Or it's an alt account by the original poster who didn't feel like his post got enough discussion or respect or didn't get the response he wanted or whatever. That's what I keep thinking of, anyway, though I guess you could still come across this in a Google search or something.

Sesquipedalian loquaciousness in action, here. You could have just said "that's a problem with everything because not everyone understands terms in the same way; this makes productive conversation nearly impossible". Which is a pretty false thing to say - if it was a problem with everything then science couldn't advance nor communicate its findings and we wouldn't have reams of essays and books on practically everything humankind knows and thinks.

Communication is hardly fucked, it just depends on the communicator to present his thoughts and ideas clearly and simply.

@video_game_king said:

Well if you don't have a clear idea of what the terms you're using in your argument mean then you don't have an argument anyway. That's not really a communication problem, but a way more fundamental issue in your thinking. As for us having different definitions, that can be a problem in some areas, but I really think it's a specific thing and I don't think you can begin to say that it can be applied to everything. If we're having a discussion about "God" or "Art" or "Morality" then sure, those are things we might well need to define, and in this specific "Is X art?" discussion it's absolutely vital, but the very large majority of discussions aren't getting tripped up by this problem.

I'd say that's a problem with everything in general. I'm not quite sure how to explain it. That communication is inherently fucked because we all assume that people can intuit our conceptions of key terms we use in our arguments, and we generally don't assume that people have their own definitions that they're gonna work from instead? And that because of this, productive conversation is incredibly difficult to enact?

Quit wasting my time scumbag!

I took some art courses in college. One of the first things the instructor would always ask, "how do you define art?" The first time I heard that I thought it was kind of a half clever, really lazy method of opening up discussion. As years went by I realized how condescending and limited people who have to put art some tiny fucking box are. Now each time somebody wants to wax philosophical about the definition of art, I assume they just got out of the first day of Art History 101 and want to know what to tell their teacher. Here's what to tell them "stop ruining shit." Boxing up what something can be limits what we appreciate as a society and what creatives allow themselves to do. If you say something can't be art, that's not because that thing is limited, it's because you're not an imaginative person enough to be able to see it.

Everything made by someone is considered art . That is the definition.

However can video games be considered a more higher form of art? Yes it can. Most of all Stuff like movies, music and also video games are entertainment in our world. However something can be so good or influential that it can become this higher form of art.

Hell of a show!!

They find them through google and create an account just to reply, presumably.

Did you just get out of your first day of college?

It's settled then. VIDEOGAMES IS PEOPLE!

Why is it always people with 1 post that bring up such old threads?

Dude, if a chair leaning up against a wall is art (saw it in Boston) then anything can be art. People pay millions for some paint splashed onto a canvas. It's all hella subjective.

I have to be on lots of illegal drugs to understand this post, right?

Wow...... that's REALLY interesting.

I loved that show!

Pretty much. Good job OP?

This is art attack. This is art attack. This IS...Art Attack!

This website is not a community. No one is actually communicating, you are reading things that people already typed anywhere from 1 second to a few hours to sometimes even years ago.

Oh hey, this old chestnut.

The concept that the OP was trying to explain (albeit rather poorly) does make some sense, in that the final product, or the work, is a representation of the physical, emotional, psychological etc. input into the work, and that this is where the art can stem from. A great piece need not be the most aesthetically pleasing, by that definition. As such, the work could be seen as not being art, and so video games are not art but are merely representations of the work put in to them instead.

Bu it could also be said that the emotional etc. reaction to the experience of witnessing the work, watching an "artistic" film, playing a game, allows for the product to be art in and of itself. If it weren't for their existence, they would not eschew the reactions; therefore, they are art and create art.

Basically, this is all waffle that amounts to how a lot of opinion about art is opinionated and open to opinion. There's no correct answer, really. Or that may just be my opinion.

Ah, of course. I just phrased myself improperly.

You made me look stupid :'(

Oh shit guys! People are catching on that this "art" idea we invented to get money is a bunch of shit! Time to redefine it. Quick everyone write down all your verbose and illogical mental masturbations and get them published ASAP.

I found it super instructive to learn about "art" in ancient civilizations and their attitude towards it.

@secondpersonshooter:

I was referring to opinions, by definition, being subjective.

Well yeah, I think the idea that we're capable of having subjective opinions and personal tastes is what defines art for each of us in the first place.

Like, take culinary arts for example. A cake is made to eat and it will provide a transfer of energy by which you will have gained something. That's looking at it objectively

Asking each individual person how they feel about the taste of the cake is the subjective opinion and what defines it as "art"

Art is both the process of appealing to opinions (be they yours or an audiences), as well as forming opinions and deriving meaning out of them, that is both the creative and the passive side of art.

But again, this is just how I personally think about it.

As opposed to objective opinions?

(Hey, I'm a nit-picker. I pick nits, and this is most definitely a nit.)

I didn't necessarily mean to be dismissive and hostile, but I think when most people view games, or anything else as "art", it's because it speaks to them as an emotional experience. I think arguing the semantics of the actual word "art" is a pointless exercise and we should just get back to discussing what video games provide for us that we feel is worthwhile, I don't really care if you can definitively call it "art" or not.

