What will make video games fine art?

[The Crispy Tiger]

I've been thinking a lot recently about what makes fine art and how we define it. I've also been thinking about what will make video games fine art and what will make us a more respectable medium.

Then I was watching the Nostalgia Critic when Doug dropped this info. What makes movies fine art? A movies purpose or what generally makes them fine art is when they can reflect something about humanity. It's what separates things like Lord of the Rings and Pacific Rim from being fine art and makes things like 12 Years a Slave and Dallas Buyer's Club fine art. To be fair, Lord of the Rings and Pacific Rim are still awesome. But they're entertainment, not fine art.

And that got me thinking about how video games can use this. I mean, they kinda already are as a lot of writers have also been realizing this. Here in 2013, we got a bunch of stuff that have been charted as changing points in video games, like The Last of Us and Bioshock: Infinite. Even terrible video games like Beyond: Two Souls are getting recognition because they all understand one thing. To reflect people, to show them and get to better understand them.

That's what separates fine art from entertainment. There's still great entertainment, Halo, Mario, and the wonderful Civilization. It's what makes Majora's Mask from Ocarina of Tine. What makes blockbuster films and true film art. I wanted to know what you think makes fine art, and what games do you consider fine art, if video games can be considered fine art at all? Whatever you think, I would love to hear it.

 

[senordesol]

What makes you think The Lord of the Rings is not fine art?

See, the issue with debating 'art' is that you've got to define your terms. If you just watch LOTR for the sake of the battles and creatures and whatnot, then yeah; it's just entertainment. But if you regard it as an allegory for the burden and corrupting nature of sin (the Ring), and the inherent perceived destructiveness of industrialization; it works just fine as 'fine art'.

You might consider the Stanley Parable 'fine art' as it explores the limits of 'free will' in an environment where, by definition, the audience is limited to a defined set of actions. Telltale's The Walking Dead is also, arguably, 'fine art' as while the game focuses in giving the player an opportunity to define his own world view; the story's ultimate conclusion is inexorable.

 

[VVThoughtBox]

Nothing will make video games into fine art as of this typing. In order for something to be a work of art, the artist must plant the idea that their work is art. In my opinion, video game developers and game journalists don't know anything about art. They're trying to plant the idea that video games are a work of art, but can't fully articulate a reason why video games are art. The best reason these people want video games to become art so badly is for the medium to be taken seriously, which is kind of a bad reason. Art is supposed to take people out of their comfort zone and expose them to new ideas. Art is also supposed to provoke a reaction out of the the viewer. Just to be clear, when I'm talking about art, I'm not referring to Jackson Pollock, Vincent Van Gogh, or Andy Warhol;

I'm talking about Judy Chicago and the Dinner Table:
http://cdn.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/dinner_party/images/Dinner-Party_428-wide.jpg
Or Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain:
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573
Or the Red Square:
http://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/~mdenner/Drama/visualarts/avant-garde/red_square18.html

That's what's considered art in the art world. Video games like The Last of Us and Beyond: Two Souls may look work of art, but sadly they're not considered fine art. Both games are more interactive movies than works of art.

 

[Racecarlock]

I really don't know. As long as I continue to be entertained by the medium, I don't really care either.

 

[pilouuuu]

Who can say gaming isn't already fine art? What keeps Planescape Torment or Grim Fandango for being fine art?

And you say Lord of the Rings isn't fine art? Tolkien created a world full of creatures and languages for the book! And the movie is a great adaptation of it. I'm not sure I can say the same about The Hobbit movie though. Now that's just commercial entertainment for me. Lord of the Rings on the contrary is an epic masterpiece.

And who's to say that something like Pong or Tetris isn't an amazing minimalistic piece of art?

 

[Zhukov]

If your definition of "art" is "reflects something about humanity", then games already are art. Or at least many of them are. It's a pretty broad definition.

Of course, it's still up for debate whether or not they are good art is or if what they reflect is worth reflecting.

If you are asking what will make them considered as art by the broader non-gamer community (in the same way that people who aren't into opera or painting will generally still regard those things as art) then the answer is time. More specifically, generational change. Although a few more games actually trying to achieve something more meaningful than making my balls feel big certainly wouldn't hurt.

 

[The Crispy Tiger]

What makes you think The Lord of the Rings is not fine art?

See, the issue with debating 'art' is that you've got to define your terms. If you just watch LOTR for the sake of the battles and creatures and whatnot, then yeah; it's just entertainment. But if you regard it as an allegory for the burden and corrupting nature of sin (the Ring), and the inherent perceived destructiveness of industrialization; it works just fine as 'fine art'.

