new arrangement all their own.

No, the argument that minor play differences seperate videogames from art is not valid. Music students study and play only specific movements of larger orchestras, often skipping around. Similar, I'd say, to warping to level 8 and ignoring the few goombas, non?

Viridis

04-23-2010, 11:04 PM

It is, in essence, incomplete, because it requires a user's own personal input to complete it. You see this even more in modern games like the Spore, Mass Effect, etc.

Can't we interpret the act of playing the game as.. writing the story? We're making the art with the developers.

Krylo

04-23-2010, 11:09 PM

Guys, we live in a world where getting shot in the arm is, literally, considered high art. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE5u3ThYyl4)

Drawing the line at Vidjamagames is just stupid.

Kerensky287

04-23-2010, 11:09 PM

You see this even more in modern games like the Spore, Mass Effect, etc.

Can't we interpret the act of playing the game as.. writing the story? We're making the art with the developers.

I love this definition. It's honestly my favourite interpretation of "video games as art" I have ever heard.

Partly because it feels so deep - by playing the game, you're creating your own unique experience. It's a piece of art that is your very own, and you get to personalize it however you want.

Partly it implies that Roger Ebert is an artless tool because he refuses to play these things.

Also partly because it finally makes art a goddamn competitive sport.

krogothwolf

04-23-2010, 11:12 PM

Doesn't art need someone to view it or read it to be considered art? Then the critics and views need to dissect and interpret all sorts of meaning behind the said art. Was harry porter really just a book about some crazy wizard going through school while conquering evil in some alternate universe, or was it a deep look into the dangers a child faces through school? With voldermort being an interpretation of peer pressure and dark magic being an example of drugs?

How is a game any different then that?

Marc v4.0

04-23-2010, 11:18 PM

If the only person to ever see a painting is the one who painted it, is it not still art?

krogothwolf

04-23-2010, 11:20 PM

If the only person to ever see a painting is the one who painted it, is it not still art?

If the only person to play the video game is the guy who created it and follows the path they created themselves, how is that not art?

Marc v4.0

04-23-2010, 11:24 PM

...I think we said the exact same thing.

edit: Clearly, I think Video games are Art

tacticslion

04-23-2010, 11:25 PM

If the only person to play the video game is the guy who created it and follows the path they created themselves, how is that not art?

Even if that game is never played, it is created - it exists and is admired (presumably) in the mind of the creator - it is, in some respect, art. Otherwise, yes, I agree with you.

To (in highly improper fashion, I'm aware) quote myself:
Similarly, Mozart. Oh, but there is relief in sight: it has no choice! Or does it? Can it be played on piano? Of course, as that was how it was written. Or on a keyboard? Well... those are similar enough. What about on a synthasizer, electrically created with no keys or strings? Hm. Perhaps it can be elegantly distributed to various persons - a band of pianists - to create a duet (or larger) when none was originally intended? Indeed each person who plays a piece of music can play it to their own instrument, their own way of thinking, and can redistribute the notes as they see fit: minor, personal touches throughout the whole, creating a new arrangement all their own.

No, the argument that minor play differences seperate videogames from art is not valid. Music students study and play only specific movements of larger orchestras, often skipping around within the same over-all piece, ignoring some parts, and focusing more heavily on others. Similar, I'd say, to warping to level 8 and ignoring the few goombas, non?

EDIT:
Guys, we live in a world where getting shot in the arm is, literally, considered high art. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE5u3ThYyl4)

Drawing the line at Vidjamagames is just stupid.

To be fair loons (http://www.theonion.com/video/how-will-the-end-of-print-journalism-affect-old-lo,16909/) have always led the way to 'new' artistic expression! Picasso, man, Picasso!

krogothwolf

04-23-2010, 11:29 PM

...I think we said the exact same thing.

edit: Clearly, I think Video games are Art

Sorry, I got you confused with Mike Mc for some reason :/ I'm a blind man!

Krylo

04-24-2010, 12:05 AM

Even if that game is never played, it is created - it exists and is admired (presumably) in the mind of the creator - it is, in some respect, art. Otherwise, yes, I agree with you.

To (in highly improper fashion, I'm aware) quote myself:

EDIT:

To be fair loons (http://www.theonion.com/video/how-will-the-end-of-print-journalism-affect-old-lo,16909/) have always led the way to 'new' artistic expression! Picasso, man, Picasso!
To be more fair, (some) Video Games are already considered art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Arcangel), covered by art professors, reviewed by art critics, and put up in art museums.

I think CJ mentioned this, but it seemed to be pretty much just ignored, so.

Nique

04-24-2010, 12:08 AM

tacticslion

04-24-2010, 12:37 AM

To be more fair, (some) Video Games are already considered art (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cory_Arcangel), covered by art professors, reviewed by art critics, and put up in art museums.

I think CJ mentioned this, but it seemed to be pretty much just ignored, so.

Indeed and agreed. She did, but by the time I got to it a) a ton of other posts were written (so I forgot and didn't mention it) and b) even when I was thinking of it before, I realized that, as a guy that isn't a student of what I am spontaneously defining as "High Art" (which may or may not be stealing someone else's words, I don't know, I can't remember, and I shouldn't be awake) I felt overwhelmed and inadaquite to comment on it (though I still planned on it). Still, I'm glad you did the research - the fact that galleries and other "High Art" institutions accept his games as a form of artistic expression pretty much seals this discussion, it seems.

Has anyone mentioned or hinted at the idea that 'video game' might be a term more colloquial in it's nature than a willfully ignorant observer might recognize? It generally refers to specific forms of interactive media, the end goal of which can be varied and does not nessecerily need to fit the common definitions of a 'game'.0 Although they often do, even the inclusion of 'gameplay' if often merely a platform for the story, which is, surely, some form of 'artistic expression'.