I just want someone to give me a reason why this discussion is worth having. I read all of Roger Ebert's posts on the subject and I read this one, and I don't see why I just don't see why it's worth arguing about. People will be affected by games no matter what label you think it should fit in.

Personally I think everything that man-made that people have subjective opinions on is "art"

@secondpersonshooter:

Presumably, the people discussing this care quite a bit.

We should just stop using the word "art" who's with me because WHO FUCKING CARES

uhh, nope?

.

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.

.

.

Yea, I'ma go with nope.

I think not calling games art might be a bit offensive to all the ARTISTS that work on them...
It's an art.
So is photography and food preparation.

I think the art student hate in here is a bit needless, but I disagree completely with the opening post. The reason that a lot of these discussions end up being entirely fruitless is that often nobody ever defines what "art" is, and so nobody ends up talking about the same thing or being entirely sure what they're talking about. That definition has to be the jumping-off point for your argument, and it is not valid to say that what makes something art is the "indescribable". You can't base an argument around something that you admit you can't actually explain. Beyond that I think your post uses a narrow understanding of the process, intentions, and motivations in art, makes arbitrary assessments of things with no real logic to back them up, and uses language that is often unclear. The things you're saying sound very eloquent, but they do not make up an objective assessment or comparison of either art or video games.

I like turtles

That's funny, I just saw that Van Gogh at the National Gallery earlier today.

I am art

My natural reaction when given that proposition is to say that because (supposedly) videogames offer the most potential for play and interaction, they are the most art, because the viewing process is itself an act of creation connected to but not beholden to the process of the work's author.

But although I might see that as valid, it already rests on a bunch of really shaky concepts. The most obvious is the statement that spectating or consuming artworks is of any importance, but probably more contentiously (because I think subjectivity is a fairly entrenched concept at this point) I think it relies on an a priori acceptance of Heidegger's assertion that Art has a seperate existence from its physical reality.

The OPs opinion rests on a bunch of fairly contentious opinions. I think the first one that stuck out to me was that all painters would claim their work was representative of a story.

didnt think thisd get responses :X

i guess the point i was trying to make is participating in works of art doesn't make you an artist. there's no painting, game, song, etc. that can magically make someone else into an artist or inspire you to create, because to participate in a work of art is to literally be distracted from making something yourself.. thats why i used words like false prophecy and undead and yada yada. At the end of the day I'd rather nobody view things I've made, and instead just make something themselves, but that burden is on each individual, and the artist can't help them.

In the same way though it's everyone's right to take credit for every piece of artwork ever made, just as a shared human achievement, but not to take the end result as the reason the painter painted something, or the game designer designed something. I think what can come out of art is beautiful and wonderful and can resonate emotionally, but sometimes it can seem like the greatest paintings inspire inaction instead of action ("I could never paint THAT") when the point is to just create, and appreciate everything you make for what it is.

and for the record, i don't draw things with my own poop. I poop, but i never draw with the poop.

Art is subjective. I think games are art, thus they are. You don't, thus they aren't. Have a nice day.

This is essentially what's wrong with this post and an effective summary of the philosophy, put more eloquently than I managed. Thanks, brode.

Art is art and games are games. Different things. Why is it so difficult for some people to see that? I think it has to do with the fact that most of us don't have a clue anymore what art is, or our relationship with arts is minimal. A big number of artists have worked in the Buckingham Palace, painters, sculptors, architects and others, but that doesn't make Buckingham Palace a work of art, but a building. A nice building, but building. The same goes for games. No matter how artistic one game might be, it's still a game and its purpose of existence is to be played.

NO OP, YOU'RE NOT ART!

Art is subjective. And your post is overly pompous and way to bombastic. You wouldn't convince me of your "theory" even if you wrote a thesis based on it, though your welcome to believe it yourself. Add the fact that you haven't replied to a single post in this topic, which tend to mean that the poster wanted to say something controversial, but not discuss it. The pussy way.

Read my latest book, "Why Tigers are not Cats : The Use of Sophistry to Prove Obvious Truths as Falsehoods"

@jazgalaxy: I think they'd like to hear from anyone with a better grasp of essay or debate. He presents a proposition and then hides his logic and evidence behind conspicuous verbiage, leaving it to be explained by better communicators.

Ultimately his point is that games are not art, they are merely works of art, products of an artistic process. This explanation didn't require prose as purple as 'you were looking at a wall next to a painting' or all that nonsense about the 'Undead'. It's not a difficult or controversial opinion unless you phrase it as confrontational and opaque as the OP chose.

I didn't say I didn't want to hear from them. I read the whole thing it just didn't make sense and most arguments from art students don't make sense. Saying that the product itself is not art and that the real art is just the effort it took to build it is ridiculous.

Is this a Sander Cohen roleplay?

@joeyravn: http://www.sophiehoulden.com/can-art-be-games/

It is, and you won.

Can someone tell me if art is a videogame?

No, you seem to get it. Art is a cultural construct important to how human beings see the world and themselves. It's just a part of dealing with being a creature with consciousness and thought.