[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by Fienepien

You have not contributed anything to this thread, you have not expressed any opinion about the relation between art and games. All you've done is your own games, just like Moriarty did. You do that a lot.

I apologize if you think bringing up my own games was spam. I won't mention them again. I do find it frustrating that I've thrown out all these ideas here, and rather than addressing any of them you're just criticizing me for bad conduct.

[Melanie68]

If any of you has anything more to say personally to each other (regarding conduct in the thread), please take it to PM. I suppose you could technically call the mention of Mory's and Squinky's games as "spam" but they aren't just popping onto the site and never contributing anywhere else (also, they're free. It's not like they're going to benefit financially).

If someone plays them and wants to discuss if they feel they are art, great!

Let's (hopefully) get back to discussing the topic at hand and take any personal discussions to PM.

[silent_m]

Originally Posted by Melanie68

Let's (hopefully) get back to discussing the topic at hand and take any personal discussions to PM.

It's amazing how a hot, controversial topic like art and games can bring out the best in people!

[Fien]

Originally Posted by Squinky

I'll say that I believe all games are art. If there is an artist, and there is artistic intent, even if the intent is merely to entertain, then it's art to me.

A prime example of circular reasoning. If there's an artist with artistic intent it must be art.

Well, that's because you never said my games weren't fun.

I most certainly did! This is the second time I'm asking you to please read my posts before commenting on them. I won't discuss Moriarty's and your brain children in this thread if I'm not allowed to, but I do feel I'm entitled to correct you when you're making statements that are blatantly untrue.

@Moriarty:
Prose in itself can never be art or we would be drowning in art. It may be an artform. Not the same thing. And if you define art by the intention of the creator to convey some kind of message, your definition is empty and utterly useless. For one thing, intentions cannot be observed. More importantly, you leave out creativity and originality and craftsmanship. If I have no talent, if I cannot draw then that's the only message that comes across in my "paintings", no matter how hard I try. So by your definition 99.99 percent of the products of people with artistic intent are excruciatingly BAD art. That's not really helpful, is it.

[Lee in Limbo]

Originally Posted by Fienepien

The artist says it's art, so it must be art...?

I was going to quote and respond politely to several of your posts, but frankly, the only thing you said that wasn't completely rude and self-serving was this.

Art is in the eye of the beholder. That means it's subjective. That means there's more than one point of view on the subject. And some of those points of view come with a certain amount of authority, having actually made some of those debatable pieces of art. You may disagree with those points of view, but others have been happy to acknowledge the artistic merit of their works.

Referencing the pieces they created is not spam. It's called backing up your argument. I daresay, if you ever produce an interactive game of your own, you'll feel justified in using it to support your arguments about the relative artistic merits of interactive media. As you haven't to my knowledge done so, I'm inclined to disregard your grandstanding as thinly-veiled jealousy, which puts your own arguments in an entirely different light. For the record, I happen to think that the last few games that Squinky has produced, and both games that Mory have produced as well, do indeed qualify as art, even more so than they do as interactive storytelling (or in Mory's case, as 'games').

Now, before I get accused of bias (and I admit I have one, but it isn't my major motivator), let me just say that I've been a professional graphic artist for a decade now, and I've been a struggling fine artist for most of my life, so I feel I'm as qualified as anyone who hasn't had a successful art showing or perhaps a fine arts degree to offer an opinion about what is and is not of artistic merit.

The main point about art is intent. Whether your audience gets it or not doesn't disqualify it as art; it merely disqualifies it as a popular success. The point of art is to communicate ideas. If you have understood the crux of your idea and the tenor of the times enough to have determined effective means of sharing an idea that isn't obvious on the face of it because of some statement of comparison you might be trying to make, then someone else will get it, even if it doesn't receive wider acceptance until perhaps many years later.

Sometimes Art must confound expectations to change perceptions and make us see the world in new ways. I think that's what Squinky and Mory are trying to do. They are creating pieces of interactive, digital art, and they are trying to make people look at both the medium and themselves differently. That's a valid artistic reason. Whether people think their games are 'fun' doesn't enter into it (although personally, I enjoy them). Whether their games are popular isn't relevant. It's that they had some creative intent for their pieces that had nothing to do with commercial or promotional concessions. Simply an act of expressing or meditating on an idea.

You can disagree. I'm betting you will. But to put it in terms that may be familiar to you, I don't think you've contributed anything to this discussion worth considering. All you've given us is attitude and bad feelings. May I suggest that, if you want to be taken seriously, you resist the urge to insult people who are making more of an effort to contribute meaningfully to the discussion than you have so far?

[Jackal]

How about everyone stop critiquing other people's attitudes and stick to just the otherwise very interesting topic? (And when I say "how about", I'm sure I don't need to explain that question is rhetorical. )

I'm not laughing at anyone here in saying this, but I am rather amused when people argue over a word without ever agreeing on a definition. I suspect many of you would agree with each other's opinion based on their definitions, and only differ in using your own.

Personally, I have a very liberal interpretation of the word. For me, a doodle on a cloth can be art. A good joke can be art. A good meal can be art. In that sense, games are indeed art, and there's no reason why art and entertainment can't co-exist in the same product.

