Of Games and Art

I recently participated in a comment thread on Gizmodo instigated by a post about Roger Ebert and his comments about games. Ebert said that games will never by high art, and unlike many of my internet-dwelling, tech-addled, male contemporaries, I agreed.

ME: I still support Ebert. He's right. High art is an expression of the artist. The demands of a game put limits on the artists expression separate from the inherent limitations of any sensory experience. That negates a game ever being high art.

I think games can get very close, but they have to take an increasing degree of control away from the player, reducing its status as a game. Like Myst, which was very artistic, but was nothing more than clicking through images.

HeartBurnKid: Agent of R.O.A.C.H.: Don't the demands of film put limitations on the artist? How about the demands of prose? The demands of paint on canvas? Any artist is limited by his medium; that doesn't make the final product not art.

ME: @HeartBurnKid: Agent of R.O.A.C.H.: That's what I mean by the inherent limitations of any expression. For example, I can't express sound with a painting. But INSOFAR as it is a visual expression of an idea, I as the artist have complete control. Even though a game has sounds and visuals, the angle of view, the course of events, the drama are all at the mercy of player control.

High art can be interactive, certainly. In fact many art installation involve interaction, but that interaction is an optional element that communicates something deliberate. The interaction of a game is a requirement, not an option, and as such the interactive element is a non-communicative part of the sensory construct.

KBlack: As Tycho from Penny Arcade said, consider this: how can a few dozen people make art for 4 years and the result not be called art?

Napilopez: You make interesting points, but it's such a difficult thing to assess, that at this point I feel like the argument has devolved into semantics, revolving around the essential question of "what is art?"

I have many ideas to elaborate on for this argument, so as to possibly take pages, but I will try to summarize as best I can while still remaining clear. I don't pretend to be an expert art connoisseur, but I have long thought about this debate. Forgive me if I am not so concise though, as I wrote this as a sort of stream of consciousness.

From my perspective, what I believe your definition of art is, is rather limiting. It limits the number of media through which art is allowed to be expressed, similarly to the way you say games are limiting to an artist's individual expression.

I currently prefer the definition of art as given by wikipedia. "Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging symbolic elements in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect".

Many videogames nowadays do all of this.

Let me start with a rather vague and simple example that will hopefully convey my point. Say an artist wants to convey the theme on individuality and personal choice. Or fun? What better way to convey such a message than through a videogame?

You mention that things such as angle, course of events, and drama are at the mercy of the player in a videogame. Yet in a sculpture, the angle of view is often largely up to the person viewing. In some interactive art pieces, which you have acknowledged as existing, you can control the course of events.

Also, can a medium not be two things at once? Why can videogame not be both entertainment and art? Certainly, entertainment and interaction are necessary constituents of videogames, but the way I see it, those simply help define games as a category of art. And sometimes the inter-category distinctions can become hazy. We define cubism, surrealism, and impressionism by certain characteristics of their presentation or construction, and sometimes these categorical distinctions might seem blurry. As I think you would agree, sometimes art can have a function or role outside of solely being aesthetically pleasing. Is the Sagrada Familia more work of art or church? Furthermore, why does it even matter? That it is such an aesthetic beauty does not significantly remove from it's religious role. Nor form the fact that it is a building, a shelter, a gathering place, and whatever other roles it may play. It's eccentric shapes may not be the best form of for any of these actions, yet it is still regarded as having all the qualities I mentioned. Likewise, videogames can entertain and be aesthetically pleasing at the same time. I disagree with you and hold that a videogame does not by necessity become less entertaining or interactive for being more artistic.

You said that myst was "artistic", but yet was nothing more than clicking through images. In such a case, it's distinctions between art and game are becoming blurry, but I don't that makes it any less of either. Additionally Myst isn't just about clicking through images, it's about clicking through them in the right ways. You cannot complete the game, unless you click the correct images. Clicking through images alone would be nothing more than a slideshow. Additionally, I think there re games that are much more interactive that myst, such as shadow of the colossus or kingdom hearts, that are also much more "artsy" than myst.

Finally, I'd like to assess the point of "high" art. I don't know what your definition of high art is, but I think it's agreeable in a crude sense that it involves those works of art that are placed in the highest regard in a culture, perhaps as a sort of consensus. It might seem like a circular argument, but to me, the simple fact that the subject of this article is being displayed so prominently at MoMa, one of the most renown institutios for the display of modern art, demonstrates that videogames can be high art.

If art is indeed about using deliberately placing elements to affect the senses, emotions, or intellect, then I do not see how interaction takes away from that, and in fact I believe it usually strengthens it. Even though videogames are made to allow human interaction, all the elements the player interacts with are deliberately placed by the developers. In my opinion, a videogame, as art, is both medium and "synergistic container". Medium, by being able to affect emotions through the happenings in the game. What does it matter if it happens slightly differently for each player, if they will still generally be receiving the same themes, going through the same story? "Synergistic Container" in the sense that it brings together different kinds of art. In the way a movie brings together static images, kinetic ones, and music, videogames can do all this and more.

