To quote Yahtzee, "A game can bring the emotionally moving experience ever and can bring tears to the eyes of jaded war veterans with no eyes, but its all for naught if it isn't surrounded by self-important bearded tossers saying what's art and what's not".
An interesting look at why video games (Probably) are not art
"Devin replies: This is the most common reply I got. There's a lot of people who feel that an amorphous statement like 'more than the sum of its parts' is enough to make a case, and I frankly don't think it is. Even if elements of the aggregated arts that make up a video game are art, those elements are the art, not the game. The visual design, the narrative, the music are art. The structure holding them together isn't. Just throwing a whole bunch of art on my bed doesn't make my bed art.By the way, I don't have a lot of time for dictionary definitions of art. They're useless in a debate like this, because they serve only to give a baseline understanding of the word, free of all context. As I said in my original editorial, defining art is a fool's errand at the best of times."Yes, because Shadow of the Colossus equates to throwing art on a bed. This guy is awful.
"Some things to address from the last few posts, like the dictionary defintion of art etc, I'll let Devin say it because I have no problem admitting he's much better with words...Devin may have a decent command of the English language, but that doesn't make him terribly logical. Does he not see the inherent difference between how one chooses to watch a movie, and how one chooses to play a videogame? Does he not at least intuitively sense it? The difference is that you affect content through playing a videogame. At most with a movie, you affect what you perceive of it. When you start affecting content (IE, closing your eyes and shutting your ears for large portions of the film, or talking over characters and making up your own dialogue, although both of these things are more things experienced on the level of living, moreso on the level of taking part in the art form itself) is the point at which the creator of the film, unless he is hopelessly, mindlessly postmodern, would argue that you have not watched the film properly. In videogames, you're supposed to affect content. When you stop affecting content is when it ceases to be a videogame. Cut-scenes spring to mind. A very broad suggestion that "all art is interactive" is as silly as saying "everything's relative", perhaps true to a small extent, but totally deceptive and untrue when applied the way it is here.
Devin replies: Your argument seems to be that video games are art because we get to decide how to interact with them. I don't see how this is any different from any other art. You can hang a painting in any direction, or put it in a dark room and only enjoy the textures. You can watch a movie in slow motion, or reverse, or enjoy it as a series of still frames or as audio. Every art form is interactive, as we, the audience, must interact with it in our own way. I will get something very different out of a book than you will because I interacted with it in my own way.
Devin replies:There's an anger out there that white paint on a canvas is art but Halo isn't. This, to me, reads as one part ignorance of art (my guess is that most of the people who want video games as art have no actual interest in art and rarely go to art galleries/shows) and one part desire for validation.
Devin replies: This is the most common reply I got. There's a lot of people who feel that an amorphous statement like 'more than the sum of its parts' is enough to make a case, and I frankly don't think it is. Even if elements of the aggregated arts that make up a video game are art, those elements are the art, not the game. The visual design, the narrative, the music are art. The structure holding them together isn't. Just throwing a whole bunch of art on my bed doesn't make my bed art.By the way, I don't have a lot of time for dictionary definitions of art. They're useless in a debate like this, because they serve only to give a baseline understanding of the word, free of all context. As I said in my original editorial, defining art is a fool's errand at the best of times."
It's also a low blow to suggest that those who oppose him must have an ulterior motive. Most people have emotional reasons for arguing the point they do, so it makes no sense to attack the motive. I'm sure Devin has his own reasons for believing that videogames are not art, and I'll let them have them. I don't need to know what those are, because his argument is weak enough to be picked apart without them.
The sum of its part argument is a red herring. Something is either wholly art, or it isn't, because art is about what the thing as a whole is, not what its components are. Art is an intuitive, subjective thing, but one that is so universally intuitive and subjective, that it is universal. And are videogames universally capable of such a thing? I think so. And I have good reasons for thinking so. And I haven't read a good argument for the other side yet (though I've run into some decent rhetoric), so I shall continue to believe that it is universally true that videogames are art, because I think it is capable of touching on that nebulous intuitive, subjective area that makes us want to call something art, because it is capable of much the same things of other art forms and especially life itself.
