Can Art be Games? | Hacker News Reader

Can Art be Games?

sophiehoulden.com

51 pointsmuratmutlu36 comments

This has to be one of the worst straw man arguments I've read on this subject, and I'm in favor of seeing games as art. Yes, if you reduce art to prints, it does seem like games have a leg up. However, film and theatre and music have long since been considered to he art, and this is usually where the debate takes place.

The examples she cites aren't convincing either. For games to really be seen as a great art form, IMO, it can't be that they simply provide a vehicle for other art forms, such as music and film (I.e. cutscenes).

The key dimension that games add is interactivity...in that sense, the art of games is more along the lines of modern performance art in which the viewers actions amplifies the artistic meaning.

The first time I really felt that a game had hit me in a narrative way that was impossible in film/theater/literature was in Portal, in the scene in which Glados compels you to "kill" the Companion Cube. At the end of it, I felt this huge sense of comic relief because I half expected the box to start screaming, and then I laughed and marveled at how the gamewriters were able to create a sense of attachment to an inanimate box, merely by having you pick it up and move it to places. I haven't played portal 2 yet, but I can't think of any other game that elicited such a strong emotional reaction from me through the mechanism of interactivity.

I think the post was supposed to be satire. I didn't really get that either, but the reactions I'm hearing in other places seem to be along the lines of, "Ha ha, that was funny."

I knew I shouldn't check HN on a Saturday...I blame it on the reflexive groan I make every time a Square-Enix game is mentioned in the context

That's the part that ruined the entire article for me. To quote these games as hallmarks of emotional or intrinsic value in games is to me as clueless as to talk about paintings as 'things that you just look at', renders the person in the article clueless about both art and games, and destroys the sarcasm imho.

I took it more as showing the bare minimum that needs to be achieved, i.e. "these are the games that are at the lowest of the ranking list, that I still consider to be capable of eliciting an acceptably genuine emotional response from me".

This is satire, and is a direct response to how several art critics have dismissed "games" as capable of being considered fine art for reasons that are just as silly as this blog post, which is precisely why it's funny.

I believe it's most directly a response to this op-ed making the rounds recently: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/201...

The "[x] isn't art" op-ed seems to be that particular Guardian blogger's specialty. Last year, he caused a flurry of outraged discussion in a different set of communities for roughly similar reasons, when he wrote an op-ed on why neither cuisine nor high fashion are art: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/201...

Jesus this Johnathan Jones piece is pure flame bait pure and simple. I don't even believe he believes it. Doesn't even need a response.

> After Emily left I checked on the internet and it turns out she was right, you really do just look at it, that’s all!

Well, that's one way of doing it, and it's what most people do, but you're not going to get the most out of it.

Rothko's Four Seasons murals are a good example - big slabs of colour, nothing too complicated. But then when you find out that he said ...

> "I accepted this assignment with strictly malicious intentions," Rothko said. "I hope to ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who ever eats in that room." He wanted his paintings to make them feel that they were trapped in the room "where all the doors and windows are bricked up, so that all they can do is butt their heads forever against the wall."

... you get a better appreciation for them.

Ah, a brick and mortar troll!

But if you have to explain your "art" like that then it's probably not very good to begin with.

That line of offence more applicable to jokes than to art. Not all art is meant to be consumed easily and without context. In fact, I'd argue that if a piece of art CAN be consumed easily by anyone of any background without any context, then that piece will usually be rather obvious and just not very interesting, insightful, or valuable.

Of course, take that with a grain of salt. There's a rather large area between 'obvious' and 'unintelligible', and plenty of authors have tried (and failed) to elevate the artistic value of their pieces by turning them into useless mazes of obscure data.

Likewise, when I post a sloppy, obscene comment, silly people without culture might get confused.

What they don't know is that I want the readers to feel like they're in a novel of Liselotte Hupenblum, where angry, half-finished gargoyles bark humiliating gibberish at them.

... which changes everything!

There is also an interesting argument between Roger Ebert and Kellee Santiago (the co-founder and former president of Thatgamecompany) on this topic http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_neve...

It's not really that interesting to me. Ebert's argument is based on the idea that art needs to be good to be art. There's plenty of bad art, but it's still art. Indeed, the bar as to what can be art is startlingly (and often maddeningly) low.

Video games are part entertainment, part engineering challenge, part craft. Just like all art forms.

I enjoy reading Ebert's film reviews, but I think with this debate he's just stirring up controversy for notoriety's sake.

I visited MoMA in NY and in different parts of the museum, and by different artists, I saw a plain sheet of white paper, a plain sheet of red, and a plain sheet of black. Someone had considered these to be 'art' enough to hang on a wall. I found the rest of the exhibits to be interesting in some way, but these three pieces represent the lowest I've seen the bar set.

Ebert pretty much lost this debate from the outset with "I contend that X is not Y, and I will not discuss this any further". Even though he relented and did followups, it's pretty clear that you're arguing from prejudice rather than merit when you refuse to enter into debate.

As I recall, Ebert actually conceded that his respondents might have a point and that he wasn't really qualified to make the call after all.