Is 'Sonic The Hedgehog' Art? Eh, maybe not although it certainly has artistic and creative elements. Is 'Final Fantasy' Art? Almost unquestionably as it is a visual representation of a story.

Indeed, I agree that "video game" certainly is a poor choice of words. I have long thought that "Console" or "Computer" Game would be better - video games are not entirely visual (the "video"), but are audio, and arguably (though not really) tactile as well. Audio-Video Game would be better and more inclusive, but AVG is, unfortunately, taken (http://www.youtube.com/user/JamesNintendoNerd), and given that guy's reported disposition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anger), the inevitable shortening probably wouldn't be too good (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anger_management). It is a highly novel concept, however, that you suggest that game is the word at fault. I find that fascinating, and find it hard-pressed to disagree. To bring up the earlier discussion on Comics - Scott McCloud has long fought for their legitimacy, but they are almost never called art, unless they are in Graphic Novel form. So must we choose a new "name" in order for "games" to become "legitimate" in the eyes of the public? After all, "Comics" are rarely - despite their name - a form of humor-book. I would dare say that any such attempt would fail: (video-) gamers have a notoriously low opinion of the overly-pompous - I should no, as NONE of my (video) gaming-friends like me!* As soon as something seems too self-important, it'll be dropped like a ton of bricks, unless it proves itself both awesome and fun. In fact, Graphic Novels had this very problem for a time: fans of comics were leery of them, while enemies found them just bizzarre. This settled itself with time, but it did take time. I strongly doubt, as video-games are a multicultural exchange (instead of a primarily American insitution, as comics are***) with a large amount of money riding on it (more in one game than in a given graphic novel) that it will be easy to get a name-change going. That said, what would you (all) recommend?

NOTE: In addition to my previous argument towards Solid Snake, I should add: Calculous equations, physics equations, even chemistry equations - all of these can be considered artistic expressions of universal truths, eloquent in that they use few words and symbols to accurately explain phenomena of the world. Coding can be viewed similarly, albeit, most wouldn't have that taste. It really depends on your sense of wonder at what the formula accomplishes whether or not it seems 'art' to you. I meant to say this before but forgot.

Finally: I think I'mma sleep now. EDIT: for the month.

*This is not true, as I have no (video) gaming friends. {Sobs} I'm so alone!**
**Except for my wife, my family, my other friends, and my gaming friends who aren't (video) gaming friends, all of which love me! Woot!
***I am not discounting Manga. Manga, however, has yet to integrate itself with comic society, as it retains its title from its original foreign language, and is sectioned and treated differently than American comics - it is the product of a different culture and is mostly accepted within the confines of that culture, even when exported to the 'States, though exceptions are made. "Comics" are generally all-American. The two are similar, but they haven't really cross-pollenated yet outside of a few (strange) experiments. That said, the art styles are becoming more similar over time. By contrast, Japanese video games are taken in fully American contexts often, even if that changes the initial meaning. More of this discussion should probably open another thread somewhere if you want.

bluestarultor

04-24-2010, 10:28 AM

Has anyone mentioned or hinted at the idea that 'video game' might be a term more colloquial in it's nature than a willfully ignorant observer might recognize? It generally refers to specific forms of interactive media, the end goal of which can be varied and does not nessecerily need to fit the common definitions of a 'game'. Although they often do, even the inclusion of 'gameplay' is often merely a platform for the story, which is, surely, some form of 'artistic expression'.

Is 'Sonic The Hedgehog' Art? Eh, maybe not although it certainly has artistic and creative elements. Is 'Final Fantasy' Art? Almost unquestionably as it is a visual representation of a story.

I'm going to take this a step further and say that a game doesn't even necessarily need a driving plot to be art. There are also aspects of symbolism that cannot be ignored and, while often intertwined, are not necessarily dependent on a story. For example, a simple space shooter can be symbolic enough to be art. At best, most of these have maybe half a page of background just to justify you shooting stuff, but if you have the right set pieces, you don't even need that. For example, just to be on topic, you could make one where all the enemy ships are down-turned thumbs shooting lasers from the nail, while the power-ups could be musical notes, paintings, statues, movie projectors, cameras, game boxes, books, comics, dancers, and theater masks representing all the forms of art, with the final boss of every level being Ebert's head spewing flames or acid or something. Clearly, this would be an artistic statement. Writing wouldn't be needed. The symbolism would carry the game for everyone who knew what it stood for.

Nique

04-24-2010, 04:50 PM

Yes. That's what I'm thinking exactly. A video game is just interactive art - the expierience of playing it may be intended by the artist to invoke certain reponses.

Ecks

04-24-2010, 06:20 PM

I'm just gonna go ahead and reiterate this, even though I've said something similar earlier. Just about everyone can play a game and take something from that experience. If art is something that causes someone to feel intense emotion (mum's the word on the specific emotion), then if your play session causes you to feel an intense emotion, then is that game not art?

Case in point: Earlier this afternoon, I was playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I watched the whole title screen sequence, and listened to the music that played. Having spent a good long time away from this game, just hearing that music, I experienced a rush of emotion that I'm still not even sure I can comprehend exactly what it was. After this experience, I started up an old save file. I was in Ganon's Castle. Great! So, I go break the barriers, storm the Tower, killing everything in my path (didn't bother with the Fire Keese, for some reason). Then, after Ganondork makes his big villain speech, he dismantles the room to barebones for our epic battle, and the lazer ball tennis match ensues. Skip forward to the final battle. The music, combined with the gravity of the situation and the fact that I still had Biggoron's Sword after getting the Master knocked out of my hands, and I have to say I felt a bonafide rush of adrenaline. This made me feel incredible. I even started doing side jumps and backflips all over the place while I loosed Light Arrows and jump slashed the bastard's tail. I tried to make it as epic as possible, sustaining a couple of hits now and again for realism's sake.

