video games as2 as art

8/10/2019 Video Games AS2 as Art

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Are video games art?



VIDEO GAMES CAN NEVER BE ART

by Roger Edbert 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. Nevert

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. Bu

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

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 fo

She then says speech began as a form of warning, and writing as a form of bookkeeping, but they evolved into storytelling and song. Ac tually, speech probably evolved into a form of storytelling and song long before writing was developed. And cave paintings were a f

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 m

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 arti

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 pro

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 expre

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

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. Sa ntiago 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

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 McCarthyare

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 Str avinsky, Picasso, "Night of the Hunter," " Persona," "Waiting for Godot," "Thexegesis 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 thrCountless 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 agemust 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." HEngagement," I would in contrast award the game a Fail in this category. T he 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 corremove, 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 w

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 sinterest 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 ga"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 advancedtechnical 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 cothrough 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 worthand poets."

Wh are amers so intensel concerned an wa that ames be defined as art? Bobb Fischer Michael Jordan and DickButkus neversa id the tho u htthe ir a me swere a na rt f o rm . Nord i d Shi H u a Che n winne ro f the 00000World Se ri eso f

http://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/rick-wakeman

http://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/werner-herzog


http://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/cormac-mccarthy

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-persona-1966

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/waco-the-rules-of-engagement-1997

http://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/michael-jordan

http://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/dick-butkus



http://www.rogerebert.com/cast-and-crew/michael-jordan

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/waco-the-rules-of-engagement-1997









Sorry MoMA, video games are not art

by Jonathan Jones

There needs to be a word for the ov erly serious and reverent praise of digital games by individuals or institutions who are a lmost certainly too old, too intellectual and too dignified to really bGamecrashing? Gamebollocks? Spiellustfaken?

I first encountered this trope of the inappropriate elder's interest in the newest games a few years ago at a philosophy conference in Oxford University (I was an interloper in those hallowed philosopher who specialises in aesthetics – gave a talk on his research into games. He defended them as serious works of art. The art of games, he argued, if I understood him right, lies in theliberation of shared authorship. But he never answered the question: what was a professor doing playing all these games?

Now the Museum of Modern Art in New York is up to the same manouevre. MoMA has announced that it is to collect and exhibit games from Pong to Minecraft . So, the same museum that as Ma Jolie by Picasso, Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh and Vir Heroicus Sublimis by Barnett Newman is also to own SimCity ,Portal and Dwarf Fortress .

MoMA claims these games belong in its collection because they are art. Really? Is that so?

Casting my mind back to the philosophical debate I spied on in Oxford, I remember a pretty goo d argument for why interactive immersive digital games are N OT art. Walk around the Museummasterpieces it holds by Picasso and Jackson Pollock , and what you are seeing is a series of personal visions. A work of art is one person's reaction to life. Any definition of art that robs it of tcreator is a worthless definition. Art may be made with a paintbrush or selected as a ready-made , but it has to be an a ct of personal imagination.

The worlds created by electronic games are more like playgrounds w here experience is created by the interaction between a player and a programme. The player cannot claim t o impose a pegame, while the creator of the game has ceded that responsibility. No one "owns" the game, so there is no artist, and therefo re no work of art.

This is the essential difference between games and art, and it precedes the digital age. Chess is a great game, but even the finest chess player in the world isn't an artist. She is a chess player.design of the chess pieces . But the game of chess itself is not art nor does it generate art – it is just a game.

And so is Dwarf Fortress.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/games

http://www.moma.org/collection/object.php?object_id=79051


http://www.moma.org/



http://academics.smcvt.edu/gblasdel/art/Newman,%20VirHeroicusSublimis.jpg

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/11/moma-videogames/

http://www.simcity.com/en_US


http://www.thinkwithportals.com/about.php


http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/









http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_Ndodj6nL7g/ToHZpYG016I/AAAAAAAAAdo/s_VL7hWKcpM/s1600/One+Number+31.jpg

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/moma




http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/LcdERPxmQ_a2npYstOwVkA







http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/moma













http://www.theguardian.com/technology/games



Video games

• A video game is a game played by electronically manimages produced by a computer program on a televscreen or other display screen. (Google)

• For decades, video games have enthralled and inspirnow they are the subject of a new exhibit that views

serious works of art



Are Video Games an Art Form?

• The American Supreme Court ruled last June 2012 that videbe considered an art forms deserving of First Amendment sas “the protected books, plays and movies that preceded th



• There was an exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Muentitled “The Art of Video Games” that celebrates 40 years ofgames from Pac-Man to Minecraft.

