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GSL .
Joined: 16 Nov 2005 Posts: 725 Location: Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong
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Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 3:44 am Post subject: Roger Ebert reminds us once again who decides what art is |
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(Hint: It's Roger Ebert).
I know the "Roger Ebert thinks games aren't art" thing has been done to death here, and generally results in the usual wankery over Ico or Shadow of the Colossus (not that I'd disagree, especially since I've played neither of the games, they just seem to be the one-trick ponies paraded out most often for this argument) and/or dismissal of Roger Ebert's opinion in general, but still I thought I'd share the latest in Roger Ebert, Game Critic:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070721/COMMENTARY/70721001
It's basically Ebert taking extremely petty swipes at Clive Barker's address at the Hollywood and Games Summit held this past June. I don't care about the games as art debate; I enjoy my gaming much more without worrying about how cultured I feel because I totally 'get' Metal Gear Solid 2 (i.e.), but I seriously want to know what Ebert's problem is. What's the point of getting aggressive about the whole games as art movement? I wonder if he feels like his chosen medium--or his self-appointed position as tastemaker and fine critic for said medium--are under attack by these newfangled games, and so needs to reassert himself. I never cared much for Ebert's heavy-handed pretensions toward movie culture from the beginning, but now it seems like he's almost actively working to firmly limit the possibilites of games in the public mind. While I can't say that gaming has yet produced its Citizen Kane or Great Gatsby, I've read enough decent stories and played through enough cinematic presentations to see the potential.
I wonder if Ebert's opinion is even relevant anymore. He still seems to be held in some regard in the film world; do his gaming comments even register with the general public, or is he just flailing into a vacuum where only people interested in games take note? |
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Dracko .
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613
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Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 5:49 am Post subject: |
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He's a critic.
That makes him just about worthwhile as excrement on a shoe.
And Christ, we get it: He's old and unwilling to enter an actual debate, taking shots at the lowest, yet more public, figures in game development. His opinions of films is worthless, what makes people think those of a medium he has no interest whatsoever in engaging with are any better?
Gaming has had soaring heights of inspiration already. We don't need a Citizen Kane or a Great Gatsby (What? Is that when novels started being considered an art or something? It's a pretty boring book.), we've had our Half-Life 2, our Metal Gear Solid series, our Tetris, our Gradius...
I doubt Ebert or my parents consider modern music or comics art, and that's okay, because I don't feel the need to have them validated as such either. _________________ "This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!" |
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Cycle Mac daddy
Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767
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Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 7:20 am Post subject: |
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Dracko wrote: | (What? Is that when novels started being considered an art or something? It's a pretty boring book.) |
Citizen Kane is a pretty boring movie. _________________
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Dracko .
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613
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Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 8:31 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, Touch of Evil or The Trial were better, perhaps. _________________ "This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!" |
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ApM Admin Rockstar
Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 1210 Location: Ottawa, ON
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Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 1:14 pm Post subject: |
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Dracko wrote: | He's a critic.
That makes him just about worthwhile as excrement on a shoe. |
Well I guess I'd better stop writing videogame criticism for this fine magazine then.
The only thing I find interesting about Ebert's position is that he actually has a reason that sort of seems valid on the surface. He's not just going "Videogames? Pfeh! Bleeps and bloops! KID'S STUFF," he's actually making an argument.
1. Art requires authorial intent.
2. Interactivity subverts authorial intent.
Ergo, the reason you blubbered baby when Aeris died was because of the non-videogame bits of the game, and it would have been more effective if they had used a different medium and cut out the interactivity altogether. (As an example.) Which, you know, in that particular case, is probably not wholly wrong. I wouldn't know, though, having never played a Final Fantasy game.
Videogame criticism's own Stuart Campbell has reached the same conclusion for basically the same reason. Say what you will about Stuart Campbell, you can't tell me he just hasn't played enough videogames.
I'm happy to accept Point 1 for the sake of an argument; it's an axiom, so arguing it will get you nowhere. Point 2 you can actually have an argument about, though the refutation is pretty straightforward: the author sets the bounds of the interactivity, and they can set those boundaries such that they can make whatever artistic point they want to make.
I imagine he gets very few people arguing point 2, though, and torrents of people arguing point 1. He does get some sane argument, though (first response), and I don't know why he doesn't argue with those people, if he actually cares about the question. Maybe he just wanted to tell Clive Barker that he's an idiot? I mean, he kind of is. |
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Dracko .
