In my previous post, I simply uploaded a discussion thread from another website in which I argued that Roger Ebert was correct in saying that a game will never be art. I have perfectly defined what I mean.
A game is a rule set. That's all. It is a rule set applied to corporeal things. Checkers is a rule set applied to small plastic disks and a board. Checkers is not the disks and board themselves. Halo is a rule set applied to digital information and a controller. It's remarkable how this comes back to Wittgenstein so well, because he used this very example in Philosophical Investigations. But where Wittgenstein was concerned with the absolute meaning of the word game, I am only interested in the usage of the word that applies to the sorts of games that we're discussing. Video games must have rules. Truly, the very fact that they are programmed requires underlying rules for the programming itself to work.
So, in this sense, of course games can't be art of any kind, because that's all a game is: rules applied to something. Those rules can be part of art, but not art themselves. A decent example is the game A Force More Powerful, where you overthrow governments with peaceful demonstrations. The game is nothing amazing. It's essentially a real-time-strategy game where you use protesters instead of tanks. But the message the game carries is arguably art.
So now I come to the crux of my post; video games are a medium almost beyond comparison. As technology advances, the rules will always be there, but the experience will become ever-more immersive, allowing for art to come forward. The game is not the art, because the game is not part of the expression, but after awhile, does it become moot?
What I mean to say is, take a sculpture made of stone. Now take a sculpture made of polygons. One is a digital simulacrum, but is no less artistic. The process of creation is identical, only the material has changed. A virtual sculpture can be just as artistic as a real one. The same goes for music in a game, or paintings, or dialog. The rules, and thus the game are not art, but once we get to a point where everything in the game is art, does it become pointless to distinguish between games not being art and games being filled with art? Does it just become more efficient and more sensible to say that the games are art?
I am actually inclined to say so. I consider it beyond contest that rules cannot be art, and as such games cannot be art. But if everything to which the rules apply are art, we might as well not split hairs and just call the game art.
Showing posts with label aesthetics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aesthetics. Show all posts
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Saturday, January 08, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
On Beauty
Philosophy is a good endeavor, but it fails to connect with most people. The mass of men are at least vaguely philosophical about life, but it's the sort of late-night, half-baked philosophizing that they do.
Aesthetics is one of those areas that garners less and less attention in genuine philosophical circles while, compliments of shows like Project Runway, My Fair Wedding, What Not to Wear et al. This isn't because philosophers are losing interest in it, but since aesthetics is a judgment of an internal nature, it's slowly being absorbed into neuroscience and the study of mind. These are experimental sciences.
This isn't entirely surprising. Philosophy has a grand history of having areas hijacked by experimental science, which is a good thing. But when most people talk about aesthetics, they're not discussing experiments involving control groups and finely tuned experimental elements. For most people, beauty is actually a thing. Some things have it, while others don't.
How philosophy as an industry has managed to fail engaging a world so engrossed with beauty in some substantial way is beyond me. The subject has been thrust upon us. All we have to do is produce the books. A deeply complex discussion of fashion throughout the generations, or architecture. One of the only very good examples of this sort of writing is The Architecture of Happiness, which was an excellent look at architecture and what it means. But one book does not a genre make. Moreover, it wasn't a very accessible book. It was loaded to the brim with flowery language and longer-than-necessary sentences. Basically, it was interesting to me because I already had an interest in the subject. It had no effect on outsiders.
Compare this with the monstrous success of The Secret. A wannabe philosophical book entirely composed of pseudo-spiritual drivel. Yet it sold. Holy shit did it sell. It sold because it tapped into what people wanted. They want meaning, power, and answers. It makes the world seem less scary and more understandable. That's the fucking point of philosophy! We should have a monopoly on this stuff! Yet, we don't. We continue to write for journals read only other philosophers.
Beauty is the most obvious example of something that is generally accepted by the population, enjoyed and consumed in large amounts, and is a legitimate philosophical concept.
Aesthetics is one of those areas that garners less and less attention in genuine philosophical circles while, compliments of shows like Project Runway, My Fair Wedding, What Not to Wear et al. This isn't because philosophers are losing interest in it, but since aesthetics is a judgment of an internal nature, it's slowly being absorbed into neuroscience and the study of mind. These are experimental sciences.
This isn't entirely surprising. Philosophy has a grand history of having areas hijacked by experimental science, which is a good thing. But when most people talk about aesthetics, they're not discussing experiments involving control groups and finely tuned experimental elements. For most people, beauty is actually a thing. Some things have it, while others don't.