Now, just by the title screen sequence ALONE, I felt intense emotion. AND IF OCARINA OF TIME IS NOT CONSIDERED ART, THEN FUCK CRITICS AND FUCK YOU.

Nique

04-24-2010, 08:33 PM

AND IF OCARINA OF TIME IS NOT CONSIDERED ART, THEN FUCK CRITICS AND FUCK YOU.

Agreed!

The more I read Ebert's critique the more dissapointed I am in him. There are portions where he holds the idea of games as art to completly different if not higher standards than what he considers art.

We come to Example 3, "Flower" (above). A run-down city apartment has a single flower on the sill, which leads the player into a natural landscape. The game is "about trying to find a balance between elements of urban and the natural." Nothing she shows from this game seemed of more than decorative interest on the level of a greeting card. Is the game scored? She doesn't say. Do you win if you're the first to find the balance between the urban and the natural? Can you control the flower? Does the game know what the ideal balance is?

Just as 'Bedroom in Arles' is not a guide for the layout of your house, we can reasonably assume that an arbitrary system of scoring for the purposes of advancing the game is not intended or communicated as instruction for balencing nature and technology. It, like other games, and like the painting, is an aproxamation of reality.

In fact, even a 'scoring' system or 'leveling' up in a game might be a piece of art, if it is meant to represent life in some way.

Mesden

04-25-2010, 01:23 AM

Look guys, Heroin feels good but that doesn't make it art. (really bad hyperboles itt)

Everyone just seems to be outraged that someone doesn't think as highly of video games as us internet dwellers but for all intents and purposes, there's nothing wrong with the man's viewpoint. If he thinks it spoils artistic integrity for something to have arbitrary goals and mechanics, and all those other things games have that define them as games, then as long as he has a legitimate reason there's no point in being so upset about it.

It's like, apply his arguments to non-video games. Chess, for instance, is obviously much older than he is and not beyond the scope of his generation. His argument works the same way -- no matter how masterfully played, enjoyed, appreciated, deep, or even philosophical (chess analogies are like the backbone of everyone's analogy catalog), as far as he's concerned, something with limiting mechanics, ulterior goals, and created as something other THAN art (say what you will, these excellent and pretty games are also made to sell as video games, not as something to hang on your wall) aren't art to him. I'm sure many would agree with him and they wouldn't be wrong to say so.

The instantaneous "fuck old critics for having opinions I believe are outdated due to his age!!!" crap is just as disingenuous as if he said "Games are stupid and therefore not art." It's a non-argument and dismissive of legitimate critique and opinion from, frankly, a fairly intelligent man who went out of his way to demonstrate why he sees things the way he does.

I'm just gonna go ahead and reiterate this, even though I've said something similar earlier. Just about everyone can play a game and take something from that experience. If art is something that causes someone to feel intense emotion (mum's the word on the specific emotion), then if your play session causes you to feel an intense emotion, then is that game not art?

See, that's too vague a definition. Lots of things causes intense emotion -- art doesn't even HAVE to cause intense emotion (I've never cried or been elated or any excessive emotion at, say, the Statue of David, and it's obviously art). You're actually falling into a similar mistake that I see in Ebert's argument. Whereas he picks out something that games ARE and chooses to say anything with these qualities are not something he considers art, you choose something that art CAN do, but doesn't necessarily, and apply it to all art so it more fits in line with your pro-games-are-art position. Both are disingenuous to either position.

Also, maybe instead of criticizing everyone else I should come out and say what I think art is. I think art is an expression of what an artist (or artists) feels about something. As vague as that is it's the only way I can think of art without falling into a silly pigeonhole. Whether it be for money, fame, compulsion, or for sheer personal respect, it has to be honest expression. Which is why I believe, say, some games are art (an honest expression put into a certain medium by the artists involved, whether it be story, graphics, thoughtful gameplay or whatevs), while, say, some paintings aren't art (What, you're gonna trace that picture and change it some because you can't think of anything better? Well that's not art).

or I don't know maybe we're all full of crap and art is just the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art) But boy that's silly and takes all of the fun out of it. Drew a big line down the middle of manhattan, lots of people saw it so it affected their senses, world's best artist over here.

DFM

04-25-2010, 01:27 AM

You just gotta snort it

Mike McC

04-25-2010, 01:32 AM

Lets say I walk up, and punch you in the face. I then declare it was performance art without a hint of insincerity. Is it Art?

POS Industries

04-25-2010, 01:33 AM

Everyone just seems to be outraged that someone doesn't think as highly of video games as us internet dwellers but for all intents and purposes, there's nothing wrong with the man's viewpoint. If he thinks it spoils artistic integrity for something to have arbitrary goals and mechanics, and all those other things games have that define them as games, then as long as he has a legitimate reason there's no point in being so upset about it.
Not everyone. My issue with his statements is that he's basically telling countless artists that the art they've spent so much of their time creating isn't art at all and never will be, which I feel is insulting and dismissive to them to say the least.

BitVyper

04-25-2010, 01:35 AM

Lets say I walk up, and punch you in the face. I then declare it was performance art without a hint of insincerity. Is it Art?

Is that a koan? Should I be contemplating the nature of enlightenment?

Krylo

04-25-2010, 01:43 AM

then as long as he has a legitimate reason there's no point in being so upset about it.You can't have a legitimate opinion on something without experiencing it.

It would be like me trying to tell you that having penises in your vagina sucks because obviously the act of penetration is superior to the act of penetrating. Maybe I could draw some comparisons on how like, any OTHER kind of penetration of the body is usually pretty terrible or something.