"TobyD81 said:I'm glad, because I was actually about to quote you. Thanks!"In his article, I think Devin fails to acknowledge the importance of play in regards to video games. Play is how a game can convey its experience and illicit an emotion from the player..."i agree with you man"
"Sarnecki said: Devin may have a decent command of the English language, but that doesn't make him terribly logical. Does he not see the inherent difference between how one chooses to watch a movie, and how one chooses to play a videogame? Does he not at least intuitively sense it? The difference is that you affect content through playing a videogame. At most with a movie, you affect what you perceive of it. When you start affecting content (IE, closing your eyes and shutting your ears for large portions of the film, or talking over characters and making up your own dialogue, although both of these things are more things experienced on the level of living, moreso on the level of taking part in the art form itself) is the point at which the creator of the film, unless he is hopelessly, mindlessly postmodern, would argue that you have not watched the film properly..."This is right. Choosing where to hang a painting is not interacting with art, it's just relocating it. It doesn't affect the content of the image. And leaving it in the dark isn't experiencing it at all. Were I a filmmaker, I'd think Devin an idiot if he suggested that he got something extra out of my movie by watching it in high-speed reverse with the sound off; that's completely against the film's intent to tell a story. I don't think Devin is really thinking all this through.
"Some things to address from the last few posts, like the dictionary defintion of art etc, I'll let Devin say it because I have no problem admitting he's much better with words...If you *were* looking for something honest to back up my "he has no fucking clue what he's on about" claim, you can look no further than the fact that this genius probably doesn't even have a definition of art that he uses himself. Like the comic I posted in my first reply, he uses an utterly meaningless differentiation between what he perceives as "good" art and things he perceives as "bad" art or "not" art at all when crafting his pieces. Any discussion with him is worthless because behind whatever pretty words he happens to think up of, there is nothing. No substance.
Devin replies: Your argument seems to be that video games are art because we get to decide how to interact with them. I don't see how this is any different from any other art. You can hang a painting in any direction, or put it in a dark room and only enjoy the textures. You can watch a movie in slow motion, or reverse, or enjoy it as a series of still frames or as audio. Every art form is interactive, as we, the audience, must interact with it in our own way. I will get something very different out of a book than you will because I interacted with it in my own way.
Devin replies:There's an anger out there that white paint on a canvas is art but Halo isn't. This, to me, reads as one part ignorance of art (my guess is that most of the people who want video games as art have no actual interest in art and rarely go to art galleries/shows) and one part desire for validation.
Devin replies: This is the most common reply I got. There's a lot of people who feel that an amorphous statement like 'more than the sum of its parts' is enough to make a case, and I frankly don't think it is. Even if elements of the aggregated arts that make up a video game are art, those elements are the art, not the game. The visual design, the narrative, the music are art. The structure holding them together isn't. Just throwing a whole bunch of art on my bed doesn't make my bed art.By the way, I don't have a lot of time for dictionary definitions of art. They're useless in a debate like this, because they serve only to give a baseline understanding of the word, free of all context. As I said in my original editorial, defining art is a fool's errand at the best of times."
If he wanted to make himself at least seem minimally credible, he could at least take the time to set aside a blog post for his own definition of art. However long, boring, or impenetrable it may be, it would mean that he at least put effort into allowing his readers to engage him, instead of creating some stupid bubble consisting of "you're ignorant, I've studied English, I have a better definition of art then you do." Until then, his articles are moot.
He already attempts to define art in the article, but then goes on to say that defining art is "a fools errand" in the response section.
"You can't look at Gears of War, Killzone 2, Halo 3, or Metal Gear Solid 4 and tell me that games aren't art."Jesus Christ, those are the most terrible examples. Gears is the probably the stupidest of them all. MGS4 could have some more artistic elements, if you consider all the story and cutscenes, but the game itself wouldn't be art.