How philosophy as an industry has managed to fail engaging a world so engrossed with beauty in some substantial way is beyond me. The subject has been thrust upon us. All we have to do is produce the books. A deeply complex discussion of fashion throughout the generations, or architecture. One of the only very good examples of this sort of writing is The Architecture of Happiness, which was an excellent look at architecture and what it means. But one book does not a genre make. Moreover, it wasn't a very accessible book. It was loaded to the brim with flowery language and longer-than-necessary sentences. Basically, it was interesting to me because I already had an interest in the subject. It had no effect on outsiders.
Compare this with the monstrous success of The Secret. A wannabe philosophical book entirely composed of pseudo-spiritual drivel. Yet it sold. Holy shit did it sell. It sold because it tapped into what people wanted. They want meaning, power, and answers. It makes the world seem less scary and more understandable. That's the fucking point of philosophy! We should have a monopoly on this stuff! Yet, we don't. We continue to write for journals read only other philosophers.
Beauty is the most obvious example of something that is generally accepted by the population, enjoyed and consumed in large amounts, and is a legitimate philosophical concept.
Friday, July 02, 2010
Video Games and Art
Roger Ebert has recently apologized for saying that video games can never be high art. I have no idea why.
He's right, 100%. Video games can never be high art as a function of their nature as video games.
A good example of this is the Halo games and Halo books. I was a HUGE halo player back in the day, so I read some of the Halo books. In the books, the star, the Master Chief, also the character that the player controls, is a near-unstoppable juggernaut who can run 50mph, lift cars, and pull off Matrix-like movies. In the game, he can barely keep up with ordinary soldiers, and if he kills enough of his own guys, they turn into super-soldiers and kill him.
Why the difference? Because the perfect narrative of the book allows things that the game doesn't. This isn't a deficit that better game design is going to overcome. The game will always be limited by the interactive aspect, which necessitates rules and consistency. A purely artistic narrative allows things like Finnegan's Wake. Just imagine something like that as a game!
Games as far as the narrative goes can be high art, but that's not the game, that's the controlled narrative. Games can be artistic, but there's a huge difference between artistic and high art. High art is the perfected expression of the artist, something that rules and controls render impossible.
Roger Ebert Apologizes: 'I Was A Fool For Mentioning Video Games' (The Huffington Post)
He's right, 100%. Video games can never be high art as a function of their nature as video games.
A good example of this is the Halo games and Halo books. I was a HUGE halo player back in the day, so I read some of the Halo books. In the books, the star, the Master Chief, also the character that the player controls, is a near-unstoppable juggernaut who can run 50mph, lift cars, and pull off Matrix-like movies. In the game, he can barely keep up with ordinary soldiers, and if he kills enough of his own guys, they turn into super-soldiers and kill him.
Why the difference? Because the perfect narrative of the book allows things that the game doesn't. This isn't a deficit that better game design is going to overcome. The game will always be limited by the interactive aspect, which necessitates rules and consistency. A purely artistic narrative allows things like Finnegan's Wake. Just imagine something like that as a game!
Games as far as the narrative goes can be high art, but that's not the game, that's the controlled narrative. Games can be artistic, but there's a huge difference between artistic and high art. High art is the perfected expression of the artist, something that rules and controls render impossible.
Roger Ebert Apologizes: 'I Was A Fool For Mentioning Video Games' (The Huffington Post)
Monday, September 07, 2009
Designing With Purpose.
I hate artists.
I have a lot of friends that are either currently in, or have gone to, art school. There is a strange prevailing notion that if you must survive by selling your art in a commercial sense, then you have failed. As though not getting people to part with god-awful gobs of money for your artistic flights of fancy which you have barfed onto paper, or clay, or stone, means that you are not a TRUE artist.
I think that this is entirely backwards. Art for art's sake is art, but it's also useless. Unless you attach a purpose to it, then you've achieved nothing. Is the purpose to inform? To entertain? To enlighten? Great books live on, enriching and delighting people generation after generation. There is value in that. A painting can have purpose, but the artist must know what it is. The artist must know what he is trying to communicate.
Art is best when it has that purpose. Art without purpose is aesthetic masturbation in the same way that the more esoteric aspects of philosophy are mere mental masturbation. Fun for the person doing it, but why should anyone else care?
I hate artists who think of themselves as geniuses. Andy Warhol, for all of the cool things he created, was not a genius. He was a self-centered twat who thought the absolute world of himself. If Warhol had never lived, the world would be damn near identical to how it is, now. And what have you done as an artist? Why is a painting by any of the manifold artists alive today worth a gajillion dollars? What value does it have that any other aesthetic production doesn't have?