MAYBE if he actually played some of the more artistic games or did even some cursory research into the subject he could have a legitimate opinion.

He admits he has done neither, and so as it stands, he has none.

It's why I haven't, until now, bothered to actually respond to anything dealing with Ebert directly.

Lets say I walk up, and punch you in the face. I then declare it was performance art without a hint of insincerity. Is it Art?

Let's say something is critiqued by art critics, put in a museum, and taught to art students as art.

Does it make you an idiot for insisting it isn't? Yes.

Also it wouldn't surprise me if someone doing that was actually a piece of performance art that existed to explore the violent undertones of modern society and how the modern man represses his primal urges even in the face of obvious force.

Mike McC

04-25-2010, 01:47 AM

Let's say something is critiqued by art critics, put in a museum, and taught to art students as art.

Does it make you an idiot for insisting it isn't? Yes.But why does it?Also it wouldn't surprise me if someone doing that was actually a piece of performance art that existed to explore the violent undertones of modern society and how the modern man represses his primal urges even in the face of obvious force.But... is it Art?

POS Industries

04-25-2010, 01:48 AM

But... is it Art?
Yes. Jegus fucking Christ it is art. Okay?

I mean, if nothing else it at least falls under martial arts which has the word "art" in it so I guess you could say that it totally is art.

Fifthfiend

04-25-2010, 01:50 AM

Lets say I walk up, and punch you in the face. I then declare it was performance art without a hint of insincerity. Is it Art?

Depends how all right you are with getting punched back.

Meister

04-25-2010, 01:53 AM

Depends how all right you are with getting punched back.
True artists suffer for their art.

Mike McC

04-25-2010, 01:57 AM

Yes. Jegus fucking Christ it is art. Okay?

I mean, if nothing else it at least falls under martial arts which has the word "art" in it so I guess you could say that it totally is art.So, if someone declares something is Art, than it is always Art?

Krylo

04-25-2010, 02:00 AM

True artists suffer for their art.
Yup (http://voffi08.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/burden62.jpg).
So, if someone declares something is Art, than it is always Art?

Start here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art), proceed through all the cited works, maybe take an art course.

Come back when you're done being ignorant and obstinate just for shits and giggles.

And stop trolling.

Fifthfiend

04-25-2010, 02:01 AM

If you ask him to hit you back it's a major motion picture.

Starring Meatloaf.

Mesden

04-25-2010, 02:04 AM

You can't have a legitimate opinion on something without experiencing it.

It would be like me trying to tell you that having penises in your vagina sucks because obviously the act of penetration is superior to the act of penetrating. Maybe I could draw some comparisons on how like, any OTHER kind of penetration of the body is usually pretty terrible or something.

MAYBE if he actually played some of the more artistic games or did even some cursory research into the subject he could have a legitimate opinion.

He admits he has done neither, and so as it stands, he has none.

It's why I haven't, until now, bothered to actually respond to anything dealing with Ebert directly.

See, this is why I made that chess analogy. Playing or not playing the game isn't relevant to his point. He just chose something inherent to all games (not just video games) and said that that quality, the one the makes them games, differences them from art. If that's his opinion then he doesn't have to play the game. That it is called a game is a justification for his reasoning (which isn't horrible, mind you, but very easy to disagree with).

Krylo

04-25-2010, 02:09 AM

See, this is why I made that chess analogy. Playing or not playing the game isn't relevant to his point. He just chose something inherent to all games (not just video games) and said that that quality, the one the makes them games, differences them from art. If that's his opinion then he doesn't have to play the game. That it is called a game is a justification for his reasoning (which isn't horrible, mind you, but very easy to disagree with).

It's not legitimate, however, because no one is claiming that a simple game such as chess, checkers, solitaire, poker, etc. is art. They are JUST a game and nothing else. I know I don't have to actually explain the differences to any of the members here, so I won't do so in detail.

The point, however, is that many video games make socio-political points, express ideas, exist to create beauty, etc. etc. all those things which the art community defines as the actual purpose of art.

If he had done some cursory research he'd know these things are inherent to art and that there are no things which EXCLUDE something from being art. There for he would not be making ignorant definitions of art.

If he had played some games he'd know that video games include those things and therefore not have removed them from the purview of art/artistic endeavor.

As that he's done NEITHER he can have no legitimate point.

Much as if he did a movie review and admitted half way through that he had never seen the movie but the trailers are pretty shit, no one would accept it, no one should, either, accept his ideas on video games vis a vis art, until he has educated himself on both matters.

He's, frankly, not worth the time.

Adam Sessler was because he has some idea of what he's talking about for at least HALF of the equation.

Fifthfiend

04-25-2010, 02:09 AM

Mesden. MESDEN.

Is American Idol art?

Fifthfiend

04-25-2010, 02:10 AM

Answer:

Not this fucking season it ain't.

DFM

04-25-2010, 02:11 AM

If you ask him to hit you back it's a major motion picture.

Starring Meatloaf.

What if he hangs a sign up in front of a cardboard tunnel that says "The Punch You in the Face Tunnel." and then waits at the other end for people to go through.

Fifthfiend

04-25-2010, 02:11 AM

because no one is claiming that a simple game such as chess, checkers, solitaire, poker, etc. is art.

I am totally claiming that chess is art, chess is art as fuck.

Krylo

04-25-2010, 02:11 AM

Is Simon still on that show, because he can get pretty artistic sometimes.

Edit: No one except Fifthfiend is saying that simple games etc. etc. art blah blah blah.

DFM

04-25-2010, 02:12 AM

No I agree chess seems pretty artsy.

