Games as art. Again. - Page 9

Who creates the art in a movie? That's a non-starting argument.

Bullshit. Intent is his argument, not mine. That's why many of us aren't arguing intent, because then art by committee becomes eceptionally troubling.

So . . . what about photography? Do we get to class any of that as 'art'?

You're not creating original elements in photography, you're merely framing and presenting them.

The only difference between that and a video game is that you have to create the elements. There are definite issues of framing and presentation there.

EDIT: that's why I said it's a non-starting argument.

Xagarath's definition of art is like the Supreme Court's definition of obscenity: I'll know it when I see it. Which is bullshit. And, by the way, a value judgment still. All paintings are art, but whether they're good art is another matter. There are recognized art forms, and they have definable aspects that make them unique from all other art forms - anything that doesn't have that uniqueness is a synthesis.

I'm not buying that. Take a painting, put it on a wall, you get a mural. Now do something awesome, and animate it somehow. Would that be strictly synthesis? Are the artistic elements therein negated simply because it's not strictly a painting or a mural or a movie? You could argue that the elements remain separated as art, but in this example that becomes incoherent. Every frame of the animation remains art, but when you animate them it stops being art?

It becomes a movie.

Nope. It's an animated mural. There's no plot, no editing. How is that a movie?

Oh my head. Why do movies need a plot? The beginning and ending of the filmed experience are editing - stopping and starting the camera are the ultimate in editing.

I thought were he was getting at is that if animation is a series of "paintings", you would have been one of the people saying animation is not an artform because you'd be looking at it only as a set sequential paintings and nothing more.

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20...ignol_02.shtml

That's fine. So you're going to argue that the earliest in film, including a horse running on a track and a man sneezing continuously, are art? I'm simply asking for clarification.

But if a movie doesn't need a plot or editing (the argument about stopping and starting a camera does not count here because there is no camera, there is a continuous looped animation), how is that different from photography? How do movies get to be a unique form of 'art'?

Animation is achieved by photographing individual cells. If we're talking digital animation, the tools have changed but the concept is the same.

And yes, the earliest movie clips were art. Again, for those of you in the retard seats, art is not a statement of quality.

Doesn't answer my question. How are movies not a 'synthesis of photographic elements'?

You said synthesis doesn't get to count as art, not me.

For the slow readers: his point was not that the earlier films were not art, but that they were not edited, which seems to disqualify them as art under your definition.

Everybody knows this, that's not his point. The point is, under your line of "thinking", you could just dismiss animation as just "paintings" shown in sequence, not another art form. Yeah, we know that doesn't make sense (for the reading impaired!).

Seriously, are you reading the fucking thread? This has been answered again and again and we JUST DISCUSSED IT. Editing is a unique technique in movies. Editing is what makes it more than just a synthesis of photography, writing, music, etc.

so ... he's ... asking ... about ... early ... NON-EDITED ... film!!!

For the ESL crowd: STARTING AND STOPPING THE CAMERA IS EDITING. YOU ARE CHOOSING WHAT TO SHOW ON THE FILM.



NO YOU COULD NOT DISMISS IT AS THAT. Animation is a legitimate form of movie. As is stop motion animation.

Twenty fucking minutes ago I posted this: "The beginning and ending of the filmed experience are editing - stopping and starting the camera are the ultimate in editing."

I think your argument that synthesis can not be 'art' is beginning to fall apart.

What if there is no camera? Going back to my thought experiment about an animated mural - there is no camera, there is a synthesis of elements. This can be extended to stop-motion (and, to a degree, regular animation) - how is that NOT a synthesis? You can argue the point about editing; what you can't argue is that there are artistic elements here that exist outside of the editing. It is a synthesis.

I think I made a fairly relevant point when asking whether or not photography gets to be considered 'art'. Yes or no?

I wish you guys would read whole posts and think about them. I acknowledged above that the tools of filmmaking are changing. Cameras are not today what they were a hundred years ago, but the important element of filmmaking isn't multiple still images that have the illusion of movement, it's the editing of sections of imagery captured on some medium.

I don't even know what the fuck is up with your photography question. Am I going to have to go through all the standard modern arts and defend them one by one from someone who has never given this subject thought? I don't have time for this kind of shit.

Nice dodge. So we can agree that synthesis gets to count as art, since animated films have artistic elements that exist outside of the editing?

Photography is the origin point of another (related) argument. It is a legitimate question. You don't create ANY elements in photography, you frame them. Is it or isn't it art? Your definition of what gets to count seems amorphous to me (other than the fact that video games are not allowed).

