True art work is moving, so can games truely be considered art?

[emeraldrafael]

As long as something makes you feel, and you consider it art, its art. Others may not see it as art, but thats them.

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect.

So I (and anyone else who said art is about feeling) was right. how bout next time you hop off that high horse just cause you're "learning" art and choose a better source then Wikipedia to be the be all end all. Any time something different comes out, it had to be accepted. TV is art, but most people when it first came out didnt think it was (in fact most probably thought it was witch craft). Art isnt defined by the artist (as clearly can be seen with duchamp's upside down and stripped down Urinal), its defined by the viewer.

Look at Andy Warhol, half his stuff wouldnt fit the definition of "art" yet he's one of the most studied modern artists in the world. There was a guy that was famous for selling his shit in a can (which later turned out to be plaster, but meh).

What makes a statue from the roman times such as the statue of Nike outside the Louve or the Mona Lisa inside it a piece of art if I dont feel anyhting looking at them. Neither of those are vastly important or emotional except for the names attached to them.

EDIT:
Also, you repeated yourself twice. Like, word for word. you can say it as amny times as you want, but it doesnt make it true if you're wrong.

EDIT2:
And when Duchamp first submitted his work The Fountain, he wanted to see if you could make art something just because of a name attached. When it was rejected, he went to the art world and told them to make it art. So no, modern artists didnt ruin the world art, the old generation who considered men like Picasso artists and his works art changed the definition. Blame your elders for buckling, not the generation for breaking the mold.

 

[jdogtwodolla]

Endings to games make me emotional.
mostly (THE) popular franchise games in america that have come from japan have made me lean more toward tears of joy (but just lean).
Brutal legend and Cod 4 (the one scene) made me emotional as well but not in a sad way.
I apologize if I butchered the use of parentheses.

 

[pyramid head grape]

Ok, if you want to play it that way, go play Shadow of the Colossus. If you don't feel something at the end parts you have no soul.

Yeah I finished it yesterday (misted out on playing it in the day) I cried a single tear :C

 

[Nieroshai]

1. Sadness is not the only emotion. I have felt joy at the success of my protagonist, I have felt anger at a villain, I've even been made to laugh.
2. To kill this thread here and now, there are games that have made me cry. Shadow of the Colossus was one of them.

EDIT: I also cried at the end of FF6's opera scene. When I say "cry," I mean I tear up a little and feel a tight sensation at the back of my throat. I'm not bawling my eyes out here, but I'm feeling the emotion.

 

[FallenTraveler]

I believe that games cant be considered art until a video game is made that can move the average person to tears. True art work is able to move someone emotionaly, and after all the years i've been playing games the only thing thats ever really moved me was when Donkey Kong went into his banana horde and saw it empty. If anyone has a good example of a moving game let me know, I'd be interested to hear if anyone has ever shead a tear over pixels.

first of all, it is shed not shead.

second of all, there are more emotions than sadness.

third of all, yes, games have moved me emotionally... and here we go... l4d2 (fear/panic/nervous), Kingdom Hearts (extremely sad for the ending), Mass Effect 2 (sympathy and anger and subtle mixes of emotions), Amnesia (FEAR), F.E.A.R. (yeah, FEAR), Portal 2 (a lot, some depression, some humor, all well and good).

It's not like every piece of art has to be super duper serious either... I am an art student, I have made plenty, and seen plenty, of comical pieces. I have also seen masterworks that have NO MEANING AT ALL!!!! LOOK FRUIT IN A FUCKING BASKET!!!!! same counts for games... duke nukem anyone?

games are an art, form anything that A PERSON CREATES is TECHNICALLY an art form. Not all games are fine art, just as not all paintings are fine art...

 

[kasperbbs]

Only thing i think when i look at 'Mona Lisa' is 'does this ugly piece of ---- really cost that much?', so yeah, it depends on a person what they consider to be art.

 

[NeoNomad]

Tears is not equal to emotion. Nuff said, but I'll say more. True emotion is evoked when Commander Shepard is reunited with his beloved ship in Mass Effect 2, you feel true pity and sorrow when you see a mass killing of true innocents through the eyes of a terrorist pig in Modern Warfare 2, you feel true fear when you are desperately fleeing you attackers in Call of Cathulu. You may not find this emotion in "Donkey Kong" because DK was never made to inspire emotion. If you want true works of video game art you must find them, let yourself be enveloped in the story. See the world as true reality instead of pixels. Do you think of "art" as paint on a canvas? Or instead do you see it as a world all its own? You wouldn't approach a work of Van Gogh the same as you would the same of a Picaso, would you? Why can't each video game be given the same chance and the same duty to prove itself as another one? Judge each game on its own merit, don't compare DK to the likes of Portal.

 

[Braedan]

As soon as people begin to realize art can be crappy, pointless piles of shit soaked in monkey vomit and the title of 'art' does not confer any sophistication or inherit superiority people will stop debating over whether something is 'art' or not.

I've know many people who were so threatened by this simple statement...

I did NOT say that. Why am I quoted?

 

[default]

As an artist I agree, art should be moving, in some way. If not, it is bad art.

It might be a beautiful technical exercise, but if it doesn't make me stop and go 'Wow, that is powerful,' it has failed.

Play Shadow of the Colossus. Most moving game experience I have ever had...

 

[Bakuryukun]

I believe that games cant be considered art until a video game is made that can move the average person to tears. True art work is able to move someone emotionaly, and after all the years i've been playing games the only thing thats ever really moved me was when Donkey Kong went into his banana horde and saw it empty. If anyone has a good example of a moving game let me know, I'd be interested to hear if anyone has ever shead a tear over pixels.