Fifthfiend

04-25-2010, 02:14 AM

For literally centuries chess has been the medium through which people have experienced revelations about themselves and others and the broader nature of humanity and interconnected human society, guided by a simple set of interactions nonetheless allowing for variations of infinite complexity.

That shit is art as hell.

DFM

04-25-2010, 02:16 AM

One time I arranged all the chess pieces to spell 'poop'.

Krylo

04-25-2010, 02:18 AM

You're gonna make me do this, aren't you?

Fine. Chess, etc. are not art because they do not exist to make socio-political commentary, they do not exist to bring beauty, they do not exist to express ideas, they do not exist to create emotion.

A well played game of chess could be loosely defined as art, in the playing itself, much as commentators will often call athletes poetry in motion, or say that their movements have a particular art to them in and of themselves, in that anything done well enough can capture emotion, and express beauty.

These simple games themselves, however, can not.

On the other hand, just to pull something out of thin air here, Lunar can express social ideas on the importance of love and song, God of War can show human pathos of all sorts, and Katamari Damacy can exist as a thing to show and create beauty and emotion. They do these things regardless of how well (or poorly) they are played.

This is where things become different. And those aren't even particularly artistic games.

Mesden

04-25-2010, 02:20 AM

It's not legitimate, however, because no one is claiming that a simple game such as chess, checkers, solitaire, poker, etc. is art. They are JUST a game and nothing else. I know I don't have to actually explain the differences to any of the members here, so I won't do so in detail.

The point, however, is that many video games make socio-political points, express ideas, exist to create beauty, etc. etc. all those things which the art community defines as the actual purpose of art.

If he had done some cursory research he'd know these things are inherent to art and that there are no things which EXCLUDE something from being art. There for he would not be making ignorant definitions of art.

If he had played some games he'd know that video games include those things and therefore not have removed them from the purview of art/artistic endeavor.

As that he's done NEITHER he can have no legitimate point.

Much as if he did a movie review and admitted half way through that he had never seen the movie but the trailers are pretty shit, no one would accept it, no one should, either, accept his ideas on video games vis a vis art, until he has educated himself on both matters.

He's, frankly, not worth the time.

Adam Sessler was because he has some idea of what he's talking about for at least HALF of the equation.

Opinions don't have to be legitimate, though. Though who's to say his opinion is unjustified? He believes that the direct interactivity aspect of games separates them from art. I don't know whether he has or not interacted with a game before but if he has then his opinion on that particular matter (which is the one matter he states as his argument) is legitimate. Frankly, if he had a reasonable statement that movies aren't art because X inherent quality is not art and is found in all movies, then his opinion is at the very least justified, if considered silly by others.

He's just an old guy with an unpopular but well worded opinion.

Fifthfiend

04-25-2010, 02:21 AM

Fine. Chess, etc. are not art because they do not exist to make socio-political commentary, they do not exist to bring beauty, they do not exist to express ideas, they do not exist to create emotion.

Chess does literally all of those things. Proverbially speaking, it was explicitly created to do that first thing you said.

Mesden

04-25-2010, 02:22 AM

Answer:

Not this fucking season it ain't.

Adam was back for like one day and I was all "Where did this go I want the show that was good back." When the best person is someone who forgets the lyrics to a really popular Beatles song then well it's this.

Krylo

04-25-2010, 02:26 AM

Opinions don't have to be legitimate, though. Though who's to say his opinion is unjustified? He believes that the direct interactivity aspect of games separates them from art. I don't know whether he has or not interacted with a game before but if he has then his opinion on that particular matter (which is the one matter he states as his argument) is legitimate. Frankly, if he had a reasonable statement that movies aren't art because X inherent quality is not art and is found in all movies, then his opinion is at the very least justified, if considered silly by others.

He's just an old guy with an unpopular but well worded opinion.

Yeah, sure, by I took offense to your use of 'legitimate reason'.

Like I said, I don't give two shits about his actual opinion because it has no legitimacy.

Chess does literally all of those things. Proverbially speaking, it was explicitly created to do that first thing you said.

Care to substantiate that claim?

'Cause I can't actually find any information on why Shatranj was invented, and the closest I can find to an actual reason for playing chess was nobles during the rennaissance period (at which point Chess had been around in various form for centuries), using it to study tactics.

Which is a lot different, in and itself, from making socio-political commentary.

Mike McC

04-25-2010, 02:26 AM

Yup (http://voffi08.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/burden62.jpg).

Start here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art), proceed through all the cited works, maybe take an art course.

Come back when you're done being ignorant and obstinate just for shits and giggles.

And stop trolling.I'm sorry if I don't quite buy that people really believe that 'all things described as Art is Art." Everyone draws a line on what is and is not Art. To say that they don't is either naive, or decietful. Naive, because they never really thought about it, probed thier limits. Decietful, because they are hiding the truth to make thier point.

Everyone draws a line.

Krylo

04-25-2010, 02:31 AM

Mike McC

04-25-2010, 02:37 AM

Krylo

04-25-2010, 02:39 AM

POS Industries

04-25-2010, 02:41 AM

I'm sorry if I don't quite buy that people really believe that 'all things described as Art is Art." Everyone draws a line on what is and is not Art. To say that they don't is either naive, or decietful. Naive, because they never really thought about it, probed thier limits. Decietful, because they are hiding the truth to make thier point.

Everyone draws a line.
Well, in most cases, those lines tend to be drawn as merely a matter of preference. "I don't like X, so X is not art." And, in each of those lines, an argument can be made against it, usually one stronger than the argument made to draw the line in the first place. You may call not drawing such lines naive or deceitful, I call doing the opposite foolhardy and shortsighted.

And the narrower our view of art, the more we as a society risk stifling ourselves creatively.

Mike McC

04-25-2010, 02:42 AM

It is if you have no idea what you're talking about, yes.