You might consider the Stanley Parable 'fine art' as it explores the limits of 'free will' in an environment where, by definition, the audience is limited to a defined set of actions. Telltale's The Walking Dead is also, arguably, 'fine art' as while the game focuses in giving the player an opportunity to define his own world view; the story's ultimate conclusion is inexorable.

...


...


...


HOLY SHIT!?!?! MY MIND JUST GOT BLOWN!!!

 

[The Crispy Tiger]

Nothing will make video games into fine art as of this typing. In order for something to be a work of art, the artist must plant the idea that their work is art. In my opinion, video game developers and game journalists don't know anything about art. They're trying to plant the idea that video games are a work of art, but can't fully articulate a reason why video games are art. The best reason these people want video games to become art so badly is for the medium to be taken seriously, which is kind of a bad reason. Art is supposed to take people out of their comfort zone and expose them to new ideas. Art is also supposed to provoke a reaction out of the the viewer. Just to be clear, when I'm talking about art, I'm not referring to Jackson Pollock, Vincent Van Gogh, or Andy Warhol;

I'm talking about Judy Chicago and the Dinner Table:
http://cdn.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/dinner_party/images/Dinner-Party_428-wide.jpg
Or Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain:
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573
Or the Red Square:
http://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/~mdenner/Drama/visualarts/avant-garde/red_square18.html

That's what's considered art in the art world. Video games like The Last of Us and Beyond: Two Souls may look work of art, but sadly they're not considered fine art. Both games are more interactive movies than works of art.

Then let me ask you a question. Are movies fine art by your definition?

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I think out perception of ART requires an ARTIST, and it's easier to tell an artist from a film rather than a game. I can probably think of at least a hundred directors with a distinct visual style, a certain understanding of life and a recurring vision throughout their work that defines them as artists. Most videogame directors, I think, don't work from a vision of their own, they're just there to steet the boat and keep a schedule. I couldn't tell you if videogames have a Marty Scorsese.

 

[Rolaoi]

Games can be considered fine art if they fall into one or both of the following categories.

1) The game carries a profound meaning. The "Message"
2) The game is profoundly made using the medium of video games in such a way that it can't be produced using any other medium. The "Delivery"

1 gets the medium the most respect, but 2 does the better job of establishing video games as a legitimate medium in its own right. As a result of the expectations towards 1, however, number 2 is woefully ignored, hence the prevalence of video games aping either books or, more recently, movies. Interaction is the name of the game, but using interaction as a way to tell a story is mostly uncharted territory.


Making art doesn't necessarily require the creator to be aware of what they're doing. It's more important that the person experiencing the work of art recognizes it as such. Often times, the things which are most striking are the things the artist wasn't even aware he made. After all, the art, being unknown to the artist, can't be filtered through the conscious mind for shame or modesty.

 

[VVThoughtBox]

Nothing will make video games into fine art as of this typing. In order for something to be a work of art, the artist must plant the idea that their work is art. In my opinion, video game developers and game journalists don't know anything about art. They're trying to plant the idea that video games are a work of art, but can't fully articulate a reason why video games are art. The best reason these people want video games to become art so badly is for the medium to be taken seriously, which is kind of a bad reason. Art is supposed to take people out of their comfort zone and expose them to new ideas. Art is also supposed to provoke a reaction out of the the viewer. Just to be clear, when I'm talking about art, I'm not referring to Jackson Pollock, Vincent Van Gogh, or Andy Warhol;

I'm talking about Judy Chicago and the Dinner Table:
http://cdn.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/dinner_party/images/Dinner-Party_428-wide.jpg
Or Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain:
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573
Or the Red Square:
http://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/~mdenner/Drama/visualarts/avant-garde/red_square18.html

That's what's considered art in the art world. Video games like The Last of Us and Beyond: Two Souls may look work of art, but sadly they're not considered fine art. Both games are more interactive movies than works of art.

Then let me ask you a question. Are movies fine art by your definition?

That's a pretty tough question for me to answer. I've been taught that art is very subjective and there's no right or wrong answers in art. What you think is art, and I think is art might be different. To answer your question: Movies are considered fine Arts, BUT it's not Citizen Kane, or Casablanca, or The Godfather. An example of Movie as Fine Art to me would be stuff made by the Surrealist Movement in the 1920. They fit definition of art: Take people out of their comfort zone, and expose them to new ideas. It's really hard to tell what those are about since there's no plot or order to the films. I think in order for video games to be considered Fine Arts, it needs a Salvatore Dali, or Man Ray, not an Orson Welles.