The Roundhay Garden Scene (1888) is "edited" under your definition then, even though the concept (process) of "film editing" is supposed to emerge in the late 1890s (or 1909?) under Porter.

Basically here is how I understand the argument:

Interactive art exists in the real world. If you recreate this virtually it's just a synthesis of that so it's not actually anything new (or technically a 'video game' as defined in this argument). If you add points or goals to it, it becomes a collection of challenges, subjugating the artistic elements to not the main point of the work thus it is not art.

If the 'goal' is to experience a narrative, with the player in control of the principal character(s), I don't see why the artistic elements therein would necessarily be subjugated. Evolution of the form, and all that.

EDIT: I'm also pretty sure the argument that quality is irrelevant to any artistic attempt is garbage. Ever hear the phrase 'as a work of art, it fails'?

I brought basically the same point up earlier and nobody addressed it. This was my confusion with your defnition as well, Devin. And yes, I've read the entire thread (like I've said before).

Let's ignore music, writing, etc... and think about a silent movie. In other words, lets concentrate on editing.

I don't understand how editing in that context is anything other than a synthesis of photography. You take a bunch of pictures, choose how to frame them, and place them in a certain order to convey some meaning. This isn't new to movies... the same thing can be achieved with pictures (and has been in the past).

Isn't movie editing just a higher speed synthesis of this pre-existing artform? And thus not a new artform (according to your definition).

On a side note, Xagaroth... we are theoretically on the same side (we both seem to feel that video games can be art), but I do find myself groaning at pretty much everything you are posting in this thread. I feel like you're trying to have your own debate that isn't really focused on the central points that we've already made. You're ignoring key things that we've already agreed upon, and attacking things sporadically, and often at least a bit illogically.

I try not to be too mean, but I just wanted you to know that it isn't just those who are agaisnt your views who are confused by your posts.

I'm going to try and tackle the "synthesis" issue since it seems to have become the main point of contention. A game uses different forms of art in it's development, the same as films, but unlike films the final product does not, itself, qualify as an unique art form. It is the "synthesis" of other art forms that Devin spoke of, but that doesn't mean that other art forms cannot be reconciled and become their own distinct type of art.

Refining a technique and adapting it for use, in this case the arrangement of moving pictures, doesn't preclude something from becoming it's own art form. Yes, photography begat films and the general idea of "arrangement" is shared with a movie and a pictorial exhibit. One frames a picture just as a director frames a film within the context of its beginning and ending and the order in which the scenes within are placed. However, on editing...

Does editing take place within a pictorial layout? Sure, but then editing is taking place in every newspaper and magazine you have ever read or looked at. Editing, in this regard, takes on it's general meaning of organizing. In the area of films, though, editing has taken on it's own responsibilities apart from simple organization and arrangement, whether it's to enhance a performance, pacing or mood and can even dramatically change a film's story from it's original form. It becomes it's own distinct technique and art in service of another art.

And Amphibatron gets the square.

Then it's bad art, not non-art. I don't get to say a Rembrandt isn't art because I tinhk it's a buncha shit.

Fine by me. The argument was never really that film isn't art because it's a synthesis of different elements. However - is it the technique that is art, or the finished product? Editing is a craft, an ability, a skillset. Only after applying it to the underlying elements do you get a piece of art. Rembrandt sitting around doodling with his brush isn't art - the final painting is.

So if we admit incremental compilation of varying elements, and take into account the finished product - why isn't an evocative, compelling video game narrative 'art'? I would draw an analogy between this and show cars: all sorts of different elements go into a nice looking show car. How is the finished product not a work of art? This has the added bonus in that show cars are 'interactive.'

And here I reject the reductionist argument that quality doesn't matter, so if we admit show cars are art we're saying every fucking Civic on the road is a piece of art. Me doodling a picture in the margins of a homework assignment is ostensibly art by that reckoning - it might be, but who really cares? Someone sitting down with a guitar and recording whatever they might feel like playing, no matter how inconsequential or out of tune, that's art too. Again, who cares? There has to be some consideration for what the 'audience' takes away from a piece. By drawing hard and fast lines between everything - this is art because it has A and B but this isn't because C negates B - seems like the sort of absurdist wankery College Professors with nothing better to do busy themselves with.

This isn't to say we can't make value judgements on what good art is, what bad art is, and what really doesn't qualify. Is there artistry in a jump shot? Sure. Does that make shooting a J a work of art? Seems like a stretch to me.