Because it won't lead to a better understanding.

If you're Kyriakos Tamvakis, then, by all means, disagree with/argue with Hawking.

Now, again, stop being ignorant and obstinate just to be such and/or trolling.

Seriously, you're incredibly obvious.But, what about Robert Ebert, someone who has dealt with art for years, in the form of cinema? Surely that experience nets him the right to argue about what is Art.Well, in most cases, those lines tend to be drawn as merely a matter of preference. "I don't like X, so X is not art." And, in each of those lines, an argument can be made against it, usually one stronger than the argument made to draw the line in the first place. You may call not drawing such lines naive or deceitful, I call doing the opposite foolhardy and shortsighted.

And the narrower our view of art, the more we as a society risk stifling ourselves creatively.Perhaps. But, aren't the definitions of what is socially acceptable as art always shifting. And aren't discussions, fueled by critics who dissent, help us as a society to actively define that line, to definitively inlude/exclude it (typically to include at this stage of social development)? And therefore, don't these opinions, these critics, have merit from this?

There may not be a right answer, of course, but it is something worth considering.

Fifthfiend

04-25-2010, 02:42 AM

Care to substantiate that claim?

'Cause I can't actually find any information on why Shatranj was invented, and the closest I can find to an actual reason for playing chess was nobles during the rennaissance period (at which point Chess had been around in various form for centuries), using it to study tactics.

Which is a lot different, in and itself, from making socio-political commentary.

One prince made it up to explain why some other prince was a douche. I think? It was at the beginning of Chess the Musical.

Krylo

04-25-2010, 02:47 AM

One prince made it up to explain why some other prince was a douche. I think? It was at the beginning of Chess the Musical.

Nah, one prince sent it to another prince to do that, but the game itself was already around at that point.

I believe it was the Indians sending it to the Persians.

But, like I said, playing the game, and doing things (like that) with the game can be art, but the game itself isn't, because it lacks the context that would allow it to make those things I said before. I think this is actually why we came up with the idea of performance art--that sometimes an action can present social views, or beauty, or all those other neat things we prescribe to art, better than anything else, but there's no way to really save the ephemeral act, ergo performance art.

But, what about Robert Ebert, someone who has dealt with art for years, in the form of cinema? Surely that experience nets him the right to argue about what is Art.

See reply to Mesden Vis a Vis legitimacy of Ebert.

If he had studied art he'd know better than to make the definition he did.

POS Industries

04-25-2010, 02:50 AM

Perhaps. But, aren't the definitions of what is socially acceptable as art always shifting. And aren't discussions, fueled by critics who dissent, help us as a society to actively define that line, to definitively inlude/exclude it (typically to include at this stage of social development)? And therefore, don't these opinions, these critics, have merit from this?

There may not be a right answer, of course, but it is something worth considering.
Such discussion are among the oldest philosophical debates within human civilization and have never been a bad thing, but that doesn't mean you mentioning it isn't an obvious dodge around my response to how wrong you were.

01d55

04-25-2010, 02:51 AM

In much the same way as I don't argue with doctors, so long as there is consensus in the field, as to the best way to treat appendicitis, I do not argue with art critics, professors, etc. etc. on what is defined as art.

You can draw arbitrary lines if you want, but it's about as ridiculous as arguing with Hawking about Quantum Mechanics.

They know more than you, you are wrong.

You don't have to like all art, you don't have to find it tasteful or particularly valid. However, to say that it ISN'T art, still makes you wrong.

Well I might not be a professor myself yet but I am an undergraduate majoring in Computer Game Design and the consensus among my professors here at UCSC goes something like this:

For literally centuries chess has been the medium through which people have experienced revelations about themselves and others and the broader nature of humanity and interconnected human society, guided by a simple set of interactions nonetheless allowing for variations of infinite complexity.

That shit is art as hell.

Basically if you talk to people who say they study "art" but actually mean they study "music and painting and drama and maybe movies and television" then it's a crapshoot if games are or aren't art, and they're going to focus on shit like "is there a story." If you talk to people who study games (They're called ludologists) then you get a consensus: "game rules are art."

Krylo

04-25-2010, 02:55 AM

If you talk to people who study games (They're called ludologists) then you get a consensus: "game rules are art."

I've never heard that idea defended before, but it's one I'm willing to learn about. However it is now 3 am, and I'm pretty lazy, so could you give me some kind of summary of the justification for calling game rules art?

Mike McC

04-25-2010, 02:56 AM

See reply to Mesden Vis a Vis legitimacy of Ebert.

If he had studied art he'd know better than to make the definition he did.Do you have the right to judge him worthy of having an opinion on art? Do you have the experience to qualify you for that right? I mean, surely, you are not exempt from this criteria.

Krylo

04-25-2010, 03:00 AM

Do you have the right to judge him worthy of having an opinion on art? Do you have the experience to qualify you for that right? I mean, surely, you are not exempt from this criteria.

Welp, as is proven by my ability to actually use an actual accepted definition of art, I can easily argue I know more about artistic integrity than he does.

So yes.

01d55

04-25-2010, 03:01 AM

I've never heard that idea defended before, but it's one I'm willing to learn about. However it is now 3 am, and I'm pretty lazy, so could you give me some kind of summary of the justification for calling game rules art?

It is now 1AM and I have to do a bunch of goddamn dishes before I go to sleep (and I gotta get up around noon so I can't put that off forever).

Fifthfiend

04-25-2010, 03:11 AM

But, like I said, playing the game, and doing things (like that) with the game can be art, but the game itself isn't, because it lacks the context that would allow it to make those things I said before. I think this is actually why we came up with the idea of performance art--that sometimes an action can present social views, or beauty, or all those other neat things we prescribe to art, better than anything else, but there's no way to really save the ephemeral act, ergo performance art.