Wow that was much longer than I thought lol.

Joonbug: @napilopez: I will write more on this to address your points as I'm on a time constraint at the moment, but just a few things:

Art isn't just about the aesthetics.

High Art (think Velazquez' "Las Meninas" and the interpretations thereof, or Courbet's "The Painter's Studio", or even Balthus' works) is about the complexity and nuance of the works, as opposed to Low Art which is immediate, shallow (WYSIWYG).

As a container and medium, it's not that the elements that consist of 'video games' (which is an extremely broad amalgam of technology) cannot be used as "art" -- look at Nam Jun Paik's works in pushing the boundaries of performance/video art -- but that it has yet to break the mold of its own devising in narrative, interpretation, and experience.

Even though a painting only has two dimensions and by nature is limited in the way you physically view it, the fact that there can be multitudes of interpretation and understanding beyond the physical attributes (color, style, composition) into the metaphysical (theme, allegory, emotions) is what makes it so amazing (with that said, we as the public look at art with a very reactionary, immediate perspective which is a goddamn shame).

Games have yet to give that sense of awe or resonance in my soul.

True art is hard. It takes complete dedication from an individual to create something that speaks to the contemporary yet transcends the time, place, and culture.

CommanderK: @Joonbug: And this is why most movies, and most books are also NOT art.

They don't really transcent time and place.

Video games have the potential, but I think that too much has to be taken away from the player in terms of what we expect in a game, to make them more like art.

A game is primarily for competition. Art is primarily for reflection.

Boundaries are blurry, but you won't find Final Fantasy VII in an art museum. Hell, Final Fantasy VII hasn't even aged very well. It's slow, the graphics, like most 3D games, don't age well, and the story, as moving as it was to a 13 year old (my age when I played it) is really kind of weak compared to what we consider good literature or good cinema.

Video Games are amazing fun, but the primary reason for creation, is for profit these days.

HeartBurnKid: Agent of R.O.A.C.H.: @Aaron Martin-Colby: Prose has a similar element, as it's up to the reader to imagine the visual element from the description he's given. In fact, I'd say a video game is the opposite of a novel in that way; whereas a novel supplies the narrative, and relies on the reader to supply the visuals, a game provides the visuals and the environment, and relies on the player to move the narrative forward.

ME: @KBlack: I'm not saying that it isn't art. I'm saying that Roger Ebert was right in saying that it's not HIGH art.

ME: @napilopez: I agree that we're getting tied up with words. I am not referring to art. I am referring to HIGH art. The perfection of artistic expression. There's some stuff on this in Wikipedia under High Culture. High art is the communication of something through a particular medium, while being limited only by the nature of that medium, nothing else.

All aspects of high art are communicative. Every aspect says something that the artist wants to say. A good analogy would be an illustration for a book. It can never be high art because it must necessarily communicate what it is

illustrating. Compare this to the works of Jackson Pollock, which wildly explore the potential of the visual medium.

"your definition of art is, is rather limiting. It limits the number of media through which art is allowed to be expressed."

I completely admit to that. High art does have a limited number of mediums through which it can be expressed. For example, painting, performance art, and music can all be high art, but architecture cannot. Architecture must achieve some end, be it heat, shelter, defense, or acoustics. Architecture as high art simply becomes sculpture.

"Say an artist wants to convey the theme on individuality and personal choice. Or fun? What better way to convey such a message than through a videogame?"

You're right, but say an artist wants to convey loss of control. They cannot do that within a game, because control is part of the game. Imagine a game where people always lose. It ceases to be a game at this point. That boundary of expression, beyond which it ceases to be a game, prevents games from being high art. Moreover, the fact that the artist chose a game to communicate something means that the game is not iself art, but part of an over-arching artistc construct. The artist made the explicit decision to say something with a game, but it is the expression, not the game that is high art. In the same way that a wonderful painting is not necessarily high art, only if that painting is part of a statement. For example, if I copy, stroke for stroke, Leonardo's "Madonna of the Rocks," it is not high art, but Leonardo's original is.

"You mention that things such as angle, course of events, and drama are at the mercy of the player in a videogame.

Yet in a sculpture, the angle of view is often largely up to the person viewing. In some interactive art pieces, which you have acknowledged as existing, you can control the course of events."

This is an interesting point. PARTS OF a game can be high art, but that's because they are virtual analogs of high art in the real world. A sculpture in a game can be high art just as a sculpture in real life can be high art. But that is not the game. The gestalt of the game cannot be high art in the way that the gestalt of a movie can be high art, though.

