Games as a True Artform.
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Your grammar is broken, which is why people are misunderstanding you.LimaBravo said:Are you being deliberately obtuse & trolling to get a rise or are you truly unable to read ?Assassinator said:What the hell? So every average Joe can make fantastic photographs, can direct brilliant movies and make the best games in the world? Please...give me a break, that's just ridiculous.LimaBravo said:And how the hell does that not include movies, photographs and games?
Take this Fable 2 screenshot:
How does that meet every criteria you post there? Please don't tell me that that doesn't need any skill to make, and that it's not an original piece of work distinct in style and distinctivness for a purpose.
Movies photographs & games arent art their 'captures of reality' games are mechanisms of play.
The art resources USED by a game are art, the game itself isnt if you cant read or differentiated between art resources & the game your playing your too shallow minded to participate in this conversation. A game is not its art resources, If you took the above graphics & put them in pong, pong would not be art. The art for pong would be art. Pong is a mechanism.
Reading is a very important skill as is knowing what words mean.
Games are games, Art is art. Games use art but in themselves cannot be artistic cause its a game. The components of the game can be artistic, story line, resources , music but the game cannot be.
Just so you understand name one game mechanism stripped of its art & sound resources which is artful. ?
What he's saying is that games, that is the rule sets, definitions and mechanisms that make up a game are not art, in the same way that the paper and paint that a painting is made of is not art. However, what these rule sets and mechanisms create, the characters, stories and landscapes that move you can be art.
At least that's what i think he's saying.
i find it incredible tooLimaBravo said:I find it incredible in this day & age so few people can read
ignorance is one thing and all...
A conventional definition of Art-
"the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others."
There, without getting philosophical and preachy about it, accept that some people will be willing to classify video games as an art form and move on with it.
Okami
Mario 64
Grim Fandango
Zelda Windwaker
"the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others."
There, without getting philosophical and preachy about it, accept that some people will be willing to classify video games as an art form and move on with it.
Okami
Mario 64
Grim Fandango
Zelda Windwaker
Predictable things like Bioshock or Portal. Games you wouldn't be embarrassed to play in front of reasonably educated people.
The problem is that 'Art' is something that is in no way defined. I study Literature at University, and part of our first year course is 'What is Literature', which touches on the same ideas as 'What is Art'. No-one has of yet come up with satisfactory definitions of this, so attempting to use something as basic as a dictionary, when whole books have been written on the subject is fruitless.
In reality what we determine as 'Art' tends more to mean what we choose, for whatever reason, to say is somehow 'better' than other similar examples of the medium (i.e. painting, sculpture, novels, poetry, films, photography, + even games). The difficulty is in trying to define the reasons some creations are better than others. Mostly these are the value-judgements of an individual, and cannot be made an objective definition. That's not to say that individual value-judgements aren't important, it's just impossible to make a solid, precise or complete definition of them. If we want to attempt to define 'art' despite this, then we have to change what we mean when we say 'art'.
I personally like the idea that Art is the attempt to create "The perfect expression of an idea" - by expression I mean the way the mechanics of the medium are used (in this case a computer game) and by idea I mean almost any aim or purpose, including just to entertain. So, for example, you might say Newton's theory of Gravity was a great idea, and you might say that a beautiful drawing is an incredible piece of craftsmanship, but it is only when the craftsmanship and the idea work together to make both the idea and the expression greater than they could be individually that it becomes Art.
My favourite example of this in gaming is probably Final Fantasy 7, where I thought the ideas behind the characters were made far more powerful because I was playing AS them, and Portal, where the sense of being alone and controlled was far greater because I actually was playing in a controlled environment, alone with Glados: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
I was actually betrayed and shocked at the end, when it felt like it was actually me being betrayed, and felt genuinely guilty when it was actually MY actions that finally killed her "This isn't brave, it's murder... The difference between us is that I can feel pain. You don't even care, do you? Did you hear me? I said you don't care. Are you listening?"
That is True Art IMO. But as I said, it's only an opinion, and even if it's a particularly good one, it can't possibly be objective fact.
Sorry for length of post
In reality what we determine as 'Art' tends more to mean what we choose, for whatever reason, to say is somehow 'better' than other similar examples of the medium (i.e. painting, sculpture, novels, poetry, films, photography, + even games). The difficulty is in trying to define the reasons some creations are better than others. Mostly these are the value-judgements of an individual, and cannot be made an objective definition. That's not to say that individual value-judgements aren't important, it's just impossible to make a solid, precise or complete definition of them. If we want to attempt to define 'art' despite this, then we have to change what we mean when we say 'art'.
I personally like the idea that Art is the attempt to create "The perfect expression of an idea" - by expression I mean the way the mechanics of the medium are used (in this case a computer game) and by idea I mean almost any aim or purpose, including just to entertain. So, for example, you might say Newton's theory of Gravity was a great idea, and you might say that a beautiful drawing is an incredible piece of craftsmanship, but it is only when the craftsmanship and the idea work together to make both the idea and the expression greater than they could be individually that it becomes Art.
My favourite example of this in gaming is probably Final Fantasy 7, where I thought the ideas behind the characters were made far more powerful because I was playing AS them, and Portal, where the sense of being alone and controlled was far greater because I actually was playing in a controlled environment, alone with Glados: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
I was actually betrayed and shocked at the end, when it felt like it was actually me being betrayed, and felt genuinely guilty when it was actually MY actions that finally killed her "This isn't brave, it's murder... The difference between us is that I can feel pain. You don't even care, do you? Did you hear me? I said you don't care. Are you listening?"
That is True Art IMO. But as I said, it's only an opinion, and even if it's a particularly good one, it can't possibly be objective fact.
Sorry for length of post
This thread makes me sadface.
LimaBravo: Are you an admirer of stuckism, and if not are you genuinely, as you appear to be, arguing first that films and photographs have no artistic merit, and second that the whole is actually less than the sum of its parts?
LimaBravo: Are you an admirer of stuckism, and if not are you genuinely, as you appear to be, arguing first that films and photographs have no artistic merit, and second that the whole is actually less than the sum of its parts?
Games can't really be considered art. I thought they could at first, but if you think about it, there's no content without the player's interference. Sure, it can look nice, but they're not gonna be hanging screenshots up in art galleries any time soon.
Well, that's true. I've never looked at books at an art form, anyway. Sure, in both cases, a sort of "artist's touch" is used to get the perfect effect out of each thing, but without actually doing anything--Letting your character sit, or letting the book lie on the table--there isn't anything really artistic about it. Looking at a painting, however, you can see that what is there is artistic.Indigo_Dingo said:
Oh, come now. That's like asking whether or not noise is made when a tree falls in an empty forest.Indigo_Dingo said:
I facepalm.
Why? You seem to be reducing both to mere representationalism; neither can be satisfactorily or realistically reduced in the way you seem to be attempting to. Further, if photography and film are not art, why is painting?
Certainly I can agree with your definition art as a definition; I would add that it should also follow the aesthetic. The problem is that your reductionist view doesn't fit it; how can a game not be, by your definition, "something exceptional created by intent", or, for that matter, a film or a photograph, but a painting, according to your thought, must be?
Eh? I'm sorry, you just contradicted yourself again.