Chess doesn't lack context, it is context. It exists to shape and guide the experience of people who play it in order to lead them to particular types of experiences and understandings. You can't separate the playing of chess from the game itself because the entire point of the game's design is to create the experiences people have when playing it. Emotion and beauty? Experiencing the beauty of the flow of a well-played game, or the emotional turmoil of the sheer inscrutability of how a better player beats you, are encoded into the game's DNA, just as much as the heartstopping pressure of whether to call a bluff is encoded into poker, or flipping over the board and going THIS IS BULLSHIT HE ALWAYS GETS ALL THE HOUSES is built into Monopoly. A game that didn't inspire emotion would be pretty much the shittiest game (IE, golf).

Every game that exists essentially looks at the broader scope of human experience, behavior and interaction and recreates some aspect of it in microcosm. Society basically by definition is the construction of rules and laws in order to encode values and beliefs and shape and define how we understand and interact with the world around us and games simplify and distort the rules governing those interactions so that we examine them and develop a greater and deeper understanding of the whole.

If games aren't art then frankly it's art that comes out as the inferior expressive form because games command the attention of their players and create a directness and authenticity of experience which no passively observed piece of static art will ever hope to match.

Krylo

04-25-2010, 03:26 AM

Chess doesn't lack context, it is context. It exists to shape and guide the experience of people who play it in order to lead them to particular types of experiences and understandings. You can't separate the playing of chess from the game itself because the entire point of the game's design is to create the experiences people have when playing it. Emotion and beauty? Experiencing the beauty of the flow of a well-played game, or the emotional turmoil of the sheer inscrutability of how a better player beats you, are encoded into the game's DNA, just as much as the heartstopping pressure of whether to call a bluff is encoded into poker, or flipping over the board and going THIS IS BULLSHIT HE ALWAYS GETS ALL THE HOUSES is built into Monopoly. A game that didn't inspire emotion would be pretty much the shittiest game (IE, golf).

Every game that exists essentially looks at the broader scope of human experience, behavior and interaction and recreates some aspect of it in microcosm. Society basically by definition is the construction of rules and laws in order to encode values and beliefs and shape and define how we understand and interact with the world around us and games simplify and distort the rules governing those interactions so that we examine them and develop a greater and deeper understanding of the whole.

If games aren't art then frankly it's art that comes out as the inferior expressive form because games command the attention of their players and create a directness and authenticity of experience which no passively observed piece of static art will ever hope to match.

So I was reading this paper on Ludology 'cause Numsie, and I was about to disregard the whole thing because it was so dry that I couldn't believe that anyone who would write it would actually know anything about emotions or beauty or aesthetics, much less art. My motherboard manual was, literally, less dry.

HOWEVER, this argument is actually a really good one.

Also, while golf may be the worst game ever, WII golf is totally great.

Fifthfiend

04-25-2010, 03:36 AM

I assume academic papers on ludology are like when you have to read Lord of the Flies in school and your teacher finds a way to take a story about psychotic grade schoolers beating each other to death and make it boring.

The Sevenshot Kid

04-25-2010, 11:36 AM

Eh. Opinions are a lot like ***holes; everyone has one and they tend to stink.

tacticslion

04-25-2010, 01:06 PM

A game that didn't inspire emotion would be pretty much the shittiest game (IE, golf).

Hey, don't give me that. Golf inspires lots of emotion. The religious commentary of Tiger Woods after a particular putt - Buddah not mentioned - is proof of that (anger)! My naps (boredom) when granddad used to watch (fascination) it are proof of that!

Every game that exists essentially looks at the broader scope of human experience, behavior and interaction and recreates some aspect of it in microcosm. Society basically by definition is the construction of rules and laws in order to encode values and beliefs and shape and define how we understand and interact with the world around us and games simplify and distort the rules governing those interactions so that we examine them and develop a greater and deeper understanding of the whole.

If games aren't art then frankly it's art that comes out as the inferior expressive form because games command the attention of their players and create a directness and authenticity of experience which no passively observed piece of static art will ever hope to match.

QFT. Rules can easily be considered art in the same way (to use my own previous analogy) an engine can be considered art: they both have a specific, practical function, yet can be created for the purpose of expressing beauty, elegance, and eloquence while performing that function. One of the traits of Art that I've noticed - or at least the enduring 'masterpieces' - is that it attempts to, in some way, express nobility, beauty, and honor of its subject. Even when highlight or glorifying 'ugly' things, it tends to express this in oddly beautiful ways (examples including English Rennaisance paintings of 'noble commoners' human, beautiful in their plainness, etc). In other words Art exists to glorify and praise that which is found worthy in something. I'm curious if this would stand as a definition, or if it's believed that such things persist only because they're beautiful, while "art" itself can be ugly and vile. I'm not an art major, and my experience is limited to the study of humanities and history, as well as various argumentative definitions and links.

Ultimately, I resubmit the several-times-expressed (in various ways, at least once by myself) idea: Roger Ebert's personal opinion isn't worth getting angry over against him as it is empty and ignorant; but his expressed opinion is worth getting 'upset' over, and talking about (amongst ourselves and others) because he is a recognized and respected name in the broader 'art' community and has effectively used the adult-equivalent of a highschool 'you're not cool enough to be in our clique' rebuke of video games, which means that many who work as artists within games will go unrecognized and rejected because the 'cool kids' said so. As a group, Gamers and game makers have been rejected from the broader art community by a respected member of that community - a rejection that hurts, regardless of its validity.

Mesden mentioned that the problem might be just the name* - 'game' is just not going to cut it. So again, I ask, is there anyone here who has a reasonable proposition for those artists who wish to differentiate their work to call it? My lexicon isn't large enough to do so.