MoMA posted this a few days ago - they've acquired 14 games: http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/11/29/video-game...

tldr:

• Pac-Man (1980) • Tetris (1984) • Another World (1991) • Myst (1993) • SimCity 2000 (1994) • vib-ribbon (1999) • The Sims (2000) • Katamari Damacy (2004) • EVE Online (2003) • Dwarf Fortress (2006) • Portal (2007) • flOw (2006) • Passage (2008) • Canabalt (2009)

I am disappointed by a severe lack of Braid in that list.

After all, Jonathan Blow is most definitely one of those stirring the (most peculiar) discussion of games & art; see an article+interview about him, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/the-most... - quite a decent (even if somewhat pretentious on several levels) read while on the topic, by the way!

Eh, they say they have a particular type of collection in mind:

>Are video games art? They sure are, but they are also design, and a design approach is what we chose for this new foray into this universe. The games are selected as outstanding examples of interaction design—a field that MoMA has already explored and collected extensively, and one of the most important and oft-discussed expressions of contemporary design creativity.

It could be as simple as Blow declining to donate his game to MoMA, too.

I don't understand how games can't be art.

Creating images is art. 3D modeling is art (like sculpting). Writing stories is art, as well as creating interesting characters. Animation is art. I'm intentionally not mentioning things like programming or gameplay design, but some people might call these art too (not me, though).

So many artists are involved in these projects. And yet, when all of their art is fused together inside the game engine, to be presented to the player in all of its interactive glory, it somehow becomes NOT art? How can this be?

Because the fact that a game contains art doesn't necessarily imply that it is art. I can also take a gymnasium, commission art for the walls and music to be played as people exercise and so forth. I doubt that people would consequently consider the gymnasium to be itself art, despite the fact that art no doubt went into its creation.

A film could also feature excellent writing and beautiful visual art, but the art of film comes not from those individual elements being present, but the artistry present in their use together. The thing that makes film an art is the combined whole of those individual elements, which is why you can have a film that is not good as a film despite having, say, spectacular acting or sharp cinematography or a beautiful score.

So the question is, can the artistic elements of games be combined in such a way that the whole result, not just the individual elements, is artistic?

Most people don't consider soap operas or game shows to be art, but they undergo all the same stuff movies do. (And some people regard them as different kinds of art and other people as simply "bad art".)

Differently, it bothers me that people hear "game" and think "on a computer". Is football art? Or is Remember the Titans art? Or is National Football League 2012 art?

The article might be a brilliant bit of satire but many young parents can actually relate to it. Children are exposed to interactive toys like tablets at such a young age that traditional toys like a Kaleidoscope barely holds their interest. It is sad to see one of your favourite childhood pastimes get a minute or two of their attention before it is thrown to the attic.

To be fair, even I do not find a Kaleidoscope fascinating anymore. It shows pretty images but so does a music visualiser.

A friend of mine has a lovely 5 year old daughter who's equally fascinated by crappy Zynga games as she is by a hand-cranked music box. ...and toy swords that say, "Thundercats!"

I've mostly put it down to a complete lack of taste, but it's a fairly large gamut of childhood toys there.

I will never for the life of me understand why so many video game players are so insistent that video games must be art. Why does it matter?

For what it's worth, I don't think that video games can be art for reasons that are far too lengthy for the scope of a comment on here. But that doesn't mean video games can't be good things. I also like sport, newspaper articles, and good beer. Cultural artefacts don't have to be art to be good.

I don't understand either of the polar sides of the 'are video games art?'

'Art' is just a description, no more. No promise of quality, no conferred legitimacy. There is plenty of really crap art out there, that no-one will claim is not art. Every argument I've seen for the 'is not art' camp does some pretty torturous semantic weaving. And articles like this for the other camp that say 'art is shit, who wants that' are equally unenlightening.

I would say that creating video games in general is more of a craft than an art, but there is definitely art involved in getting to the final product.

edit: ugh, I didn't pick that the article was satire. shame on me.

If you're not a game designer, it doesn't really matter that much. But the approach you take to something changes when you decide your creation is a piece of art; there's an aspiration that comes with such a decision. The idea isn't so much that video games must be art, but that they can be art.

The fact that this is even an article is so ridiculous. OF COURSE GAMES ARE ART. Movies are art. Billboards are art. Comic books are art.

This is the kind of thing I'd have expected to see in 1998. If games weren't it would be strange news to the hundreds of thousands of artists working in the games industry for the last decade.

By far some of my most memorable experiences are from games.

Any concept of art as static prints of pretty pictures is so laughably out dated and so out of touch with the art world it is funny.

Judging whether or not something is art by if it's shown in museums kind of went out with dadaism in 1916.

I get that the OP is likely satire, but it's an interesting question after all. Can a game be art like a film or a novel can be art? I think probably yes, but the user interacting with the art when it is a game isn't really any different than the user interacting with the art when it's a play or a film - you're still "just looking at it".

And that's where the satire breaks apart for me.

Personally? Yeah I think games can be art.

However, while I've had some great experiences playing games, I don't think I have yet played a game which deeply changed my worldview in the same way as, say, some novels have.

>I had always assumed that ‘art’ was something for a different generation.

As an art-loving millennial, I wonder if this a common sentiment among my generation.

Games have exactly as much potential to be art, or to not be art, as any other medium. The only difference is how it is used.

Now if only you could fork art and send a pull request...

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