Also, hey, Christmas Quest is freaking art, baby!

[Lee in Limbo]

Originally Posted by Fienepien

Prose in itself can never be art or we would be drowning in art. It may be an artform. Not the same thing. And if you define art by the intention of the creator to convey some kind of message, your definition is empty and utterly useless. For one thing, intentions cannot be observed. More importantly, you leave out creativity and originality and craftsmanship. If I have no talent, if I cannot draw then that's the only message that comes across in my "paintings", no matter how hard I try. So by your definition 99.99 percent of the products of people with artistic intent are excruciatingly BAD art. That's not really helpful, is it.

I take it back; I do have something to say about this statement, and that is that you are wrong. You clearly know very little about art, but have convinced yourself that you know a great deal. Whether a piece of art is executed to your satisfaction, or whether the artist has talent by your standards of the word, is no more meaningful in this argument than saying that a piece of art isn't valid because Roger Ebert didn't like it.

Let me tell you something about the language of art; if you really know what you're talking about, you CAN see the intent. You can see what the artist referenced, and what the artist was trying to imply, and sometimes you can even see things about the artist that they might not know about themselves. Art is like that. But if all you're looking for is surface sheen and technical brilliance, you wouldn't be able to pick up on the subtler values of what is right in front of you. If you were more artistically inclined, or had friends who were, you might have realised by now that artists rarely talk to each other about technique; they almost always talk about meaning and purpose. Intent.

[AndreaDraco83]

Originally Posted by Lee in Limbo

If you were more artistically inclined, or had friends who were, you might have realised by now that artists rarely talk to each other about technique; they almost always talk about meaning and purpose. Intent.

Lee, I strongly agree with your general point, but not particularly in regard to this last statement. I know many writers and novelists that, while talking about meaning and purpose, theme and vision behind their work, also discuss about different techniques (like stream of consciousness or the shifting point of view) and about which one is perhaps better suited to convey their meaning.

I like to think that, without meaning, technique is nothing more than a gimmick, a mannerism. But, with meaning, technique can become a meaning in its own right.

[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by Fienepien

Prose in itself can never be art or we would be drowning in art. It may be an artform. Not the same thing.

Sorry, I don't follow your thinking. Since when is a work of prose not art? Prose is an art form, so any work of prose is necessarily a work of art. And yes, we are drowning in bad art. That's how the world has always been.

[Fantasysci5]

Look guys. Art is to the beholder. Some people may think that just trying to make something, ie a painting or book, is art. Some think of "art" as a "masterpiece", and yes, that word just be taken more inclusively. But many people think Art is different. Before arguing specifics, and without arguing individual's games, what is your definition of art?

Like I said, some people think it is the "intent", while others are kind of thinking that it is an elite group of masterpieces. I think anything with intent, even a child's drawing, is a type of art, because they tried their best.

[MoriartyL]

Art is anything made in an art form, an art form being a discipline through which one can express oneself.


Games, in case I have not already made my position clear, are not an art form. Games are a medium too diverse to be pigeon-holed like that. Some types of games are art forms, some types of games are non-artistic forms of entertainment.

[mszv]

I think the "is is art" thing is the statement that results in a lot of emotionality, name calling, all that. I prefer to talk about what the creator of the work is trying to do, what is being communicated, how they position themselves, and who they think of as the audience for their work. Who do they think of as their contemporaries, who are they trying to reach? Who Jasper Johns (famous contemporary artist) paints for (apart from other artists) is different from, let's say, the audience for the latest movie Monsters vs. Aliens. Of course the same person can like both, but that's not what I'm saying. Jasper Johns is not all that accessible a contemporary artist. It helps to have a least a bit of a background in contemporary art to understand or even like the work.

I'm pretty specific on what I think constitutes contemporary "fine" art (I don't like to use that term, but I can't find another one to use), though I think Tale of Tales is an interesting example of a, sort of, cross over work. And most games aren't in that genre, but that doesn't mean they can't be moving, and beautiful and wonderful and thought provoking.

I think it would be more helpful to think of this in terms of movies. Movies can be thought provoking and beautiful and amazing and wonderful and daring, and they can also be popular entertainment. You'll ending up putting some videos/movies in the contemporary art slot, some will be cross overs (sort of) and most will be in the big wide "movie" genre. It's both a sophisticated "art" form, and an art form we all have a lot of experience with. We don't demean something because it's just a movie.

That's how I think of games - a particular thing, a genre, popular entertainment, for the most part, but I don't see why they can't have the same depth, emotional resonance, variety of style, and ability to provoke thought as a movie.

[Fien]

So what have we got so far?

Games are art <--> games are not art. Interestingly, both these extreme points of view are held by indviduals who say they are artists. And everything in between: some games have the potential to be art; only certain type of games are art; games can have elements of art; and my own view, which I clearly stated in the thread where this discussion started: games can certainly be art, but very few are. I also said I welcome all attempts to think outside the box, push boundaries, and of course that includes The Path, whether the designers do position themselves as artists or not. But IMO mszv has a point here, although I don't agree with her that the way the creative product is distributed, or copied, is relevant. If it were, literature would not be art.