Eh. Opinions are a lot like ***holes; everyone has one and they tend to stink.

Well, some more than others. Depends on what they feed themselves with, really, and how often and well they clean themselves.

*"What's in a name? A rose by any other name..."

CelesJessa

04-25-2010, 02:40 PM

In other words Art exists to glorify and praise that which is found worthy in something. I'm curious if this would stand as a definition, or if it's believed that such things persist only because they're beautiful, while "art" itself can be ugly and vile.

As my video art professor always tells us, art isn't always meant to be beautiful, entertaining, or pleasant to look at. A lot of times art is made to criticize things or comment on things in a negative light so I don't think that the definition of art existing to praise and glorify something would carry over to well, personally.

A fun example that I think applies to this debate a lot is the piece called "fountain" by Marcel Duchamp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_%28Duchamp%29). Basically he took a urinal, wrote on it, and set it on it's side and said "This is art", as a comment of how we define art. The actual physical urinal isn't particularly beautiful and most people wouldn't consider it art because of what it is, physically, but the intellectual decision behind the piece and the statement the artist was trying to make makes it art. So yeah, anything could be art.

Also, having an art debate makes me feel incredibly nerdy and happy.

tacticslion

04-25-2010, 02:56 PM

A well-informed rebuttle.

Thanks! So the question still stands: any suggestions for alternate names instead of "game"

Also, having an art debate makes me feel incredibly nerdy and happy.

I know, right?

BattyAsHell

04-25-2010, 09:50 PM

Chess doesn't lack context, it is context. It exists to shape and guide the experience of people who play it in order to lead them to particular types of experiences and understandings. You can't separate the playing of chess from the game itself because the entire point of the game's design is to create the experiences people have when playing it. Emotion and beauty? Experiencing the beauty of the flow of a well-played game, or the emotional turmoil of the sheer inscrutability of how a better player beats you, are encoded into the game's DNA, just as much as the heartstopping pressure of whether to call a bluff is encoded into poker, or flipping over the board and going THIS IS BULLSHIT HE ALWAYS GETS ALL THE HOUSES is built into Monopoly. A game that didn't inspire emotion would be pretty much the shittiest game (IE, golf).

Every game that exists essentially looks at the broader scope of human experience, behavior and interaction and recreates some aspect of it in microcosm. Society basically by definition is the construction of rules and laws in order to encode values and beliefs and shape and define how we understand and interact with the world around us and games simplify and distort the rules governing those interactions so that we examine them and develop a greater and deeper understanding of the whole.

If games aren't art then frankly it's art that comes out as the inferior expressive form because games command the attention of their players and create a directness and authenticity of experience which no passively observed piece of static art will ever hope to match.

Nice argument.

And works just as well for Go, imo. :D

01d55

04-25-2010, 10:18 PM

So I was reading this paper on Ludology 'cause Numsie, and I was about to disregard the whole thing because it was so dry that I couldn't believe that anyone who would write it would actually know anything about emotions or beauty or aesthetics, much less art. My motherboard manual was, literally, less dry.

Reading academic papers is always a risky proposition. You may have been better served by moving on to a different paper.

tacticslion

04-25-2010, 10:41 PM

Nice argument.

And works just as well for Go, imo. :D

Actually, I think that's his point: games are a reflection and an abstraction of life and its struggles in a microcosm. Go is included in that, as is Checkers, and even Baseball, Basketball, or Football (both kinds). The latter (the sports) for example, each represent the eternal struggle for dominance between "us" and "them/not us" in a visual, tangible way - why else would we identify with "our" team so strongly, or demonstrate so vividly (and sometimes violently) our fanaticism (from whence we derive "fan") if not because we identify with the "us against them for supremacy/existance" theme inherent within such sports games. All games represent a struggle of some sort - some are just more obvious than others. In that way, all games become performance art, though, as we've clarified, some art is good, some isn't. Some games are probably more 'artistic' than others, just as a child's stick-scratches on a sheet of paper are 'less artistic' than a painting by Rembrandt - more skill (arguably) went into the latter one, though both were the result of the creative impulse (also, I may be using the word 'artistic' wrongly, which is why I put it in quotes - if so, oops, feel free to correct me).

As a 'similar' comparison, let's take, say, tic-tac-toe and compare it to Lord of the Rings (the board game). The one (TTT) is simplistic and direct, requires little to no artistic talent (the base ability to render an "X" shape and an "O" shape with vaguely parallel lines in a "#" pattern, at most - sometimes, now, even these are done for you and you just stick things where you want), while the latter requires tremendously skilled artists, an elegant and detailed rules-system, a myriad of representative pieces, and a basic understanding of a modern epic. Lord of the Rings (both book and board game) is very definately art - both are, in fact, probably considered "High Art", whatever that means (hey, my Humanities professor made the distinction, I dunno), especially the epic. Tic-Tac-Toe, on the other hand, is not "high" art, by any means, but is educational (on a basic level) and both shows and guids a compound drive for compatition and creativity (not so creative if it's all rendered for you, but even then, you decide what to put where) combined with critical thinking skills (at least potentially). These are all that seem to be needed for 'art', based off of what I'm reading here and have seen before.

Ultimately, it seems, art needs to have a 'point' of some kind - an intentional "why" it was created, even if it was created simply to make "art". This would, it seems, exclude purely "natural" events (volcanic eruptions, meteor strikes, etc), despite their beauty and ability to evoke awe in another. Of course, what do I know? I'm not a serious art student, professor, doctor, or master - just a nerd who's had a few classes. Maybe even those natural events are 'art'. Of course, if you believe everything is the result of an active, divine Hand (I do) such events would be the result of forethought as well, so, hey, I just rebutted my own idea.