It really doesn't have to be sadness you know. I have had emotional reactions to Videogames, and I have also been moved by how well games are put together. I have been able to see what the developers were going for in designs of levels. I consider any game that affects me as such to be art, but that doesn't mean the same games will be art to another person, the definition of art is a very personal thing. I used to say that all games were art, but since then I've changed my mind, because games only being "art" is fairly limiting in and of itself, Videogames should feel free to be anything they bloody well choose and also anything that the observer chooses.

 

[RevRaptor]

Dude art doesn't have to move you it just has to be. Hell it doesn't even have to be aesthetically pleasing. Plus I played plenty of game with the power to affect the player emotionally. I've played games with some truly stirring and emotional scenes in them. I'm guessing you don't play a lot of rpg games.

 

[HerbertTheHamster]

art is 100% subjective.

if I don't think it's art, it ain't art.

this applies to everyone.

Also: art =/= good. I really don't get why people think this and i fucking hate people who think that if something isn't art, it sucks.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days.

I really felt their friendship, I actually felt happy getting Xion back, seeing Roxas bond with Axel. I got sad when Xion died, I was pissed that Riku beat Roxas and that Xion died. The scene where Axel opens the letter with the popsicle stick with "winner" on it from the ice cream he shared with Roxas....

I really hated that games ending, because their friendship was torn apart.


So yes, a game can be 'art'. Atleast to me, it can.


'Cause honestly, rarely do I give a damn when people die in fictional material.

 

[faspxina]

It's hard to define art, to my understanding, anything created by men with the intent of it affecting other people, whether emotionally or intellectually.

 

[Beryl77]

Okay, so because games don't move YOU, nobody else has been moved by games either. I see.
Another point is, that I haven't been moved by a lot of things that are considered art. Actually, I've never seen a painting that has truly moved me, so why does a game have to move me, in order to be considered art and how many people does it have to move? I mean, it's impossible to create something that moves every single human being, so what it exactly the number of people that have to be moved by a game, so that it can be called art?

 

[erztez]

Well, if I understand this correctly, the OP is suggesting that anything that makes the average person cry is art.
In that case, I move we start considering Kick in the crotch art.
Think about it. ANYONE kicked in the crotch hard enough will start crying, whereas not everyone seeing most modern art will.

 

[Electrogecko]

Who the hell cries at paintings or sculptures? This thread wasn't thought out.

I've always said that video games are the combination of all forms of art, because it's absolutely true. I honestly don't know how anybody could argue that they're not art.

 

[Ericb]

So I (and anyone else who said art is about feeling) was right. how bout next time you hop off that high horse just cause you're "learning" art and choose a better source then Wikipedia to be the be all end all.

I explicitly cited this definition as a good introductory definition, friend. Because it fits very well with the kind of precepts and aesthetics techniques one learns at the basic core of visual art creation, which is my primary focus.

And you can take the quotes off of learning, because a college arts course is hard work and reasearch, even though some rich brats take it to be a joke.

Yet that does not mean I don't take people's opinions into account. In fact, I am more willing to listen to a layperson's view of the matter than an self-proclaimed academic, precisely because of the experience I've had with many (though gladly not all) of them.

I wasn't attacking you, it just bothers me how this non-definition of art has been going around for so long, unchallenged. No need for passive-agressive sarcasm, it doesn't benefit anyone.

Also, you repeated yourself twice. Like, word for word. you can say it as amny times as you want, but it doesnt make it true if you're wrong.

That was just a editing mistake, relax. Seriously.

And when Duchamp first submitted his work The Fountain, he wanted to see if you could make art something just because of a name attached. When it was rejected, he went to the art world and told them to make it art. So no, modern artists didnt ruin the world art, the old generation who considered men like Picasso artists and his works art changed the definition. Blame your elders for buckling, not the generation for breaking the mold.

That's as bit contradictory, because said "old generation" are precisely the people who took him and a few others as symbol of the potential to break the molds.

My problem is not with this, but that a lot of people took it as a way to ignore anything that came before them, even though they don't (or choose not to) realize that they are repeating many ways of expression done many times before.

Interestingly, there's an artistic movement called Stuckism which sprung as criticism of the fruits of the "readymades" vein initiated by Duchamp. But I haven't read much about them yet.

I did NOT say that. Why am I quoted?

Fast editing with too many quotes, sorry for the mistake.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I believe that games cant be considered art until a video game is made that can move the average person to tears. True art work is able to move someone emotionaly, and after all the years i've been playing games the only thing thats ever really moved me was when Donkey Kong went into his banana horde and saw it empty. If anyone has a good example of a moving game let me know, I'd be interested to hear if anyone has ever shead a tear over pixels.

Hmm, while I can't say I've been brought to tears over a game (not counting occasions where I was one attack away from beating a near impossible boss. ONE ATTACK!), I am going to have to disagree with you on your definition of art. Art does not need to be sad, but I do think that it should be able to evoke feelings in you. I can give you many examples of this. The feeling of isolation in the first two Metroid Prime games, insignificance compared to the Colossi in Shadow of the Colossus and triumph when you finally take one down and utter terror in Amnesia. Games might not have mastered this art yet, but they are definitely headed in the right direction. If anything I'd say that the medium has a better chance of doing this than movies, you're a part of the game and as such you'll feel more emotionally invested in what happens to a character. No, I would not say we've reached the level of something like Van Gogh's Starry Night, but the medium has a lot of potential and I will not at all be surprised when I eventually do tear up from a game.