Art Games

[Ish]

There were also the metal slides at the Tate. No different from Butlins tbh, but because they are at the Tate, they are art.

I'm a fairly regular visitor to the Tate (love it there) and saw those but I didn't think they were art - I thought they were slides. Over indulgent pap being labelled art imo!


Edit: rereading my last two posts they sound quite harsh. Sorry. They weren't meant to.

[Matt]

I'm a fairly regular visitor to the Tate (love it there) and saw those but I didn't think they were art - I thought they were slides. Over indulgent pap being labelled art imo!

Exactly. Just because some "Art" is ****, you can't label all Art ****. Start doing that, you may as well call all Games **** as well.

[Brats]

I think Art HAS to mean something

I used to think the same and apparently it's a common mistake. Art doesn't have to mean anything literal or have a message. It can just exist for its own sake (which actually is meaning, but not in the way I think you mean).

There is a good example where a poet read a piece to an audience. They all applauded. One person in the audience asked what the poem meant. The poet thought about it and his response was to read the entire poem again (Sorry I can't remember the poet's name).

Art games which don't "mean" anything, give an example? There are some which are artistic and full of Artistry, like say Geometry Wars, but that's a different kind of visual art I'd have thought.

I don't know of any that don't mean anything. As I said, at the moment I think the creators think it must mean something to differentiate their games between others.

There are a lot of very beautiful games like Geo Wars and Viewtiful Joe which I don't think are art. Rez and Ico - possibly, but more because people have generally accepted them as art rather than any meaning.

Sure, Gravitation "played" pretty badly, but it had a message. I interpreted that in my own way, and gave the game a meaning that others would disagree with. It made me think about the decisions I'd taken in the game and what that means about me. Which in my books, makes it art.

Gravitation is art, but some people might also get that feeling from a game like Fallout 3. That on its own doesn't make a game art.

[noobish hat]

Electroplankton?

[Brats]

Partly but I think this aspect of art is oversold by the "elite". Frankly art and the art scene like anything else is about money and power for many of those involved and promoting context helps promote closure for a significant portion of art. But then I'm an incredibly cynical git.

I think there's an element of that, but context can add a lot. Take a table in an Ikea showroom - not much to say about it. But if I take that table and put it in an art gallery, suddenly the context adds to it. People will ask why this table is here, does it mean anything, what am i trying to show, etc. Now I could just be messing with people's heads - there's plenty of that in the history of art.

As Duchamp himself said:

"The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act."

Art Games need to the label of art at the moment to work. If a game like Marriage was just called Blobs and given away free on a DVD with 50 other games, it would lose all context.

[Brats]

Electroplankton?

I don't think that's art. You could argue it's not a game, but it was sold and marketed as a piece of entertainment.

[Brats]

I'm a fairly regular visitor to the Tate (love it there) and saw those but I didn't think they were art - I thought they were slides. Over indulgent pap being labelled art imo!

I'm sure some nutter would argue that the fact that you thought of them as over-indulgent pap makes them art.

In this case, the artist did give the slides a meaning. They were supposed to be a comment on 'travel in the future' or some guff. Personally I think that's twaddle - he was asked to fill the turbine hall, thought slides would be a good idea that no-one had done yet, panicked that people might not think they were art and tagged a crappy meaning onto them.

I still think they're art though - meaning or not.

[Matt]

Gravitation is art, but some people might also get that feeling from a game like Fallout 3. That on its own doesn't make a game art.

Absolutely. That's the thing about Art - different things to different people. As you yourself have pointed out, what we may see as **** art, some people think is great. I think anything creative can be described as Art, but that's not to say everything is worthwhile Art - that's an individual decision.

I think I'm going to be lazy here and quote from the Arthouse link, "What is an art game?". Best to ask the people who've given that question considerable more time than me:

This page collects answers to this fundamental question from various people in the artgame world.

In the case of the interview responses, the respondents were asked the following question: "Can you give us a one-sentence definition of art? In other words, how do you differentiate works of entertainment from works of art?"


Nick Montfort (Arthouse Games Interview):

"For a one sentence definition, I like Scott McCloud's---any activity that isn't based on survival or reproduction. There is a difference between art that exists mainly to pass the time or to amuse and that which is transformative, which helps us to understand new things about the ways we see, or about the language we use to communicate, or about the nature of the world and our relationship to it. But there's no simple test for telling one from another. By itself, being a blockbuster doesn't make a movie just entertainment, and being in an art gallery doesn't make something profound or beautiful. You can't even find out whether something is art (in the transformative sense) by interrogating the artist. You have to see if it transforms you."


