Video games can never be art.

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:21 PM, iamabe said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:14 PM, vasio said:

Video-Games contain art but can never be considered artworks on their own, capisce?

 

.. why?

 

you're limiting the definition of art to the content of games, the character designs, the music, the existing mediums that are currently accepted as art. so, just because a game has rules and can be beaten, it means it can never be considered a work of art?

 

if anything, I think it's more in the zeitgeist of 21st century art that a game is a multimedia experience that is not merely observed or taken in but participated in. Its beauty is activated by the participatory, reciprocal nature of gamer/game.

 

and look at it from the perspective of a game developer, the "artist" of a game. Programming games isn't an exact science. It involves lots of human variables, an understanding of psychology, cause and effect, game theory, etc. You could argue that crafting a game is "more an art than a science".

S'right, art has rules.

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:42 PM, vasio said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:21 PM, iamabe said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:14 PM, vasio said:

Video-Games contain art but can never be considered artworks on their own, capisce?

 

.. why?

 

you're limiting the definition of art to the content of games, the character designs, the music, the existing mediums that are currently accepted as art. so, just because a game has rules and can be beaten, it means it can never be considered a work of art?

 

if anything, I think it's more in the zeitgeist of 21st century art that a game is a multimedia experience that is not merely observed or taken in but participated in. Its beauty is activated by the participatory, reciprocal nature of gamer/game.

 

and look at it from the perspective of a game developer, the "artist" of a game. Programming games isn't an exact science. It involves lots of human variables, an understanding of psychology, cause and effect, game theory, etc. You could argue that crafting a game is "more an art than a science".

 

 

S'right, art has rules.

i don't like where you're going

i just read this on a music book: THE RULES ON ART HAVE TO COME AFTER THE ART ITSELF

just like the musical notation came after the music itself

and i guess i'm totally against this "rules"

i guess most of music today doesn't sound really impresing because it's following rules...

i wonder how would it be to make music without any influence or without ever thinking of a scale or specific rythm

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:12 PM, iamabe said:

 

what's worth talking about is how good or cutting edge or new something is, not "whether or not it is art".

That is literally the most insane thing i have ever heard

Defining art is a fine art

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:46 PM, Rambo said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:12 PM, iamabe said:

 

what's worth talking about is how good or cutting edge or new something is, not "whether or not it is art".

 

That is literally the most insane thing i have ever heard

of course, the term "how good" is as much subjective as "art"

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:46 PM, Rambo said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:12 PM, iamabe said:

 

what's worth talking about is how good or cutting edge or new something is, not "whether or not it is art".

 

That is literally the most insane thing i have ever heard

poop

"if this is art, I quit", said one abstract expressionist, upon seeing the preview for Grand Theft Auto iv.

lol, good! AbEx sucks anyway.

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:35 PM, THIS IS MICHAEL JACKSON said:

when art and science meet...

 

and the definiton of music is always changing so, i bet authecrhe would not be considered music 100 years ago. i'm not dissing on it, i'm just saying, instead of defining it as a diferente genre, we could define it as other art form. i'm actually giving it more value than certain "music"!

 

when i talk about authecre i recall gantz graft and that kind of music that some people call NOISE, and noise and music are diferent things, therefore my "confusion"

So, if I went back in time, and played autechre to the folks 100 years ago, and said it was the music of the future, they'd think that I don't understand the word music? I doubt it.

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:49 PM, iamabe said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:46 PM, Rambo said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:12 PM, iamabe said:

 

what's worth talking about is how good or cutting edge or new something is, not "whether or not it is art".

 

That is literally the most insane thing i have ever heard

 

poop

Who cares whether something is good or not? Whether it's art or not is what's essential.

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:51 PM, Root5 said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:35 PM, THIS IS MICHAEL JACKSON said:

when art and science meet...

 

and the definiton of music is always changing so, i bet authecrhe would not be considered music 100 years ago. i'm not dissing on it, i'm just saying, instead of defining it as a diferente genre, we could define it as other art form. i'm actually giving it more value than certain "music"!

 

when i talk about authecre i recall gantz graft and that kind of music that some people call NOISE, and noise and music are diferent things, therefore my "confusion"

 

So, if I went back in time, and played autechre to the folks 100 years ago, and said it was the music of the future, they'd think that I don't understand the word music? I doubt it.

man fuckit, endless loop, you know what i mean, i'm not stating anything, just sayin

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:51 PM, Root5 said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:35 PM, THIS IS MICHAEL JACKSON said:

when art and science meet...

 

and the definiton of music is always changing so, i bet authecrhe would not be considered music 100 years ago. i'm not dissing on it, i'm just saying, instead of defining it as a diferente genre, we could define it as other art form. i'm actually giving it more value than certain "music"!

 

when i talk about authecre i recall gantz graft and that kind of music that some people call NOISE, and noise and music are diferent things, therefore my "confusion"

 

So, if I went back in time, and played autechre to the folks 100 years ago, and said it was the music of the future, they'd think that I don't understand the word music? I doubt it.

if i was from 100 years ago and that happened to me, i would be really disappointed about how few people own spaceships and robots in 2010.

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:54 PM, THIS IS MICHAEL JACKSON said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:51 PM, Root5 said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:35 PM, THIS IS MICHAEL JACKSON said:

when art and science meet...