Is Space Invaders art? That's a very hard argument to make. What about Shadow of the Colossus? Fuck, put it in the time vault along with some pictorial instructions - it's at least as worthwhile as [insert inane pop-culture artifact here] . . . and I'm willing to say it would probably be a lot more emotionally resonant to our nameless descendants than Jay-Z or Lost.

No, editing is an art form and the most important component in quantifying film as its own art. Without it you are left with piles of film stock. And yes, A Rembrandt doodle is just as much a piece of art as a completed painting.

You're falling into the trap that allows for everything that is crafted to be called art. By that logic my keyboard is a work of art. It's interactive and a lot of thought went into its aesthetic design. Why isn't an evocative, compelling video game narrative art? How about reading the thread? Plenty of answers to just that question lie within it.

So, you reject the argument that quality doesn't matter and then go on to say that we CAN make value judgments on what is good art and bad art? Recognizing that something is a good example of art and something else is a bad example of art is just like saying that one bagel tastes delicious and another tastes like shit. They are both still bagels. It's the same for art. A painting is a painting whether it's an El Greco or Elvis on black velvet. Painting or sculpting is the art form but a painting or sculpture can transcend the form to become great works of art just as someone else can abuse the art form and create a steaming pile of shit.

Then can you come up with a better definition of art that's not too broad and not value based?
I'll be fascinated to see.

And no, my definition's not a value judgement, and it doesn't say that I'll know art when I'll see it. It says that the artist knows art when he makes it, which is a different matter entirely.

I think this man is making an excellent point, on the other hand.

Oh please. That's such a horseshit point - if painting, writing and sculpture can survive the birth of cinema, the rest of the artistic world isn't going to grind to a halt because someone applies the "A" word to videogames. You show me a games that can ievoke half as much as a great novel, or the best of cinema, and then the industry can start crying about how their artform is treated shabbily. Until then, even if it were to be considered an art, it's got a shitload of catching up to do.

He didn't say they were, he said people were afraid they were, in which I can see more sense. If he said what you have, I'd be calling rubbish on it.
True, but I've pointed to three games that can evoke as much as a good novel or a good film if not the best of both media (which have had a lot longer to produce said best, after all)
As I said, I'm not even trying to artistically defend most games here.

Then your whole argument is irrelevant. The argument is about the nature of the medium as a whole, about whether a virtual world with its own art style, rule set, and level of interactivity, is an artform, not two or three examples.

Frankly, I've come to the conclusion from the people who are actually having the same argument that started the thread that games are ARTISTIC, as in the aforementioned synthesis of established artforms are being applied on a grand, beauteous scale now as opposed to the bleeps and bloops in decades past. And that's great. But as far as the things that set it apart, all you've got is the virtual interactivity, and the act of touching something and getting a response isn't enough to set it apart.

That's no fear or resistance. That's fucking logic, using the facts presented in this thread.

By the way, I'm gonna be the first to say this post is art. Therefore, thread posting is now an artform. That is how this works, right?

Well, my question is: if a medium is an artform, does that mean that everything that is a product of that medium is art?

I would say no. I would say that books and movies, at their hearts, are simply different ways of telling stories, and video games are simply the most recent example of that same dynamic. If Max Payne the novel and Max Payne the movie could be art, then why can't Max Payne the game be art as well? It just doesn't make sense.

The point is that art in either of those mediums doesn't REQUIRE a story. Stories can be art but it is not the fact that it is a story that makes it art. There are unique elements to each art form that make it distinct.

The problem here is that the thing that makes video games distinct is the fact that it's a game and that just tacking game elements onto something doesn't make it art. That's why generally, we don't consider board games and their creation to be art. It's a painting (the board) with little sculptures (pieces) that you move around. What makes it unique is the set of rules that define the interaction.

So it's a question if a set of rules that define interaction can be considered art.

Which is what my main posts have been on. You're singling out one response I may to someone who was asking for individual responses. It has nothing to do with the rest of my argument, as a moment's thought would tell you.
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Nice try. I doubt you formed a genuine intention to create art with your post, or indeed any intention other than trying to be clever.

Though there'e no reason why thread posting couldn't be an artform if someone posted a short story, of course.

You remind me of something said by tim rogers in one of the articles I linked to:
"The question is not whether or not videogames are art, or can be art; that's a terrible question. Asking if anything is or is not or can be or can not be art is a truly horribly bad question. It's an microphone-off-shirt-collar-ripping, "This interview is over" kind of question. If I were a producer of any kind of entertainment, that'd be my reaction. Furious exasperation."