You do not succeed as an artist by selling blowing an artistic cum load to people who are so puzzled by this strange thing whizzing past them called life that they need to reach out and grasp at experiential things to validate their own seemingly meaningless existence. Art critics, grand galleries, bah! It's all worthless.
From an economic standpoint, I cannot argue with the financial value of many of the paintings. They are worth what someone will pay. If someone is willing, regardless of whether I think them an idiot or not, that's how much it's worth. But the entire system built up around that process. The critics who give thumbs-up or thumbs-down, the rich fools who fall in line and purchase and re-purchase as though they have some fundamentally valuable resource.
I find it no surprise at all that all the hollow, ridiculous fools who populated Wall Street, donated such epic amounts of their money to the arts. They began to realize how inconsequential and pointless their little life of number games was. And what do fools without a sense of existential confidence do? The turn to art. Half of the museums in New York announced financial problems as soon as all the rich twits funding them went bankrupt.
There is no value to art for art's sake. It must do something. That end goal may be artistic, but the application must be understood. Some pompous shit can't just barf onto canvas and expect that someone will want it for $50,000. He must know what his art is for.
And that's the key problem. So many artists think that art is an existentially pure entity. They think that it can exist by itself, free of other things. I argue that it cannot. It must be attached to something. Whether it's a painting for a room, or a wall; or a sculpture to welcome people to a stadium. Art is the icing on the cake, but artists think that it's all that exists. A room without a painting is still a room that can be lived in. What is a painting sitting in a field? It's nothing. It's paint on paper in a pattern that is meaningful to only a few.
I love art. Flights of artistic fancy in architecture give a building character, communicate something about the architect, the time, the place, truly the zeitgeist of the building's construction. An artistic building is more valuable than a non-artistic building, but it must still be a building.
Even a great work of art like Starry Night. Once it is created, people enjoy it, they stare at it. But what do they do with it? They put in on their computer desktop. They get a poster of it for their bedroom. They get it on a credit card (like me). They enjoy it as art for its own sake, but they apply it to things. They apply it to the trappings of life, of which art is not a part. They use art to make life better, but art without that life is worthless.
Why am I ranting about this? Because I think that pestilence of opinion in art schools does a disservice to art students. Instead of encouraging them to find new and novel ways to apply their art to things, they are told that art as anything other than a mere expression is inferior. And if you fail at that, well youre' just not good enough.
In economic terms, you are making a product. It is your job to make people want your product. I got to the websites of artists who only upload low-res versions of their work, and then try and sell prints. No! No no no no! You should be doing your best to disseminate your work, get it out there. Give it away! If you don't know what to do with your work, let others see it and decide. You may get a commission to do a mural on a wall. Or a portrait of a family dog. Art was once like that. The great artists of the renaissance usually made their money appealing to the vagaries of the wealthy. They loved their art, but they knew what they made. They made a product that they damn well better sell.
By that useless art school paradigm, 99.9% of artists will fail. By my paradigm, you can become a world-renowned artist, or a great local one, and everything in between. There are many different levels of success in a world of art-as-product, but very few levels of failure.
I have a lot of friends that are either currently in, or have gone to, art school. There is a strange prevailing notion that if you must survive by selling your art in a commercial sense, then you have failed. As though not getting people to part with god-awful gobs of money for your artistic flights of fancy which you have barfed onto paper, or clay, or stone, means that you are not a TRUE artist.
I think that this is entirely backwards. Art for art's sake is art, but it's also useless. Unless you attach a purpose to it, then you've achieved nothing. Is the purpose to inform? To entertain? To enlighten? Great books live on, enriching and delighting people generation after generation. There is value in that. A painting can have purpose, but the artist must know what it is. The artist must know what he is trying to communicate.
Art is best when it has that purpose. Art without purpose is aesthetic masturbation in the same way that the more esoteric aspects of philosophy are mere mental masturbation. Fun for the person doing it, but why should anyone else care?
I hate artists who think of themselves as geniuses. Andy Warhol, for all of the cool things he created, was not a genius. He was a self-centered twat who thought the absolute world of himself. If Warhol had never lived, the world would be damn near identical to how it is, now. And what have you done as an artist? Why is a painting by any of the manifold artists alive today worth a gajillion dollars? What value does it have that any other aesthetic production doesn't have?
You do not succeed as an artist by selling blowing an artistic cum load to people who are so puzzled by this strange thing whizzing past them called life that they need to reach out and grasp at experiential things to validate their own seemingly meaningless existence. Art critics, grand galleries, bah! It's all worthless.
