Computer Games as an Art Form

The Eyes of Evi · Post by **The Eyes of Evi** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 12:51 pm

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to my little rant about computer gaming's lacking recognition as the art form it is. If you're anything less than a geek of truly colossal proportions, I suggest not reading this thread, because you'll be instantly repelled by the sheer nerd-factor of it all.
If this is uncontestably a wrong forum for this post, please move it.

The reason I'm posting this on the PS: T forum is that Planescape is just that. It's a masterful work of interactive art; if any of you people who helped make it by some chance read this, my hat is entirely off to you. Walk the streets of Sigil and marvel at the weirdness of it all. Pause for a moment to simply look at the otherworldly creatures that stalk the cosmopolitan promenades of the City of Doors.
This is art, my friends. This is like a series of paintings with several absolutely marvellous novels of material behind it; imagine what they could have done given more time and less pressure - imagine what Black Isle and their tragically-fated successor, Troika Games could have accomplished with the cultural support and financial backing of a recognised art form. How many painters are not allowed to sit in their studios and produce pictures that reach only a small fraction of pretentious individuals, living(admittedly, not richly) off of tax money?
Culture for the masses, people. Culture for the masses. It used to be books, now it's computer- and console-based games.

Now, RPGs like Planescape only reach a relatively small percentage of the gamer market - but that's still a lot of people. If gaming could be made a little less profit-oriented, you'd see a lot more games like this; games that, as opposed to making cash-cows for safe return of investment. Subsidise the gaming industry, and you'll find masterpieces pop up far more frequently than they have before.

There are books titled things like "the Art of Film" and "1001 films to see before you die". Film is a recognised art form, and as a result you find a lot of very, very good stories told in films(yes, it's not perfect - there's a lot of trash in films as well, I know).

I would like to see something like this happen to gaming, as well. Playing Planescape: Torment again made me realize that computer games have it in them to be truly great pieces of art.

And thus, since I'm no good at writing endings, we come to a conclusion. Just my little bone of contention, as it were.

Yours Truly
The Eyes of Evi.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 12:55 pm

Moving this to Speak Your Mind, where it both belongs, and will get more comment--but leaving a link behind in PS:T.

Dottie · Post by **Dottie** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 4:59 pm

I must confess I don't think computer games qualifies as art yet. To call something an art form I think it must have been used to communicate important ideas about human nature, our society or politics. If this has never been done then we are probably talking about a form of entertainment instead. Even though it might be very good entertainment.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 5:03 pm

Dottie, I did come across this, recently. I don't know if that meets your criteria, but it does come rather closer to the "computer gaming as art" than anything else I've seen to date. To quote from the designer of this very short game:

Passage is meant to be a memento mori game. It presents an entire life, from young adulthood through old age and death, in the span of five minutes. Of course, it's a game, not a painting or a film, so the choices that you make as the player are crucial. There's no "right" way to play Passage, just as there's no right way to interpret it. However, I had specific intentions for the various mechanics and features that I included. You've probably figured most of these out already, but I wanted to put forth a few explanations for anyone who is interested.

It's in the selection of mechanics that the thought, and possibly the art, lies. If art can be qualified.

Claudius · Post by **Claudius** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 5:14 pm

art is in the eye of the beholder

Dottie · Post by **Dottie** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 5:19 pm

@Fable: I don't know if it meets my criteria either. I'm a bit too daft right now to get it. I'll take another look later when my brain works better.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 5:27 pm

Claudius wrote:art is in the eye of the beholder

Some factors are relative, but others depend upon a level of performance expertise that can be standardized, and used for comparison.

Otherwise, a game like the Mario Brothers could be considered just as "artistic" as, say, Planescape: Torment, or SimCity. And it isn't.

Claudius · Post by **Claudius** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 5:43 pm

I still think art is in the eye of the beholder! Not in ivory towers.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 6:15 pm

Claudius wrote:I still think art is in the eye of the beholder! Not in ivory towers.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by using the phrase "ivory towers" as an obvious pejorative. Since we aren't discussing art as something exclusively owned by anybody or anything, what do ivory towers have to do with it? Surely we all stamp on the earth, breath as deep as we can, and are here, really here? We compare, contrast. This is no ivory tower. This is the earth.

Claudius · Post by **Claudius** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 8:55 pm

So then who gets to standardize (your word) what art is? and why isn't it then in the eye of the beholder then in any case (the ones standardizing being the beholder(s))?

The only difference is you believe 'experts' rather than your own discernment, I guess.

DesR85 · Post by **DesR85** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 8:56 pm

I saw this thread, did a Google search, and came across [url="http://gamepolitics.livejournal.com/357698.html"]an article[/url] from Game Politics. I'm not too sure what to make of it as I am not very familiar with the subject matter.

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:00 pm

Claudius wrote:I still think art is in the eye of the beholder! Not in ivory towers.

Commenting on your above statement could potentially lead to very long discussion about the definition and universality of art, and it would probably also lead into aestethics and even epistemology. I don't wish that dicussion, but I still must say that I don't understand your statement.

The first part, "art is in the eye of the beholder" sounds like a version of dadaism (I've always loved Marchel Duchamp) or, a version of the typical relativist postmodernist attitude which makes all words and concepts meaningless since nothing can be defined at all. Simply put, if everything is art, nothing is art. If you have no critera, everything qualifies just because one person thinks so. Is that what you mean?