Danny Ledonne (Arthouse Games Interview):

"I would be able to give you a more confident definition BEFORE my liberal arts education challenged everything I knew! I would say that "entertainment" is a subcategory of art. I'm not an elitist snob; even Jurassic Park or Con Air fulfill the minimum functions of "art." I just think that not all art has to be entertaining---certainly not videogames. Art can make us feel uncomfortable, guilty, sympathetic, or completely depressed. When was the last time a videogame made you feel like crying? Why couldn't it?

"So here's your definition: art is any form of expression that can be shared with an audience.

"I feel like if I were to be more specific I'd end up leaving out something I really like so I'll stop there."


Jonathan Blow (Arthouse Games Interview):

"There are a lot of things that we call art right now, and if I provide a one-sentence definition it will exclude some things that we consider art. Some people use definitions like "anything that is not necessary for survival," and if you like that, that's great, but for me it seems too broad to be useful. For the purposes of what I'm doing, it's: the expression of something the artist feels important or interesting, with the hope that the expression resonates with an audience in a deep way."


Rod Humble (Arthouse Games Interview):

"Entertainment is giving enjoyment to the maximum number of people you can. Art is that which can make at least one person a better human being. Long may they both prosper."


Raph Koster (A Theory of Fun for Game Design):

"So what is art? My take on it is simple. Media provide information. Entertainment provides comforting, simplistic information. And art provides challenging information, stuff that you have to think about in order to absorb. That's it. Art uses a particular medium to communicate within the constraints of that medium, and often what is communicated is thoughts about the medium itself (in other words, a formalist approach to arts---much modern art falls into this category)." (page 146)

"We often discuss the desire for games to be art---for them to be puzzles with more than one right answer, puzzles that lend themselves to interpretation. That may be the best definition of when something ceases to be craft and turns into art---the point at which it becomes subject to interpretation." (page 147-151)

End of the day, I'm glad people are exploring this avenue, seeing where it takes us.

[noobish hat]

yes but it's far closer to being a true 'art game' because it doesn't stray too far into 'game' or too far into 'art', having a good balance of both

[Matt]

Electroplankton?

Sorry, never played it so can't comment.

[JP]

Notice that in the quotes above people are giving different definitions of what art is. That's exactly what art is, it's whatever the hell you believe it to be.

Lets try to understand that arthouse and art aren't necessarily the same things and are very often very different.

I spent far too many years in art colleges trying to learn about art, learning practical skills, working with many artists, talking to them, arguing with them, fighting with them and pretty much having a really tough yet rewarding time throughout the whole experience.

I'm yet to see any game which approaches art any way at all but there are games out there which do have an artistic bias. If somebody who made the game or plays the game thinks it's art then it is art but there's very little point in art that is only art to one person.

One of the most difficult questions I was ever asked (I was asked it many times) was "what does it mean". For me I was always very happy to discuss my working methods, the materials I used, the reasons I did certain things, why something was a certain way instead of the other but the meaning that belongs to me and nobody else. If people want a meaning it's their responsibilty to find it for themselves and it will be their meaning they find not mine and that's what's important to me.

If somebody has spent 12 months creating something, there is no reason at all for them to give away that 12 months to somebody that hasn't experienced that 12 months, let them earn a meaning for themselves.

I typed a load more but I've decided to go with the above as I could well be here for bloody hours if I really get going.

[Matt]

Now that's out of the way....

If anyone plays any of the games mentioned, please post your thoughts on them. I'll be looking at another one on the light tonight.

[Brats]

Absolutely. That's the thing about Art - different things to different people. As you yourself have pointed out, what we may see as **** art, some people think is great. I think anything creative can be described as Art, but that's not to say everything is worthwhile Art - that's an individual decision.

I'm not sure that anything creative an be described as art. Me making tomato soup is creative.

I think I'm going to be lazy here and quote from the Arthouse link, "What is an art game?". Best to ask the people who've given that question considerable more time than me:

Wow, I didn't expect such a wide range of contradictory definitions. Thing is, with all of their definitions I can think of an example that disproves it. The 'any activity that isn't based on survival or reproduction' sounds quite good, except that getting a haircut falls into this definition of art, as does picking your nose or flicking an elastic band at someone.

The 'context' definition isn't mine, but I haven't found anything that disproves it (yet) which is why it's the definition I'm most comfortable with.

[Matt]

I'm not sure that anything creative an be described as art. Me making tomato soup is creative.

If I said the Earth Isn't Flat you'd find a way to argue, wouldn't you

[Brats]

If I said the Earth Isn't Flat you'd find a way to argue, wouldn't you

I can't help it if I happen to disagree.

As you said "I'm glad people are exploring this avenue, seeing where it takes us." I agree with that.