games / art / feelings..
polycounter lvl 18
just wanted to know what others who make game art think of games being fine art... i know its an old debate, but there has been some more news recently that i think adds some food for thought.. one is that the French government has declared games art and are offering the same tax break to game companies as other culturally important art forms. Also i work with some artists who have had paintings in the i am 8bit show here in LA, and tonight i am going to go check out this guy http://tmpspace.com/
i love 650 Polygon John Carmack
so are games culturally important? should we have funds, grants and government tax breaks to further the medium as we do for film,art and music?
and further more where do i sign up for them?
i love 650 Polygon John Carmack
so are games culturally important? should we have funds, grants and government tax breaks to further the medium as we do for film,art and music?
and further more where do i sign up for them?
Replies
No, I dont think we deserve any funds. Do punk rock bands get government grants? Do most mindless hollywood movies?
Laslty, even if games make a huge cultural impact, I'm still not convinced that it's a positive one. No doubt games are extremely fun... but promoting escapism among people doesnt seem like a very lofty goal.
(<
devils advocate)
Also if Ellsworth Kelly gets called an artist (don't get me wrong sometimes his work is pretty) i should be as well.
(i feel i may get lambasted for this comment).
You know, this is a very difficult topic for me, although I figure, there are games that feel like a piece of interactive piece of art. Quake 3 is definitely not one of them, the first two Odd World games however, yeah, I could see those being so. For the most part I would consider game work on the same level as Illustration, meaning it's a studio art, not fine art.
It's the same with film, movies like Fellini's Casanova and Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen feel so much like a moving painting. However a movie like Transformers or something like that are not.
I am not debating these thing's entertainment value, or that much talent went into the creation of them, I am just debating their "artistic" merit.
I think this debate continues because there is a disagreement on the active definition of art. When you ask the definition of art, it is a matter of language and philosophy rather than personal tastes.
Most people use the word exclusively in the context of "greatness", and if we want to talk about categorization that simply won't do because it is too subjective.
I've always had an inclusive view of art, and I believe ANY sort of creative expression from Quake 3 to Finnegans Wake to coloring books can be classified as art. For me, choice is creativity, and creativity is art.
Anyway, games are not very culturally important now, but they will inevitably become more important and more accepted as time goes on.
I am not debating these thing's entertainment value, or that much talent went into the creation of them, I am just debating their "artistic" merit.
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What do you think a game/movie/whatever has to have that gives them artistic merit?
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I am not debating these thing's entertainment value, or that much talent went into the creation of them, I am just debating their "artistic" merit.
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What do you think a game/movie/whatever has to have that gives them artistic merit?
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When it has the ability to evoke a feeling deeper than oohs and aahs. Usually there is a certain vibe to it as well, you can tell when something was just put together as means to display technical skills or make some bank.
A game that really did do this was Myst. When you played that game you really got the sense of the atmosphere and that you were totally alone in it. However, I play something like gears of war, yeah it looks fantastic but I don't feel anything while playing it, other than "Oh man, time to chainsaw this fucker".
It's the same if I looked at something out of Greg Nicotero's FX studio or a piece by Ron Mueck, technically speaking they are the very similar, however Mueck's work can evoke a deeper feeling.
I'd get bogged down if I went into it too deeply but I think games have proven themselves as worthy of a government
grant as much as movies had when they become worthy of the same.
We're worth serious money, ergo we are worthy of some concessions as thats how it works.
I think we're at a point now where theres reevaluation of
what games are; you can't argue you against the cultural importance of them anymore and thats clear in politics.
All I can say and be sure of is that I make art for a living.
Digital Domain commented about the Gears assets we gave
them, that they were of a higher standard than most of the assets they see used a lot in the movies.
The old lines between us aren't so clear anymore on a visual
basis and steps are being made further forward on the emotional interaction quality, plot development in games.
k.
i'd recommend tracking down some of the talks Jonathan Blow has given on the subject, far more pressing considerations regarding the production of games.
Now we just have to think that there's good art and bad art.
In my opinion games like Shadow of the Colossus, Metroid Prime and Metal Gear Solid 3 are astounding pieces of art. It's a living, breathing world that makes you feel you're in it. It's a well told story wich can also bring out discussions about them being "interactive movies" mainly because of the cinematic feel.
I think art is missing in most of the recent games mainly because of gamers. They just want MORE MORE MOAR MOAR MOAR! (chriscrocker quote, obriously) and the companies want to make more cash so they churn out games too quickly. Games based in movie licenses and re-hashes of games you've already played dozens of times with slightly different names, shooterguy 9478479 games.
I think some few games are good art and I try to find them all the time, even if they are decades old. Two months ago I was playing "The curse of Monkey Island".
games as art? sure. refer to monsieur duchamp on the subject of art. doesn't make games any good, though, even if they're art.
i'd recommend tracking down some of the talks Jonathan Blow has given on the subject, far more pressing considerations regarding the production of games.
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In all fairness Dada was an anti-art movement, and a joke between the artists involved with it. Duchamp was just having fun with it.
art based on games can be art. But it usually sucks, like movies based on games.
The john carmack cardboard model is art because it comes from a game but also has meaning, tells a story, and sums up a genre or epoch and movement in time. Just put it in a glass box in a studio at full size. Sell it with cornflakes however...