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613
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Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 1:28 pm Post subject: |
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If I took all the books, films, music or games I love, then took into account the intent behind them, I'd probably have them burned. I really don't see how intent is important. The only thing that matters is what the audience gets out of something. "Art", or IPs as it were, may answer only to their maker, but that doesn't mean I have to take their opinion into account at all. _________________ "This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!" |
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GSL .
Joined: 16 Nov 2005 Posts: 725 Location: Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong
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Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 1:29 pm Post subject: |
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That's what really bugs me about the whole thing, I suppose, is Ebert's lack of willingness to engage any of the more reasoned responses on the subject. He just sits back and says, "I'm Roger Ebert, I know art, now let me tell you what it is." The only time he seems open to any sort of debate on the idea is when it's at the expense of someone like Clive Barker. I don't know the guy's work and have nothing against him, but his defense of the possibility of art in gaming wasn't the most articulate or convincing piece of rhetoric. |
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Dracko .
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613
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Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 1:31 pm Post subject: |
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It's great that only critics get to determine what's art or not. Where would their careers be without the concept? _________________ "This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!" |
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dhex Breeder
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 6319 Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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seriously dude let it go. critics criticize.
i really don't get it. unless you're involved in the industry do you give a shit what's art and what's not? shit man. stop fucking caring what people think about your off hour activities. be more like people into amputee porn (half out and proud).
i mean everyone's all zomgpunkdiygamez and all that shit but did people sitting in vfw basement halls all across this great land of hours watching their friends play 1,001 myriad variations on american hardcore stand around wondering what the living fuck anyone but some shmoe in the town over with a regionally popular fanzine thinks of their pastime? i'm sure they do now, with the internet and all that. its easy to forget we are social animals, and obsessing over relative social standing is what we do when we're not pursuing the maintenance of the body.
the problem is games don't get you laid like music does, and sensing this truth of truths implicitly - but denying it on its face - is where this ridiculous current comes from.
and when you're 70 or 80 you won't give a fuck about a whole bunch of shit too. it is my hope you'll remember these days with a degree of wistfulness.
sorry i just had a turbo ice and i have to go to karaoke tonight (don't ask) so i figured i'd cut to the chase and lay down god's own medicine. _________________
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table_and_chair .
Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 30 Location: mississippi
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Posted: Sat Jul 28, 2007 3:26 pm Post subject: |
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what if your authorial intent is to subvert art through interactivity _________________ BUT I HATE COMICS |
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Furious George .
Joined: 24 Jul 2007 Posts: 3
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 12:01 am Post subject: |
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Dracko wrote: | He's a critic.
That makes him just about worthwhile as excrement on a shoe. |
Ebert is a reviewer, not a critic. But, regardless, I think you downplay the value of film criticism. Criticism is about more than telling people what to think, as you seem to suggest. It's about analyzing a work, extracting meaning from it, and engaging your reader in discussion about your perceived meaning. |
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dessgeega loves your favorite videogame
Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 6563 Location: bohan
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 12:21 am Post subject: |
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i actually enjoy ebert's writing, though i couldn't care less about movies.
i think the debating what's art is like running in circles. assume nothing's art; let's talk about craft instead. _________________
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ApM Admin Rockstar
Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 1210 Location: Ottawa, ON
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 1:32 am Post subject: |
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Pardon me, I'm an idiot and I meant to say "Authorial control".
Dracko wrote: | If I took all the books, films, music or games I love, then took into account the intent behind them, I'd probably have them burned. I really don't see how intent is important. The only thing that matters is what the audience gets out of something. "Art", or IPs as it were, may answer only to their maker, but that doesn't mean I have to take their opinion into account at all. |
Oh, I don't disagree with you, but you will never, ever convince Ebert that his definition of the word "art" is wrong and should be replaced with yours. You're arguing about whether or not you're talking about the same thing. That argument isn't even vaguely interesting. Mentally replace "art" with "Ebe-art" when processing anything he says, if that helps you seperate what you think art is from what Ebert is saying games are not.
My only point is that there is an actual sort-of interesting argument lurking in there, and it's kind of tiring to watch people completely miss it in favour of self-righteous tirades against critics living in ivory towers feeling threatened by our awesome hobby or whatever.