I do acknowledge the existence of interactive art, but that interactivity is part of the art. The artist is saying something explicit with the art insofar as it is interactive. The artist can take the interactivity away to say something else and it remains art. Take the interactivity away from a game and it ceases being a game.

"As I think you would agree, sometimes art can have a function or role outside of solely being aesthetically pleasing."

I vehemently disagree. In fact, high art is the absolute antithesis of this. High art, by definition, exists for its own sake. It is in this way that I go so far as to say that many, if not most, movies do not achieve high art, because they are themselves beholden to the requirement of entertainment. When movies become completely artistic, they can easily turn into bizzare audio-visual contructs like "Un Chien Andalou" by Salvador Dali, or some of the works of early Soviet directors like Sergei Eisenstein, who in movies like "October," used the medium almost exclusively to communicate abstract concepts through images. More modern movies like David Lynch's "Eraserhead" fit this bill rather well, too. But this is beyond the point. We are discussing the inherent limits of an endeavor, and movies have proven that they CAN BE high art, even if most are not.

"Is the Sagrada Familia more work of art or church?"

It doesn't matter. It is certainly a work of art, but it is not high art. It has a purpose outside of the art.

"I disagree with you and hold that a videogame does not by necessity become less entertaining or interactive for being more artistic."

We do not disagree. I'm saying that as a game moves closer towards HIGH art, it must necessarily become less a video game because the transition to high art requires the perfection of the artistic expression. A game can be incredibly artistic, much like a building can have incredibly artistic flourishes, but the gestalt of the game, same as the building, cannot be high art because it does not exist for its own sake.

PARTS OF the game can conceivably be high art, much as a sculpture adorning the outside of a building can be high art, but we're not arguing about the textures, or the 3d models in the game, which are just virtual representations of things that are certainly high art, namely painting and scuplpting.

"I think there re games that are much more interactive that myst, such as shadow of the colossus or kingdom hearts, that are also much more "artsy" than myst."

I used Myst to illustrate that it was closer to high art than games with higher degrees of control. It is still NOT high art, but since the angles and positions were all pre-chosen and rendered by the programmers, Myst is closer to high art than a game like Halo, which provides freedom that exceeds the expectations of the programmer. For example, in Halo, I can break out of the game map and wander around in un-programmed nether space outside of the map. This is impossible in a painting or music. I cannot break out of what the artist intended me to see.

Even high art that is interactive, if I succesfully break out of the pre-programmed area, its status as high art is not lost because the very control that allowed me to break out is PART OF the art. In Halo, the control was required to maintain its status as a game.

"Finally, I'd like to assess the point of "high" art. I don't know what your definition of high art is, but I think it's agreeable in a crude sense that it involves those works of art that are placed in the highest regard in a culture, perhaps as a sort of consensus. It might seem like a circular argument, but to me, the simple fact that the subject of this article is being displayed so prominently at MoMa, one of the most renown institutios for the display of modern art, demonstrates that videogames can be high art."

High art is art that exists for its own sake. That is essentially the definition of high art. Cultural acceptance or recognition has nothing to do with it, since high art is frequently seen as trash by the culture that spawned it, and only recognized as masterworks years, or even generations later.

"It might seem like a circular argument, but to me, the simple fact that the subject of this article is being displayed so prominently at MoMa, one of the most renown institutios for the display of modern art, demonstrates that videogames can be high art."

Yes, but the fact that it is a game is saying something explicit. He could have said what he wanted to say in some other way, but he chose a game. That means that the control itself MEANS SOMETHING outside of simply being a game. It stops being merely a video game and becomes an interactive art installation. Ubisoft does not have the choice of making the next Splinter Cell as something other than a game, like, say, an enormous flip-book.

Similarly, I can take a game like Halo and present it as art, but it's not the game that I want to communicate. As the artist, I'm saying that something about this is art to me, and I am trying to communicate that. Perhaps it's the time in which the game was made. Perhaps I want to make a statement about agression. Regardless, the art lies above the game in this scenario where the game merely becomes part of the greater statement.

"If art is indeed about using deliberately placing elements to affect the senses, emotions, or intellect, then I do not see how interaction takes away from that, and in fact I believe it usually strengthens it. Even though videogames are made to allow human interaction, all the elements the player interacts with are deliberately placed by the developers. In my opinion, a videogame, as art, is both medium and "synergistic container". Medium, by being able to affect emotions through the happenings in the game. What does it matter if it happens slightly differently for each player, if they will still generally be receiving the same themes, going through the same story?"

The interaction can certainly strengthen certain things, but the fact that the interaction is REQUIRED negates games as a perfectly communicative medium. The fact that every person experiences the game differently, while seemingly innocuous,is actually the killing blow to games as high art. Unless that difference in experience is purposely put in, it's not high art. High art requires the, at least, theoretical perfection of an expression. Because games require interaction, that theoretical limit is negated.