Titles like Rez and Space channel five part 2, shadow and metal gear are genius, but I wouldn't call them "art". But I would call them an art form.
Remember, programming is called as an art, not science. "The Art of Programming."
So what I'm saying is that subjectively they are not art, but they are an "art.
In all fairness Dada was an anti-art movement, and a joke between the artists involved with it. Duchamp was just having fun with it.
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they can have a laugh and also make some very valid points at the same time.
i think it's more than a little dismissive to downplay their work just because it was prankish and very, very funny--duchamp's work in particular permanently altered what could be considered art, and it's still hilarious/controversial to consider today.
i'm of the same mind as duchamp most of the time--art more or less equals intentionality.
i think the principle hangup in this discussion is that claiming games are art (or that anything else is art) is considered a value judgment.
saying that because it's art, that it's good to some degree.
i say go ahead and declare it art, but don't expect that to be a free pass to be considered quality. walk into any gallery--there's plenty of art that's definitely art, alright, but it's also plenty crap.
game developers should worry less about making art--they already are--than making something of lasting quality or significance. which, properly considered, in no way in conflict with turning a profit, coincidentally.
That it also pays my bills is just an extra advantage
To me, art is what someone who calls themselves an artist produces with intent to show - its the audience who inevitably make the art, successful or not. Its a similar theory to that of E.H. Gombrich, who only stated there is no such thing as art, but artists.
Problem is, is whether they are an inferior platform for artistic endeavours to be shown on - which I'm finding to be difficult to answer. Ebert's gripe when you got down to it was that he says theres a lack of authorial control - but is not everything in games directed and controlled to a degree?
Like most, I consider games to be art, and a great platform to work on, but like cinema, they can be split in to artistic endeavours and quick money makers.
JACK THOMPSON ACCUSES GOVERNMENT OF FUNDING TERRORISM VIA COMPUTER GAME!!!
Happy?
...games players and artists like us to make sure that games dont just appeal to the lowest common denominator but actually aspire to be a culturally relevant art form ripe with meaning and significance.
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Honestly I'm not sure if anything can really be "cultrually significant" in the way things have been in the past. Our culture is only growing more and more fragmented and individualized. I think the music industry is a good example. There cannot be another Nirvana, love them or hate them, they and they're music are used as a cultural milestone. However that can only really happen when theres a dominant voice in the "culture" saying what is "it" right now...back then it was MTV, when it was still playing music and not just a reality TV factory. However now everyone has their own individualized channel on Pandora, you download specifically what you what, and the age of the music video as a must have thing for a band is over. Everyone has to be on the same channel for something to move from being a blip on the radar to becoming a piece of "culture." There doesn't seem to be any kind of unified "cultural" voice anymore...its all just niche-market products, or a million different art movements all happening at the same time...which I think is great in some ways an potentially disasterous in others. On one hand it provides for more content, and hopefully more variety. However, I have to wonder what it does to a society to no longer have anything in common with eachother.
The demo scene versus games being fine art versus production art is an interesting consideration.
Fact is theres enough freedom in the platform for artistic endeavours to be created, but the flaw in games is the commercial viability. Art, on the very base definition, is what an artist puts out with intent to be viewed as such; something you can of course do with games, and theres as much or little authorial control as you can get with any other media so anyone who says theres too much interaction for them to be controlled is chatting shit. Play Gears of War and tell me theres alot of interaction in it. You follow the story as you're directed and made to shoot else you fail.
problem is just the creation of the buggers.
So basically I agree with the above poster.
The question is: Are VIDEOGAMES art?
Not: Is videogame ART, art?
Yah?
I was wondering if any others here have come across this definition or something similar while they were in their university or just from reading. I'm curious if people that took a fine arts in Europe have come across this. When I finished my degree in Massachusetts at UMass Lowell it just seemed that the art students were not really required to learn art history and had no clue what art by definition was. When I started my fine arts degree in Puerto Rico we had to take two years of art history plus Humanites (four) and several other courses that were similar to a an art + history + philosophy + polical science type deal. We also had to learn a foreign language besides English and Spanish. The BFA was a five year program and if you planned to graduate on time you had to take 18 credits a semester. So it was a pretty intense program if you wanted to graduate on time. So I'm curious what other have experienced in their Fine Arts degree. The reason I mention Europe is because in too many schools in the USA the fine arts program are wishy washy at best.
I don't think most studios intend a game to a work of art, but regardless is do see games as an art form.
Alex
So I'm curious what other have experienced in their Fine Arts degree.
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Well not all art schools in the U.S. are like that. I went to NYIT and its Computer Graphics major requires 3 semesters of art history, and a course in aesthetics. Plus the "What is art?" thing was discussed by our Senior thesis class. So, the main definition I have, is that anything intended to be, or labeled as art, is art. Being poorly executed, and completely unaesthetically appealing does not preclude something from being art, it just means its really bad art.
Alex
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So I'm curious what other have experienced in their Fine Arts degree.
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So, the main definition I have, is that anything intended to be, or labeled as art, is art. Being poorly executed, and completely unaesthetically appealing does not preclude something from being art, it just means its really bad art.
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I'm just finishing an illustration degree after years of higher education in art and this is pretty much verbatim to what I'd say about art and the definition thereof.