The argument is, how much control can you give to the player before you're no longer able to make an artistic statement? Ebert suggests zero, but he's clearly out of his fucking mind. He posits some sort of bizarre fantasy world in which the player, when given any videogame adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, can always decide to make Romeo walk through the entire game on his hands. Well, maybe he's not stupid enough to believe that any interactivity automatically means complete player control over every aspect of the game, but at the very least, Ebert is (rightly) alarmed that people seem to think that this is where the medium should be heading.
We actually have the technology today to make total player control happen. It's called the word processor. And it's... not a game.
Why, it's almost as if it's not a game unless there are rules! Almost as if there is some sort of author exerting control over what the player can experience!
In fact, if those rules are chosen well, then videogames can be an especially potent way to lead the player to the sort of "inevitable conclusion" that Ebert maintains is necessary for great Ebe-art. Because now, not only can you show something with the hope that the person watching buys into it, you can put them into a situation where they are forced to lead themselves to that conclusion, because no other option will work. No matter how good you are at Missile Command, you cannot prevent the end of the world.
There, now wasn't that more fruitful than arguing semantics? |
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table_and_chair .
Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 30 Location: mississippi
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 4:00 am Post subject: |
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I enjoyed that. I just have to say I think it is very important to talk about things like this, that it is not running in circles. Similar to videogames, street art is not very respected in daily life, but someone like banksy can rise to prominence by basically taking the art-world on directly. This can ONLY be done by talking about it and being at least somewhat knowledgeable. Least of all, I like to hear about it. _________________ BUT I HATE COMICS |
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helicopterp .
Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 7:27 am Post subject: |
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I just wanted to throw out some opinions now that I'm a little late to the party:
1.) ApM, your last post was wonderful.
2.) Citizen Kane is not boring.
3.) Touch of Evil is better.
4.) Draco, I think your position on art as only worth what the audience gets out of it is selfish and limited. I won't argue that what people bring to a piece of art isn't a huge part of what art actually does, but someone still made it. Someone had to make thousands of choices in creating x-piece of art, and it is fascinating to evaluate anything from that perspective. _________________ Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one. |
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Dracko .
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 8:08 am Post subject: |
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I think your position is only as interesting as you, as a consumer of other people's art, allow it to be. An author can guide me by the hand and show me all he wants, and that's well within his right, but by the end of the ride, I get out of it what I want. Whether this means I'm going to write an essay on what he intended, or just get on with it, that's entirely within my own hands. I fail to see how this is selfish, as it's outright natural. If I wanted to be bashed over the head, I'd browse propaganda.
Ebe-art can fuck off, then. His opinions are of no importance in light of how well the industry is doing. The debate of control can do well enough without him butting in, and has already. _________________ "This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!" |
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SuperWes Updated the banners, but not his title
Joined: 07 Dec 2004 Posts: 3725
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 8:29 am Post subject: |
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Dracko wrote: | His opinions are of no importance in light of how well the industry is doing. |
What does this have to do with anything? I'm not sure that artistic movies do better than non-artistic movies. Isn't Ebert's example of a non-artistic movie (Spiderman 2) the biggest movie of all time?
I think games are art, but I also think that games may not be able to be Art (capital-A). The big issue for me is that when a game ceases to have rules and goals it stops being a game, and as soon as you have rules and goals you're closer to a sport than a work of Art. For example, Electroplankton might be Art (it's made by an artist, after all), but I'm not sure it's a game. Or that it's very good.
I'm not big on games being the bridge unifying sports and Art, so for now I'll just be content with videogames not being Art. But yeah, they're art (lowercase a) in the same way show fliers, trading cards, Spiderman 2, and sports are.
-Wes _________________
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parkbench .
Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 145
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 1:07 pm Post subject: |
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Wait, ebert seriously said Spiderman 2 is "non-artistic?" I hate the movie, but before I say anything else, what exactly did he say? Did he say it was "not art" or just..."low art?" |
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Swimmy .
Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 1:26 pm Post subject: |
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Low art. He's basically revised his thesis to say: "Games can never be 'high art.'" Which is also nonsense, but it's not like he can really know that anyway, having been exposed to far more movies about / based on videogames than just videogames. If he weren't so smart, I'd say I can't blame him, but I totally can. _________________
"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin |
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table_and_chair .
Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 30 Location: mississippi
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 2:10 pm Post subject: |
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LOWERCASE a = craft. I believe that's what dessgeega wanted to talk about.