"First I decided to sign up to reply to this post. I am currently studying English, Education and Psychology at the University of Adelaide. First of all I find problems with the author's explanation of what is and isn't art. Oscar Wilde often argued that there are many forms of art which are ignored. The Picture of Dorian Gray can be read as an argument that the very act of living a life can be a form art, represented by the titular Dorian Gray. Wilde also believed that even murder could be argued as artistic (this particular argument had a lot to do with Victorian journalist sensationalism and must considered in context). The concept that video games as a medium are not art is incorrect because the categorization of artistic mediums has been created out of the need for stores,and the limits of the artists and the audience. Early books such The Odyssey were never popularly read during their time and were in fact oral performance. Many novels, such as Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace, refuse to simply be prose and are constructed by a combination of prose, poem and newspaper articles, other writer's even change language during the text.The concept that Cinema is an artistic medium purely because it created editing is incorrect. Plays, novels and oral performances constantly experiment and use changes of tense, view, time, focus and location. Cinema also began without sound (silent films theaters often hired local bands to play music which set the tone) so under the author's constraints should we not consider the modern film's use of sound as part of the Cinema experience. The framing aspect of cinema is taken from photography which developed it out of painting and drawing. It also should be noted that the first motion pictures lacked editing, there was one camera, in a fixed position, filming a play. The idea that since video games did not create anything new and thus are not a artistic medium is ridiculous as it ignores the fact that all artistic mediums stem from oral tradition and the label of a medium adds nothing artistic to a piece of work. Autobiographical writing is still considered by some to not be artistic because it has a history in historical writing, regardless of the fact that Woolf's Moments of being and Stein's work is considered high art. The idea that art must do or be anything is anti-art. The author who refuses to accept this view because it's "too Special Olympics" (an utterly disgusting phrase) is missing the entire point about art. No artist worth remembering would ever dismiss a piece because of its form or medium. An author shouldn't care whether you call there work a book, novella, story or autobiographical, what would be important to them is that you read it. Every time an artist/s creates a piece of work they do so within the constrains and limitations of the medium, the medium is always a necessary evil and they exist only because artists are human and no human is smart enough to make a piece of art which breaks all limitations, Every single thing is art because art has no limitations, only the artists do and that is why we categorize things into labels. "
I think you misunderstood the article. He cites several examples of "art" built with common objects. In other words, a painted can can be art, but it doesn't mean that all cans are art. Alhough art is not limitable to simple terms, it doesn't mean that everything is art. The medium doesn't matter.
Videogames aren't art because they don't convey any meaning expressed by any artist. They contain elements of other arts, such as writing, music, etc. But the game itself is just a gimmick, a tool. It doesn't have a language of its own. Other mediums evolved through time and developed a language of their own.
The argument that "everything is art" is false.
"And at some point, we want to express that through our creations. That is where art is born. And I don't see how rules are inherently against this. Rules cannot express artistic thought?"
This is too self-centered. Art is born from the necessity of understanding this human experience we are entrapped in. It is projecting ourselves onto some medium and learning something from it.
Rules, as in a game, aren't art because it conveys nothing. It is a simple tool designed to keep us entertained for some time. The game uses other arts, such as music, but in the end the game itself means nothing. It doesn't reflect humanity.
"Milkman said:You see, interchanges like this are the reason why I wish I could still +1 posts."Jayge said:Yes.""You still completely misunderstand the point of my question. Now this is pointless too. Thread exit."Oh, for fuck's sake. I agree with you but must you be such a pompous ass about EVERYTHING?"
I like both of you guys, but this is comedic gold.
"Why is it that people want so badly for games to be considered art? Who cares."This guy wins.
But anyways it's opinion I've looked at paintings and thought that's pretty shit that's not art, if someone declares it as art to them it is, to another it might not be, rather the same concept as beauty and other things alike, it's all about ones own perception, but the bottom line is it's trivial and doesn't really matter.
IDK, i think games are art in a way....but....if Rap 'music' is called art these days, then games are Super Art! ;)
"For art to be art it has to have no purpose other than itself."Which would instantly dismiss the majority of music, film and videogames that were ever created with a purpose of making money and/or becoming famous.