 

[Exhuminator]

Ask the player a question with the game, but don't give them the answer.

 

[The Crispy Tiger]

I think out perception of ART requires an ARTIST, and it's easier to tell an artist from a film rather than a game. I can probably think of at least a hundred directors with a distinct visual style, a certain understanding of life and a recurring vision throughout their work that defines them as artists. Most video game directors, I think, don't work from a vision of their own, they're just there to steer the boat and keep a schedule. I couldn't tell you if video games have a Marty Scorsese.

As someone who writes in his free time to create art and wishes to bring that type of experience in games, YET is too inexperienced to have A) Been in an actual AAA game studio and B) Go to College to partly find that out. Yeah, maybe I'm not the best source. BUT, I see video games as fine art. I just didn't know why. I think that definition is what will really put video games to the next level or at least understanding that.

 

[The Crispy Tiger]

Ask the player a question with the game, but don't give them the answer.

That's not fine art. That's food for thought, but not fine art. In that case, Mass Effect 3's original ending would fit right in with that definition. (PUT DOWN THE PITCHFORKS! I WAS JOKING!)

 

[Exhuminator]

That's not fine art. That's food for thought, but not fine art.

Art should make you think. Otherwise it's just exposition.

 

[dyre]

I disagree with that definition. There's plenty of fine art that doesn't reflect on humanity. Take an impressionist painting, for example, or a work of classical music. Making a statement on humanity is what you would call a "theme," which is a useful aid in creating art but neither necessary nor sufficient.

In terms of film and literature, many fine works make you think about humanity, sure, but others do not at all attempt to make grand statements about the nature of man. Atonement (both the book and the film), for example, is simply a beautiful and tragic love story. Or, The Remains of the Day, another wonderful work of fine art, is a story about one man's regrets in life (although you may not realize this when reading it; it's rather subtle). These two books are both considered some of the finest literature ever written by the most intellectual "artistic" circles, and neither of them make statements about humanity, though The Remains of the Day does contain a lot of reflections on British culture.

I think trying to create a formal definition for fine art is ridiculous and futile. But in terms of your question, can video games become fine art? I don't know; it's really a matter of opinion, but I personally can't think of any existing examples that I would really consider fine art, but I won't say it can't happen. I might be willing to call Planescape: Torment fine art. Like all games, it's padded out with action, side quests, etc (stuff not done for art's sake but merely to entertain the consumer), but at its heart it really is something beautiful.

 

[MoeMints]

The thing is.....

If Bioshock and Last of Us are considered game-changing to anything but the AAA libary, gaming has grown to pretty skewed standards.

The thing is, what is considered fine art, is more about the expression it gives than the actual QUALITY of it has.
While the more concrete definition of fine art, that being ALL creative media without practical use being its main purpose, backhands this notion and just wants a good and expressive production.

Take well...since you watch NC, look at Oancitizen's Brows Held High.
He's done films about a boy with perfect pheromone manipulation, a urban world between digital media, two brothers stuck in the desert, genuinely awful people, and a suspense film about a snuff film studio.

They give emotion, have very entertaining camera angles, very abstract and different from the norm, and liberate the mind to do new things.

They are still often RIDICULOUSLY up their own ass, filled with padding, have authentic debauchery taken as ART, and are just as forgettable as if you got nothing personal out of it as action film #021463noonecares.

Just make what you and others got out of it and what it is as an overall production from a critical mind separate.

If it fits with the artist intent, then that's all the better but not GREAT by its own, for it.

Like in Gitaroo Man, fighting a music match against a Mexican skeleton garbage-themed instrument trio while being unironically serious about it, gave me more feelings than a huge chunk of modern games I've played. However, its still silly as heck even in context and has a pretty bad dub.

Or what has been considered cream of the crop in art galleries has included a life sized giant boobed maid, a soup can, and splashes of paint.

 

[Requia]

Ask the player a question with the game, but don't give them the answer.

That's not fine art. That's food for thought, but not fine art. In that case, Mass Effect 3's original ending would fit right in with that definition. (PUT DOWN THE PITCHFORKS! I WAS JOKING!)

If Dada can pick up a toilet at a hardware store and call it art...

Of course, that assumes they knew what they were doing.

 

[StormDragonZ]

This can be answered in just a few words. No major explanation necessary, but video games become fine art when they are unplayable.