• According to Chris Melissinos, the exhibition’s guest curator,

“In books, everything is laid before you, there is nothing lefto discover. Video games are the only forms of artistic exp

that allow the authoritative voice of the author to remain trallowing the observer to explore and experiment.”

• “Today drops of animated rain dot computer screens, and

characters leave reflections in puddles; it’s like watching cpainting become Impressionism in just a few decades,” he[Melissinos] says.



Pac-Man

In case you didn’t know what

pac=man is...

• In the Museum of Modern Art, Pacdisplayed alongside Warhol’s Gold

Monroe and Picasso’s Les Demoised’Avignon, as New York’s premier

art gallery has officially decided vigames can be called art.

• MoMA says that video games coul

increasingly become one of the moimportant art forms.

Th ht t h l hi t i



• The museum sought out scholars, historians,critics and legal experts from the computergame world to draw up a list thatincludes The Sims, a series which by lastyear had sold over 150 million

copies, Another World and Portal .• According to Paola Antonelli, senior curator

in MoMA’s department of architecture anddesign, “Are video games art? They sureare, but they are also design, and a designapproach is what we chose for this new

foray into this universe.”



•Dan Hewitt, a spokesman for the Entertainment Software

Association, said that MoMA’s news was “the latest in a se

validations from the high art community acknowledging th

games stand next to the best in art and are taking their pla

• “The shift has been gradual over the past 10 years, but tho

positions of influence now are those who grew up with vid

games,” he added.



MoMA looked at the “historical and cultural relevance, aesthexpression, functional and structural soundness, innovative a

to technology and behaviour, and a successful synthesis of m

and techniques,” Ms Antonelli said.



•Additions to the collection will be Super M

Bros., The Legend of Zelda and Street Figh

The most recent title is hoped to be lastyear’s Minecraft .



•The gallery’s wanted to emphasise visual quality, “aesthetic experience” as well as “the elegance of

code to the design of the player’s behavior. (Ant



• However, some would argue that videogames are and will never be an artform.

• For Jonathan Jones, in his article,“Sorry, MoMA, Video Games are not an

Art,”

“The worlds created by electronic gamesare more like playgrounds where

experience is created by the interactionbetween a player and a programme. Theplayer cannot claim to impose apersonal vision of life on the game, whilethe creator of the game has ceded thatresponsibility. No one "owns" the game,so there is no artist, and therefore no



•“This is the essentialdifference between gand art, and it preceddigital age. Chess is agreat game, but evenfinest chess player inworld isn't an artist…the game of chess itsnot art nor does it genart – it is just a game

(Jones, 2012)



Roger Edbert agrees with thisin his article “Video Games

Can Never be Art” • “Let me just say that no video gamer nowliving will survive long enough to experiencethe medium as an art form.”

• "No one in or out of the field has ever been

able to cite a game worthy of comparison withthe great poets, filmmakers, novelists andpoets."

•H t t hi ti l b iti it ti



•He starts his article by citing a situation

where a girl named Kellee Santiago,

designer and producer of video games,

called video games as “already an art.”

•Santiago compares a cave painting (top)

to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel

(bottom). Her point is that video games

will somehow evolve like the cave

paintings have.



• However, this is contradicted by Edbert, citing Werner Her

maker who is filming the cave painting in 3-D, who said:

“The paintings on the wall of the Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d'Ar

France should only be looked at in the context of the shadow

those dark walls by the fires built behind the artists, which s

cave paintings, their materials of charcoal and ochre and all

into them were the fruition of a long gestation, not the begin

something...They were great artists at that time, geniuses w

build on, and were not in the process of becoming Michelan

anyone else.”



More of Santiago’s points and Edbecounterarguments:• - Definition of art: "Art is the process of deliberately arranging

in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions.“

-”We can all play on definitions, and find exceptions to every on

• - One obvious difference between art and games is that you cangame. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome.

- There are immersive games without points or rules.

- Then it ceases to be a game.• - Robert McKee's definition of good writing as "being motivated

desire to touch the audience.“

- That is not a useful definition; desire is a subjective judgment.



• - "Art is a way of communicating ideas to an audience in a wthe audience finds engaging."

- Yet what ideas are contained in Stravinsky, Picasso, "NightHunter," "Persona," "Waiting for Godot," "The Love Song of J.Prufrock?" Oh, you can perform an exegesis or a paraphrase, you are creating your own art object from the materials at ha

Examples of Video Games used by





Examples of Video Games used bySantiago with Edbert’s counterarguments:• Waco Resurrection

The game shows an exchange of gunfire with agents accordinrules of the game.

According to Santiago, this is a record to what we feel happensociety.

video games as2 as art

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