Quote: | how much control can you give to the player before you're no longer able to make an artistic statement? |
An artist may choose to relinquish control forcing the player to be the artist in some kind of sociopolitical statement. For example, there was that professor Joseph DeLappe who logged into America's Army and allowed himself to be killed to publicize the name of an actual fallen soldier.
Whether or not that turns the creators of America's Army into artists (with a capital A) is pretty suspect, but I can imagine and would appreciate a scenario where someone like them in that situation, by relinquishing control, could.
I have actually been thinking about this the opposite way lately. I have envisioned an interactive sandbox game (which i would consider electroplankton to be, but i digress) where at the end of play you get a little representation of what you have done. For instance, in electroplankton if you were forced to put together some of the stuff you recorded and it was output to mp3. This is a next most logical step for videogames.
There was that artist, Alison Mealey, who used/uses generative art based on what appear to be maps from Unreal Tournament.
A quote by her:
Quote: | Q: It seems that you have a fair amount of control over the rendering of the image. What is the artistic point of using autonomous/generative strategies in your work?
A: I do have a certain amount of control, but I like to think of it more as persuasion. I'm trying to persuade the bots that these paths are a good direction in which to walk. It's up to them and the decisions they make based on the game's stimulus whether they stick to my preplanned routes or not. The images themselves would be very boring if the bots didn't deviate at all from the paths, this is the reason I only use large numbers of godlike bots to create the images. The godlike bots are more likely to change their path in order to give themselves an advantage during game play, novice bots barely deviate at all. At the end of the day it's the game and the activity that's taken place within it that draws the image, over this I have no real control, only the power of suggestion. |
_________________ BUT I HATE COMICS |
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dessgeega loves your favorite videogame
Joined: 16 Jun 2005 Posts: 6563 Location: bohan
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 2:30 pm Post subject: |
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table_and_chair wrote: | LOWERCASE a = craft. I believe that's what dessgeega wanted to talk about. |
well the thing is that "art" is vague, subjective and intangible - it's hard to discuss. craft is tangible, on the other hand - the actual choices of developers, the details of level design. it's much easier, and consequently more productive, to discuss craft. we could argue about art for witness_sixdays and never get anywhere. _________________
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table_and_chair .
Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 30 Location: mississippi
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Posted: Sun Jul 29, 2007 3:38 pm Post subject: |
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And I didn't mean that disparagingly. A want to talk about the crafting of videogames, and it coming up in a thread about "art", I see that as a productive thing and "getting somewhere". _________________ BUT I HATE COMICS |
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dmauro .
Joined: 20 Jul 2006 Posts: 303 Location: Brooklyn
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Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:33 am Post subject: |
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Roger Ebert wrote: | "Spiderman II" is one of the great comic superhero movies but it is not great art. |
I hear this implied quite often (from people chiding my strong interest in the movie), and while I'm not going to start debating what is and isn't art, I will say that I think people's prejudices about the genre this film superficially sits in informs their judgment of how valuable it can be. |
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player 2 .
Joined: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 585 Location: Madison, WI USA
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Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 9:02 am Post subject: |
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Dracko wrote: | Great Gatsby (What? Is that when novels started being considered an art or something? It's a pretty boring book.) |
Canterbury Tales because it was the first book to really get into the human psyche and tell us about ourselves.
Videogames have never had a cultural accomplishment on that level. They are fun and scary and sometimes even awe inspiring, but never have they really told us anything about the human experience (though they fucking should). Until that point, there's nothing that will link games to humanity, and games will never be considered "art" or "literature" in the longterm/historical sense of the word. _________________ Wii #: 8749 9109 9732 3653
"It is a peaceful way of understanding life, to play"
_Marcel Duchamp |
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dhex Breeder
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 6319 Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 9:34 am Post subject: |
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planescape?
yeah i could make a case for planescape being one of the few games that actually cares about the human condition enough to say something about it. (silent hill 2 would be the other major candidate) oddly enough both deal with regret, sorrow and loss, topics that are probably more easily appreciated by older rather than younger players. planescape deals with the weight of terrible, deliberately evil choices over the course of years, and actually explicitly asks "what can change the nature of a man?"
(i also see this desire to ask questions of this nature as being somewhat symptomatic of the jpn/na developer split as seen most heavily in rpgs but that's another dead horse for another thread.) _________________
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GSL .