The second part, I don't understand either. English it not my native language, but I understand "Ivory tower" to denote something esotheric, elitist and exclusive.

So if I understand you right, you are saying "everything is art if somebody thinks so, art is not elitist". This statement however, is a false dichotomy putting up two things as if they were oppsites. If art is "in the eye of the beholder" it gets extremely exclusive since you may then have art that only one person in the universe understands as art. Furthermore, if everything is art depending on personal taste and opinion, that is not opposite to art being exclusive or elitist. I can't connect the two, to me it's like you are saying "everything in the world can be black, so while is elitist".

I think art, like all other words and concepts, should have a defined meaning, otherwise language is meaningless and useless for any sort of communication between people.

As for my definiton of art, I go roughly with the intentionally organised sensory stimuli created by humans with the intention of expressing something. The quality of art should be judged according to a set of variables, among the the skill demanded to produce the piece, the degree of novelty, the degree of impact on the field of art and influence in other areas ie politics, society, development etc, whether it is genre creating or genre defining etc, etc.

Planescape is a good game, but it's not art IMO. I don't see any principle reason why computer games couldn't be art, but Planescape would be bad art in that case

It's very nice to be a computer game, but it's not in even in the same dimension as King Lear, David, Guernica or Shostakovitch's 10th symphony.

Yogge Sothothe · Post by **Yogge Sothothe** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:07 pm

Blah, this "debate" is so utterly moot I can't believe its still even discussed.

What is art? 1) A means of communicating the abstract or what can't be expressed through words. 2) A medium which produces or reproduces within the consumer of that medium an intended (and occasionally unintended) set of emotional and/or intellectual states--that is, the previously mentioned abstract. 3) A process through which participating in these induced states of thought has the result of allowing the participant to better understand himself (and if a deeper art is reached, his relation to society and the world).

Do games fulfill these criteria? Yes. Do even games like Tetris fulfill these criteria? Yes. Does it matter worth a da** if certain parts of society don't recognize this? No. Let's move on already.

fable · Post by **fable** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:12 pm

Claudius, looks like CE beat me to the punch. I will only add that I think you're engaging in the Law of the Excluded Middle: either a person with the most "knowledge" is the final arbiter on, well, something, or there is no knowledge, and no arbiter possible. There's a large land to explore there between the two, and a lot of interesting sights to see.

Claudius · Post by **Claudius** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:18 pm

but art is not science

I trust my own discernment on what art is. If an art critic says that planescape torment is art I don't gawk in awe and say "and so it is written...planescape torment is art".

In fact art only has meaning to an individuals perception. Perhaps there is no art. That is fine.

In effect art is personal to me and not a social convention.

What if art critics told you that dog crap was art? They could say that they had studied the topic for years and that it was definitely true. They could even describe what 'ism' or movement it was.

I reject this notion of art as a social convention.

Reminds me of the dead poets society where they tore out the pages of the book defining art as the defined as the level of skill necessary to create the work x the effect on society. Bah@!

I would define art as an expression of the human heart which may or may not be recognized. I would also state that it cannot be measured.

Yogge Sothothe · Post by **Yogge Sothothe** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:36 pm

A pile of dog crap is not art because art requires pre-meditated intent to communicate. Now if someone took a picture of that pile of dog crap, or otherwise mediated it into a presentation form, then it *could* be art, although any form of media which is meaningless cannot be art. This is difficult, however, as anything which is framed and presented can induce meaning. Context is everything (Consider Duchamp's Fountain).

But just because something can be classified as art does not mean that it has value as art.

Claudius · Post by **Claudius** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:40 pm

ok so if the dog is communicating his displeasure at not getting a walk then you believe it is art :laugh:

Yogge Sothothe · Post by **Yogge Sothothe** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:43 pm

No because this is not abstract by any means. The fact that there is only one manner of interpreting it, as well as the fact that you have placed that manner into exact words, also indicates this is not an abstract communication.

Claudius · Post by **Claudius** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:52 pm

I think that what I recognize is that what makes something art is simply a thought that it is art.

If I sit down and draw a picture and I think ok I'm going to express my mood then that is art.

What I recognize is that it is merely mental labeling that it is art. In that sense art is shifty and not solid. You would have to study Tibetan Buddhism for awhile to get the flavor of what I am experiencing. Or perhaps you will catch on who knows?

Anyhow art is impermanent, composed of parts, and merely labeled. Convention. By noticing it is merely thinking the conviction in it collapses and you can relax and enjoy it.

I heard a story about tulku Trungpa Rinpoche overheard speaking with another lama. "That is what they call a tree" (both laugh). I guess when I go to an art museum what I say to myself is "that is what they call art".

But art as a yogic experience is actually an expression of emptiness-luminosity.

Yogge Sothothe · Post by **Yogge Sothothe** » Sun Mar 23, 2008 9:57 pm

I understand where you are coming from in that in your opinion, the experience itself constitutes art. A blowing leaf can be called "art." But we are necessarily discussing a concrete definition of art here. Art requires human participation in its creation as well as in its consumption. A natural occurrence is not art, it is nature. This doesn't mean that it has to be permanent in its presentation, and indeed, many forms of art are not (consider performance art).

A higher state of mind is not necessarily art. An experience which produces a higher state of mind alone is not necessarily art. The key here is mediation.