[Giligan]

There's nothing extreme about the point of view that games are art. It's no more extreme to say "all games are art" than to say "all paintings are art", or "all music is art". Clearly, some games, just like some paintings and some music, are produced without any artistic effort in mind, but from a legalistic point of view, anything belonging to an art form must be art. Which, personally, I don't think is very fair, nor agree with. Some games are produced with an artistic effort, and some are made purely for profit, and I don't think slapping the title of "art" on the latter can be easily justified. Of course, it all depends on how one defines "art". I suspect very few people, and none at all from this discussion, would agree on one definition.



Personally, I like how Dan Houser of Rockstar games summed it up, when asked if games were art: "Who cares?" If video games have proved anything, it's that they in no way are affected or improved by perception or tradition, or art that has come before.

[Squinky]

Originally Posted by Giligan

If video games have proved anything, it's that they in no way are affected or improved by perception or tradition, or art that has come before.

*needle scratch* Hey, wait a minute! That's not true! Sure, there are many successful games that don't have anything to do with the traditions of film, TV, and literature. But what about the even longer-standing traditions of board games, or sports, or improvisational theatre?

[UPtimist]

I'll just chime in a couple of ideas (and I'm sure I'll be contributing nothing new )

First of all, I think it's important to separate "art" from "artistic". While they are often inseparable, there can be things (especially in poular culture (and 'culture' is also quite similar to art: can you really say that X is or is not culture?)) that are artistic but perhaps not art, and I think that there can be art that is not artistic. It's of course far more difficult to find (but as everything, depends on the definition of the word 'artistic')

Anyways, as has been well put already, I believe art is a subjective experience. What to some is art, is not that to others. Maybe art is after all just the possibility of art. The potential of an experience of art (I'd say "the possibility of an artistic experience" but I just said how "art" and "artistic" are somewhat different things). Now, if interpreted literally, that would of course pretty much define everything as art, but I mean that in a subjectively implicational way (I'm sure I'm making a lot of sense ). What art is to one is not art to another, but then one cannot call it "not art (period)" (or that something is (or should be) art to everyone), quite like you can't argue about taste (well, you can, but not so that you can have everyone agree in one concrete conclusion). Something is at the same time art and not art, and where the difference is is in the observer.

I'm not saying there's not point in discussing art: discussing it (and especially artistic...ality) can lead to great innovation. But I'm saying that humanity is far too eager to categorize everything, and something like "art" is exactly the kind of term that was created to openly categorize things that aren't exactly categorizable. It's a subjective experience, and what is to one is not to other (as we have certainly seen in this thread).

And who is qualified enough to define the borders? There was, basically, a horse's carcass in display at the Kiasma (museum of modern art in Helsinki). Everyone certainly didn't agree it's art. However, there it was. Was that art? Children (ah, the eventual "children" argument) often have a very limited view of art, they often do not see anything but very traditional art as art, don't they have a say? Or is it that they don't yet understand it for themselves and the "truth" must be enforced upon them? For them it's not art, and it's very possible their view will change (and (at least secretly) often it will not) but can you really tell them "you're wrong"?

Now, I know I don't make much sense and I babble about unimportant issues and go around in circles, that's what I do in "discussions" I have a strong say in, but what I'm really trying to say is that while it is certainly useful to discuss art as it can develop things (and not just art) to new levels, it's useless to try to categorize things as "art" and "not art". Just like with everything else abstract, that will simply restrict what we do and limit the chances we have.

I personally find it good to also include games in the category (there we go again) of things that can be art, or things that are art, as it can lead into them developing into much more, quite like movies have. If we treat it as an art form, it can develop into an art form. If we treat it as just a way to make money, it won't have much to go from there.

[Giligan]

Originally Posted by Squinky

*needle scratch* Hey, wait a minute! That's not true! Sure, there are many successful games that don't have anything to do with the traditions of film, TV, and literature. But what about the even longer-standing traditions of board games, or sports, or improvisational theatre?

So you're saying that the traditions of board games, sports, and improvisational theater filter down to video games and effect them?

Okay, I'll concede that point. Maybe video games even borrowed a few ideas from those. But it's limited, and applies only to a few genres of video games. Video games have almost always chucked the rulebook and struck out on their own, so to speak. For example, shooters or even adventure games don't have any rules borrowed from board games, sports, or improvisional theater, and those are the two best game genres.

[Squinky]

Originally Posted by Giligan

...shooters...

Paintball? Playground games? War?

Originally Posted by Giligan

...adventure games...

Film? Theatre? Literature? Logic puzzles? And in Telltale's case, TV?

Okay, let's do it the other way around. Name one video game that isn't influenced by anything at all.

[Fantasysci5]

Originally Posted by Squinky

Okay, let's do it the other way around. Name one video game that isn't influenced by anything at all.

Myst?

[Squinky]

Originally Posted by Fantasysci5

Myst?

Influenced by D&D, among other things.