Joined: 16 Nov 2005 Posts: 725 Location: Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong
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Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:10 pm Post subject: |
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ApM wrote: | The argument is, how much control can you give to the player before you're no longer able to make an artistic statement? Ebert suggests zero, but he's clearly out of his fucking mind. He posits some sort of bizarre fantasy world in which the player, when given any videogame adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, can always decide to make Romeo walk through the entire game on his hands. |
In my opinion, the creator will always have the final say on the artistic statement of a piece, especially something as interactive as a game. Gaming hasn't progressed to the point yet where we can create these strange situations--Romeo walking on hands--at will; we still have to operate within the bounds of the game world created for us. If the creator structures the game world so that every option the player is presented with allows for a bit of riffing on the initial artistic statement, then the creator has succeeded, but it's up to them in the first place. A beaten-to-a-pulp dead horse example that always seems to rise in these debates is Rez: no matter how syncopated or completely off-beat the player is in killing enemies, the game itself strings all the subsequent sounds together and still makes them sound like this evolving bit of BGM. So as long as the authorial intent is there, the control can be entirely ceded to the player, who despite taking full advantage of the freedoms in the game world is still working within the design of the creator. |
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helicopterp .
Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia
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Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 1:03 pm Post subject: |
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player 2 wrote: | Canterbury Tales because it was the first book to really get into the human psyche and tell us about ourselves. |
Seriously? I mean, Chaucer is captivating for plenty of reasons, his explorations of character (and their relationship to the demands of narrative) included. But do you really believe that he was the first person to write anything culturally relevant?
player 2 wrote: | Videogames have never had a cultural accomplishment on that level. They are fun and scary and sometimes even awe inspiring, but never have they really told us anything about the human experience (though they fucking should). Until that point, there's nothing that will link games to humanity, and games will never be considered "art" or "literature" in the longterm/historical sense of the word. |
I have a major problem with this post. Although my perspective is hardly new to the ongoing conversation about games or unique to me, I think it's worth reiterating. The videogame is a very different medium from print or film, the two media two which it draws the most comparisons. While some games may succeed in presenting a version of "the human condition" -- a fairly useless phrase, in my opinion -- resembling that of books and movies, most do not and should not. Games universally (I use that last term hesitantly; please inform me of any exceptions you think of) explore the relationship of (player) input and (consequential) output within a system of pre-conceived rules. To apply that idea to the notion of portraying human experience is simple: games, as a medium, are uncannily capable of reflecting the way individuals function in a society (although some games certainly use this idea much more effectively than others). By comparison, film and literature, which so infrequently or minutely rely on the conscious choices of an audience, seem positively underdeveloped in this regard. I doubt, however, that many (if anyone) would consider books and movies to be artistically deficient because of that kind of limitation. To evaluate games against the standards used for those other media, then, is in nearly every case inappropriate. The accusation that games lack artistic maturity because they do not, for instance, explicitly ask and effectively explore questions like, "what can change the nature of a man?" as often as films and novels have seems to me the product of insecurity rather than actual critical thought. This kind of petty anxiety -- what good is it to worry right now about how a body of snobby cultural gatekeepers will receive games though they may not conform to the more established and "proper" artforms? -- among those who appreciate what games do will only instill a similar lack of confidence from the arbiters upon whose approval we only erringly depend.
If we are to overcome the dismissive remarks of the Roger Eberts and the Harold Blooms who do not believe the videogame to be anything of consequence, neither petulant, combative arguments nor mum acquiescence to their beliefs will support our position. We must continue, then, to write about games under the confident and correct assumption that they are worth writing about. We must argue our case not in response to the derision or misgivings of others, but in response to the often fascinating ideas and aesthetics arising from games themselves.
This post became a little preachier than I had anticipated. Nevertheless, I stand by it. _________________ Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one. |
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table_and_chair .
Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 30 Location: mississippi
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Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2007 5:05 pm Post subject: |
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I wholeheartedly feel Tetsuya Mizuguchi is an artist with a capital A. _________________ BUT I HATE COMICS |
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Harveyjames the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636
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Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 1:41 am Post subject: |
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This is impossible to discuss on a videogames forum because to truly make any progress with this topic you first have to accept that nearly all videogames are junk (yep, even that one) and not worth defending.