 

and the definiton of music is always changing so, i bet authecrhe would not be considered music 100 years ago. i'm not dissing on it, i'm just saying, instead of defining it as a diferente genre, we could define it as other art form. i'm actually giving it more value than certain "music"!

 

when i talk about authecre i recall gantz graft and that kind of music that some people call NOISE, and noise and music are diferent things, therefore my "confusion"

 

So, if I went back in time, and played autechre to the folks 100 years ago, and said it was the music of the future, they'd think that I don't understand the word music? I doubt it.

man fuckit, endless loop, you know what i mean, i'm not stating anything, just sayin

that's how i feel about the thought i put into my posts in this thread too

id like to see david lynch make a video game.

come to think of it, cronenbergs 'existenz' would have made an interesting videogame

  On 4/20/2010 at 9:54 PM, Rambo said:

Who cares whether something is good or not? Whether it's art or not is what's essential.

I see what you mean now, since there is important art that isn't really "good".

I think that just because GTAIV might not be art, it shouldn't take away from other games' chances of being considered art.

  On 4/20/2010 at 10:08 PM, iamabe said:

 

I think that just because GTAIV might not be art, it shouldn't take away from other games' chances of being considered art.

oh come on, grand theft auto is not art, nor could you even consider it as such.

oops! read that wrong

It's funny that someone will say this is not Art (Uncharted 2 Screenshot)

But that this is "Art"

I don't know about you, but I say Video Games for the win.

WE'RE ALREADY PLAYING A VIDEOGAME, IT'S CALLED LIFE, SUPER FUN, ART???

  On 4/20/2010 at 10:09 PM, Z_B_Z said:

  On 4/20/2010 at 10:08 PM, iamabe said:

 

I think that just because GTAIV might not be art, it shouldn't take away from other games' chances of being considered art.

 

oh come on, grand theft auto is not art, nor could you even consider it as such.

 

 

oops! read that wrong

:)

  On 4/20/2010 at 10:09 PM, PWSTEAL said:

It's funny that someone will say this is not Art (Uncharted 2 Screenshot)

 

*pic*

 

But that this is "Art"

 

*pic*

 

I don't know about you, but I say Video Games for the win.

Ha.. something can be fucking ugly and still be art, but hell yeah, uncharted is gorgeous.

  On 4/20/2010 at 10:09 PM, PWSTEAL said:

It's funny that someone will say this is not Art (Uncharted 2 Screenshot)

 

 

But that this is "Art"

 

 

I don't know about you, but I say Video Games for the win.

you couldnt find a better second picure? really?

i wouldnt call the first pic art. beautiful craftsmanship, but not art.

Some great discussion in here.

Let me add my thoughts, since I started the thread.

I'll start at the end where Ebert asks "Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?"

Perhaps for the creators, the reasons are similar to those of the people who create art forms like music and painting ask their creations be defined as art. They have put years into perfecting their art, with the hope that the final product moves someone in some way. I'm sure if you ask lumpenprol about the projects he's worked on (and he and his team have worked on some amazing games, with amazing art) he would say the effort put forth is no less than an "artist" has in creating one of their works.

Earlier in his essay, Ebert writes "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." In this case a football (foot ball, not hand egg you heathens) game played at lunch break which starts at the beginning of the school year and ends at the end clearly matches his definition of art.

Ultimately though he is the maker of his own downfall with this paragraph: "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."

We might easily say that Final Fantasy VII clearly alters nature through an [sic] passage that we might call the artist's vision, and if played correctly improves on the nature from which it started. Games with ethical decisions to be made in them, such as Civilization or Deus Ex, clearly affect how we think about our own interactions with nature and our environment.

It's very interesting that lumpenprol brought up Synecdoche, NY as Ebert rates the movie very highly, and he writes about the director Kaufman "It is obvious that he has only one subject, the mind, and only one plot, how the mind negotiates with reality, fantasy, hallucination, desire and dreams." Video games deal with all these subjects as surely as cinema does and in a variety of methods.

If you didn't feel emotions when playing Max Payne, or Parasite Eve, or Final Fantasy VII (I have played many of the others, VII sticks out as my favorite and most complete), or didn't question morality when faced with deciding whether or not to nuke an enemy in Civilization, then obviously you won't see games as art. If you didn't feel emotion during those moments though, that made a lasting impact, then what emotional depth have you received from Picasso or Kubrick?

I am not a hardcore gamer, or an artiste, but I am disappointed that someone as clever as Ebert would be so disparaging to a medium which could easily be compared with cinema.

frankly, i think this is iconic art:

painting needed quite a lot of time to develop to this stage. I wish video-games would go in such a hard-core and pure direction.

  On 4/20/2010 at 10:16 PM, chenGOD said:

I am not a hardcore gamer, or an artiste, but I am disappointed that someone as clever as Ebert would be so disparaging to a medium which could easily be compared with cinema.

+111111111111111111

are there any video games made that are intended to be art from the outset? seems like that would be financial suicide.. i mean, would there even be a market for art games? seems like your average gamer couldnt give two shits about what art is or isnt and never will. could there ever be a game magazine equilvalent to film comment? is my thinking misguided?

The populist defense of video games as art:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/defending-the-habit-10-video-games-as-modern-art

Also i forgot to mention, if Ebert sees the interaction as being crucial to it not being art, what about people who enjoy watching video games being played?