Personally, I think the question of whether games can be art is in fact a silly one, since there's no reason why they can't be. I've spent most of this thread trying to convince people who know little about most of the modern state of games why.

Because, Max Payne The Game technically CONTAINS Max Payne The Movie.It's a movie presented digitally, with all the other artforms that feed a movie. But take what's uniquely the realm of cinema away, and leave in what uniquely makes Max Payne a video game, you're left with something that's still not so far removed from Rock Paper Scissors. That is to say, an objective, a set of limitations, and a goal. And these things do not comprise an artform.

No, because that would be creative writing. Which IS an art. But as far as the discussion goes, the message board itself contains the art, but it, itself, the posting of messages, is not. And as far as your repeated stance on this whole thing has been, one could say that the act of hitting subm,it reply was an artistic act, and thus it is art. Which is profoundly dumb.

There's no reason why the world's water can't become Kool Aid. Doesn't mean that it currently IS or can be without a lot more work than simply calling all water Kool Aid beforehand.

But it works the same with movies adapted from books. It's not strictly the same thing, but it's similar enough. The Lord of the Rings the movie contains The Lord of the Rings the book. Video games are merely another extension of that. The skeleton of a game may be something like rock, paper, scissors, but the skeleton of a movie is moving pictures, and the skeleton of a book is words. Whether or not something is art has more to do with how something's elements come together than what it is when all derivative elements are stripped away.

Why?

The visuals, music, story, and overall experience is entirely mutable by human interaction. This level of interactivity is definitely unique to computer games, much more complex than a simple board game. Dismissing it is like dismissing film by just saying t's a flip book with photographs.

Take photography from traditional film and what do you have? A script? That's writing.

It's absurd to say a complex game is the same as rock, paper and scissors.

A simpler way of putting it is that film marks a visual progression from books, and games mark an interactive progression from film.

I'd amend that slightly to "a set of rules that define interaction and include a win/lose scenario," if only to ward off comments about how page order and reading from left to right are also rules that define interaction.

This property is what makes something "a game" in the traditional sense.*

And I submit (for what's probably the 50th time) that, historically speaking, things that are characterized by having sets of rules that define interaction and include a win/lose scenario have not been considered art.

Like I've been saying all along, this is a matter of precedents and history. If we want to revise the definition of art to include video games (which are still games by virtue of the fact that what makes them unlike other media is a set of rule that define interaction and include a win/lose scenario), we must also retroactively apply the term "art" (in a literal, not merely figurative sense, as in "the art of warfare") to javelin throwing, wrestling, and checkers.

* My favorite dodge of this in this thread is Xagarath's assertion that some video games aren't games at all. It avoids all of the difficult philosophical questions about games being considered art, but also manages to remove the one thing that makes games a unique medium. Even if we were to take these claims seriously (and there have been posts and Wikipedia definitions that make his claims suspect), we would have to consider them movies with a slight interactive element. This would, at the very best, make them sort of gimmicky, bad art.

I simply don't see how most non-sports games have a win/lose scenario. Your average shooter or action or strategy game isn't like that because you don't have lives, and when you do die or "lose," you just start again from some save point or whatnot. It's not about winning and losing as much as it's about about moving from point A to point B, and the completion of the game's story arc. Whch is the reasoning behind my point about games being an interactive progrossion from film.

1. I think video games go beyond this "win/lose" limitation you are imposing. We've given many examples, I think some you called "toys" others are not even up to consideration I guess ...

2. It's irrelevant, I have yet to see why the example I gave with the painstation (which is by definition a game) is not art.

We've been over this. If the piece is simply an electronic presentation with manipulatable, interactive qualities, this does not necessarily make it a game, which means it may very well fall under our current definition of art.

As soon as you put that set of rules and the win/lose objective on it, it becomes a game. Games have traditionally not been considered art. Revise that assumption in terms of video games and you have to revise it for all other games. It's a matter of mutual exclusivity, not a matter of piling on all kinds of justifications for why something may be art.

Do some of you people even read your own posts? How is completing a game's story arc not a win???

Could you please explain to me why it's not a game? It's an arcade cabinet with a modified game of pong that physically punishes you if your opponent is beating you. It falls squarely into your definition of win/lose, more than some commercial video games, yet I have yet to see you say it's not art.

Oy. Win/lose doesn't mean the game blows up and you can never play it again when you lose. We're referring to the element of success and failure inherent in a game. Dying/mission-failure/going-bankrupt falls under win/lose.

I don't see why not. It goes back to my question about whether something should be classified as art simply because it is part of a specific medium.

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