"cdstacker said:First of all, I HATE ALL OF YOU FOR REVIVING THIS TOPIC."First I decided to sign up to reply to this post. I am currently studying English, Education and Psychology at the University of Adelaide. First of all I find problems with the author's explanation of what is and isn't art. Oscar Wilde often argued that there are many forms of art which are ignored. The Picture of Dorian Gray can be read as an argument that the very act of living a life can be a form art, represented by the titular Dorian Gray. Wilde also believed that even murder could be argued as artistic (this particular argument had a lot to do with Victorian journalist sensationalism and must considered in context). The concept that video games as a medium are not art is incorrect because the categorization of artistic mediums has been created out of the need for stores,and the limits of the artists and the audience. Early books such The Odyssey were never popularly read during their time and were in fact oral performance. Many novels, such as Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace, refuse to simply be prose and are constructed by a combination of prose, poem and newspaper articles, other writer's even change language during the text.The concept that Cinema is an artistic medium purely because it created editing is incorrect. Plays, novels and oral performances constantly experiment and use changes of tense, view, time, focus and location. Cinema also began without sound (silent films theaters often hired local bands to play music which set the tone) so under the author's constraints should we not consider the modern film's use of sound as part of the Cinema experience. The framing aspect of cinema is taken from photography which developed it out of painting and drawing. It also should be noted that the first motion pictures lacked editing, there was one camera, in a fixed position, filming a play. The idea that since video games did not create anything new and thus are not a artistic medium is ridiculous as it ignores the fact that all artistic mediums stem from oral tradition and the label of a medium adds nothing artistic to a piece of work. Autobiographical writing is still considered by some to not be artistic because it has a history in historical writing, regardless of the fact that Woolf's Moments of being and Stein's work is considered high art. The idea that art must do or be anything is anti-art. The author who refuses to accept this view because it's "too Special Olympics" (an utterly disgusting phrase) is missing the entire point about art. No artist worth remembering would ever dismiss a piece because of its form or medium. An author shouldn't care whether you call there work a book, novella, story or autobiographical, what would be important to them is that you read it. Every time an artist/s creates a piece of work they do so within the constrains and limitations of the medium, the medium is always a necessary evil and they exist only because artists are human and no human is smart enough to make a piece of art which breaks all limitations, Every single thing is art because art has no limitations, only the artists do and that is why we categorize things into labels. "I think you misunderstood the article. He cites several examples of "art" built with common objects. In other words, a painted can can be art, but it doesn't mean that all cans are art. Alhough art is not limitable to simple terms, it doesn't mean that everything is art. The medium doesn't matter. Videogames aren't art because they don't convey any meaning expressed by any artist. They contain elements of other arts, such as writing, music, etc. But the game itself is just a gimmick, a tool. It doesn't have a language of its own. Other mediums evolved through time and developed a language of their own. The argument that "everything is art" is false."
Second, before you and I engage in discussion, I need you ro tell me what you mean as "language of its own." No matter how I interpret that, you lose, but I'm positive I'm defining wrong.
"Videogames aren't art because they don't convey any meaning expressed by any artist."
Sure they do.
the game itself is just a gimmick, a tool
Not really relevant, but also false as I've said before. The "game" (I use the term loosely, because I'm talking about any form of interactive digital expression, really) is an inherent property of the medium that sets itself apart from any other medium. A game can do things that no other medium can, and so it expresses its ideas in a way that no other medium can.
It doesn't have a language of its own. Other mediums evolved through time and developed a language of their own.
Also false. Video games are not movies or music or literature, they contain elements of all of these things, and combine those elements in unique and interesting ways. A game doesn't have to have good writing, but it can. A game doesn't have to have a cinematic experience, but it can. The game can disregard and combine elements as its developers choose, and can also draw upon elements that no other medium can.
The argument that "everything is art" is false.
All forms of expression are art. Can you prove otherwise without devolving into arbitrary distinctions?
Art is born from the necessity of understanding this human experience we are entrapped in.
I don't think so, I think art comes from the desire to express feeling, a way to interpret the complex ideas and emotions that only we humans feel, like language. The human experience is only input.
Rules, as in a game, aren't art because it conveys nothing.
A game is traditionally defined by a set of rules, but that's really a simplistic definition for games in the modern sense, and what people generally think of as "rules" don't really apply to many games. Rules in video games aren't so much a set of objectives, but the boundaries that define the world. Physics are the rules that define the real world, and programmers use rules sort of like paint, to create a new world with it's own properties.
You should read the thread.
I think the crux of this arguments fault is that it has two central points that are totally at odds with each other.
On the one hand, games (video or otherwise) can't be art because they're something else entirely. They are interactive entertainment that is shaped by the experience of the players, much like sport or other competitions.
Then, when Narrative Game X (which as an aside is a totally great name for a game) is brought up as a counter-argument, he concedes that it is essentially an interactive film. He makes the argument that the game itself is in fact an older art form, with "window dressing" that makes it something more.
So basically, video games aren't art unless they're really just movies pretending to be games. Right.
I think the other argument that he makes that I disagree with is that cinema is an art form because of the process of editing and how that distinguishes as something other than simply photography. But video games and other software have a similar creation process (lets call it 'development') that requires taking separate pieces of information and combining them into a new creation.
Honestly I don't see why people get worked up over this.
"Bellum said:"You should read the thread. "No, because I don't give a shit. Just the thread showing up on the board is annoying enough."
Then you're cluttering up the thread with redundant nonsense.
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