I think for this medium to reach its potential as an artform it needs to realise and fully take advantage of its similarities to sculpture and installation art- where the experience is defined by how you move around and interact with the piece. Great work is done in this field, where you're basically just a person moving around a thing, discovering shit the artist wants you to find- there's no reason videogames can't achieve these heights too, since they're basically the same medium, with the added dimension that they don't have to adhere to the laws of physics or reality.
You can also throw in the dimensions of time and consequence, too. I think there's some truly amazing work to be made in the videogames field. It's got such amazing potential. Actually, I'm just starting to appreciate what a crappy and limiting term 'videogames' is. |
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table_and_chair .
Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 30 Location: mississippi
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Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 2:45 am Post subject: |
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If not here, then where? Let some art fag talk about this crap and feel important?
Anyhow, one thing I have gained from this thread is that the common 'videogame' is not any more junk than all of visual art. Either one I could take or leave on a good day, yet obsessively partake in.
That there IS, or can be, a distinction between high or low videogame has made me feel that it is OK.
Additionally, Katamari Damacy strikes me as being the closest thing to what you mention, HarveyJames, as a straight-forward art installation, and maybe alot of the ire it's creator faced when he decided to go off and make playgrounds was misdirected. Probably to him it seemed necessary to create things in a real space, an installation, and it was due to a pretty big misinformed audience that it seemed an outrage. One can imagine the monacles falling from their eyes.
I guess what I`m trying to say is, you can't play art installations disguised as videogames and say art is intangible and unknowable and impossible to talk about. _________________ BUT I HATE COMICS |
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Shapermc Hot Sake!
Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279
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Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 9:49 am Post subject: |
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You know, if anything what Ebart has done is good more than bad. It's going to push that damn kid to make the medium evolve to what it needs to be (Jon Mak?) or just push that publisher to defend their medium (Rockstar). I mean, it's not like Ebart is teh lawz or anything. He just has a good eye for film. _________________ “The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932
"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!" |
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fish .
Joined: 13 Jun 2007 Posts: 113 Location: montreal
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Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 1:15 pm Post subject: |
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but...but...he wrote beyond the valley of the dolls! _________________ you cant spell selfish without fish |
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dhex Breeder
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 6319 Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 1:29 pm Post subject: |
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i've said this before and i'll say it again, beyond the valley of the dolls is fucking awesome. _________________
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Harveyjames the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 2:45 am Post subject: |
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I like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, too! Don't make the mistake I made and buy the book 'Valley of the Dolls', though. I got it thinking it'd be a groovy Russ Meyer-style cult thing, and was disappointed to find it was in fact a Jackie Collins-style bonkbuster about small-town girls who move to the city to do unspeakably erotic things to musclebound tycoons : /
It does however feature the immortal chapter-closing line 'and she fell to her knees and made love to him', so it was worth it in the long run. If ever someone wants me to proof-read something that line gets slipped in somewhere. Also I told my friend it was the last line of the new Harry Potter. |
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The Soviet Onion .
Joined: 05 Dec 2006 Posts: 41
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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Games, in the generally used sense of the term, is a category that is mutually exclusive with art. The issue at hand arises because games as used to mean, roughly, "interactive computer mediated entertainment" covers a lot of things that aren't strictly elements of the former category (or that include sub-elements belonging to both). What makes it so utterly awful to figure out is that the two kinds of sub-element don't necessarily conflict, but can actually support each other’s aims.
I think a practical approach to investigating the issue would be looking at how text adventures shade into interactive fiction. The area isn't my speciality but people seem to be using the same tools to do entirely different things. Something like Shrapnel may have the form of a game, but its content is conventional literature.
I'm not saying that the appreciating the sculpture of the chess pieces is wrong, but videogame criticism does have a history of getting distracted from the purity of the rules of chess itself. Maybe it's just easier to focus on the familiar. However, people have been arguing that a something can be a good videogame without being, in the strictest sense, fun for a long time now. The example I'd personally use here is System Shock 2. Is it a good game? Is it a good game compared to Gridrunner++? Are they even the same thing? |
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table_and_chair .
Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 30 Location: mississippi
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Harveyjames the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006 Posts: 3636
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Posted: Sat Aug 04, 2007 3:58 am Post subject: |
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Yeah, everyone knows the true definition of 'art' is 'weird and faggoty'.
(the quotes are what I think they think) |
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Crazy Bacon Lips .
Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 88 Location: Ol' Virginny
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Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 3:11 pm Post subject: |
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dhex wrote: | planescape?
yeah i could make a case for planescape being one of the few games that actually cares about the human condition enough to say something about it. (silent hill 2 would be the other major candidate) oddly enough both deal with regret, sorrow and loss, topics that are probably more easily appreciated by older rather than younger players. planescape deals with the weight of terrible, deliberately evil choices over the course of years, and actually explicitly asks "what can change the nature of a man?"
(i also see this desire to ask questions of this nature as being somewhat symptomatic of the jpn/na developer split as seen most heavily in rpgs but that's another dead horse for another thread.) |
I found that exchange between Ravel and The Nameless One, one of the few voiced, uncontrolled bits of dialogue in the entire game, to be extremely compelling. I actually started to think about it, outside of my time with the game. Coupled with The Unbearable Lightness of Being, I fell into a mild depression that lasted for days on end. Because I realized that I believe that nothing can change the nature of a man. Sad shit.
But then again Planescape doesn't do much more than a dense choose-your-own adventure novel could. The game would have worked better as IF, but then I probably wouldn't play it. |
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dhex Breeder
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 6319 Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 6:47 pm Post subject: |
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Quote: |
But then again Planescape doesn't do much more than a dense choose-your-own adventure novel could. |
yup. you take what you can get.
still, good times. _________________
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Dracko .
Joined: 10 Oct 2005 Posts: 2613
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Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 7:12 pm Post subject: |
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Crazy Bacon Lips wrote: |
I found that exchange between Ravel and The Nameless One, one of the few voiced, uncontrolled bits of dialogue in the entire game, to be extremely compelling. |
Which exchange would that be? _________________ "This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!" |
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Crazy Bacon Lips .
Joined: 03 Apr 2007 Posts: 88 Location: Ol' Virginny
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Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 11:33 am Post subject: |
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Simply the part where she asked "What can change the nature of a man?" and you were given fifteen plausible choices.
There was no technical reason for it to be voiced, for control to be removed when she said it, but it was a profoundly perfect moment. My heart was pounding, yes POUNDING in my chest as I carefully weighed my choices! |
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Cycle Mac daddy
Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767
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Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 7:42 am Post subject: |
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_________________
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Swimmy .
Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA
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Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2007 1:11 pm Post subject: |
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I think of that comic every time this comes up. Thank you. _________________
"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin |
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Talbain .
Joined: 15 Aug 2007 Posts: 7
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Posted: Wed Aug 15, 2007 10:05 am Post subject: |
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There are worlds of experience beyond the world of the aggressive man, beyond history, and beyond science. The moods and qualities of nature and the revelations of great art are equally difficult to define; we can grasp them only in the depths of our perceptive spirit.
Ansel Adams
Also, Kojima doesn't think games are art. |
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parkbench .
Joined: 02 Jul 2007 Posts: 145
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Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 2:37 pm Post subject: |
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god i LOVE calvin and hobbes. how did it manage to exist and flourish in mainstream newspapers? it still boggles my mind. |
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helicopterp .
Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia
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Posted: Fri Aug 17, 2007 2:47 pm Post subject: |
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I think you underestimate the mainstream. I don't believe that most people are dead wrong about everything all the time. _________________ Like you thought you'd seen copter perverts before. They were nothing compared to this one. |
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vision .
Joined: 26 Nov 2006 Posts: 57
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Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 4:02 am Post subject: |
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--
Last edited by vision on Sun Jul 10, 2011 9:41 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Mr. Mechanical Friendly Stranger
Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 1276
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Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 9:59 am Post subject: |
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parkbench wrote: | god i LOVE calvin and hobbes. how did it manage to exist and flourish in mainstream newspapers? it still boggles my mind. |
Bill Watterson had to fight the syndicates, publishers, and newspaper editors tooth and nail every step of the way. If you can find a copy of the Calvin & Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Collection he goes into great detail about it all. _________________ Mr. Mechanical |
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dhex Breeder
Joined: 13 Dec 2004 Posts: 6319 Location: brooklyn, Nev Yiork
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Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2007 7:32 pm Post subject: |
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Quote: | If Roger Ebert is correct, I feel he would have to concede that Peter Greenaway was correct when he said "Cinema is dead," citing the remote control—which introduced interactivity to the medium—as one of the murder weapons. |
man, movies as a blind idiot drooling slave god that can't compete.
let me cry for you one more time horse and buggy flicky pickcha man.
seriously that's dumb. grow some stones. _________________
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