From an economic standpoint, I cannot argue with the financial value of many of the paintings. They are worth what someone will pay. If someone is willing, regardless of whether I think them an idiot or not, that's how much it's worth. But the entire system built up around that process. The critics who give thumbs-up or thumbs-down, the rich fools who fall in line and purchase and re-purchase as though they have some fundamentally valuable resource.
I find it no surprise at all that all the hollow, ridiculous fools who populated Wall Street, donated such epic amounts of their money to the arts. They began to realize how inconsequential and pointless their little life of number games was. And what do fools without a sense of existential confidence do? The turn to art. Half of the museums in New York announced financial problems as soon as all the rich twits funding them went bankrupt.
There is no value to art for art's sake. It must do something. That end goal may be artistic, but the application must be understood. Some pompous shit can't just barf onto canvas and expect that someone will want it for $50,000. He must know what his art is for.
And that's the key problem. So many artists think that art is an existentially pure entity. They think that it can exist by itself, free of other things. I argue that it cannot. It must be attached to something. Whether it's a painting for a room, or a wall; or a sculpture to welcome people to a stadium. Art is the icing on the cake, but artists think that it's all that exists. A room without a painting is still a room that can be lived in. What is a painting sitting in a field? It's nothing. It's paint on paper in a pattern that is meaningful to only a few.
I love art. Flights of artistic fancy in architecture give a building character, communicate something about the architect, the time, the place, truly the zeitgeist of the building's construction. An artistic building is more valuable than a non-artistic building, but it must still be a building.
Even a great work of art like Starry Night. Once it is created, people enjoy it, they stare at it. But what do they do with it? They put in on their computer desktop. They get a poster of it for their bedroom. They get it on a credit card (like me). They enjoy it as art for its own sake, but they apply it to things. They apply it to the trappings of life, of which art is not a part. They use art to make life better, but art without that life is worthless.
Why am I ranting about this? Because I think that pestilence of opinion in art schools does a disservice to art students. Instead of encouraging them to find new and novel ways to apply their art to things, they are told that art as anything other than a mere expression is inferior. And if you fail at that, well youre' just not good enough.
In economic terms, you are making a product. It is your job to make people want your product. I got to the websites of artists who only upload low-res versions of their work, and then try and sell prints. No! No no no no! You should be doing your best to disseminate your work, get it out there. Give it away! If you don't know what to do with your work, let others see it and decide. You may get a commission to do a mural on a wall. Or a portrait of a family dog. Art was once like that. The great artists of the renaissance usually made their money appealing to the vagaries of the wealthy. They loved their art, but they knew what they made. They made a product that they damn well better sell.
By that useless art school paradigm, 99.9% of artists will fail. By my paradigm, you can become a world-renowned artist, or a great local one, and everything in between. There are many different levels of success in a world of art-as-product, but very few levels of failure.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
On Music
One of my favorite blogs, Gizmodo, is running what it calls The Listening Test. It's a week-long tribute to all things audio that ended on April 19th.There are a couple of posts about audiophiles, and a couple more about the hardware that gets these guys hard. Now, aside from the fact that I think most ultra-high-end audio equipment is bullshit, I don't think it serves a point at all.
I've mentioned how I think aesthetics is an important ponderable to ponder, and what constitutes music is a big part of that. Think about it. With every generation of audio technology, we've reached the ultimate in realism. It's like you're there. Well, what the hell does it mean to be there?
For example, lots of audiophiles like to say that vinyl is superior to CD. Apparently, with a good album press and a half-million dollars in audio equipment, it's just like being there.
Only you're not there. You're not even close. If the goal is to sound like you're right there, why not actually be right there and pay to see live music? And if the goal is to be right there with Led Zeppelin, well too bad. Even on the magic of an album, all that can exist is one or two sound waveforms. Unless you can get ahold of each individual channel and play them on their own speakers, you're at the mercy of the master.
How do you think the musician masters his music? With headphones. We can even see them do this in behind-the-scenes videos. What does the audiophile think they're going to hear? Do they think they'll hear something that not even the original musician knew was there? Well I sure as hell don't want that. Music is an art which means its an expression. I want to know what the expression is, which means my ideal is to hear the album as the artist heard it while making it.
Recorded music can never sound like the original and it shouldn't. A recording is a musical production in its own right. The goal shouldn't be to make it sound like you're there, because think about all of the limitations of being there. You can never be in the perfect listening position for each instrument. The angle of your head, or the angle of the stage all have subtly negative and positive effects on each part of the performance. A recording is a mic placed in the perfect listening post by each instrument, resulting in an experience that is, in many ways, superior to being there.
And music by people like Brian Eno is nothing but production. You can not possibly be there. There is a soundscape, in which you can place yourself and have sounds emanate from "locations" within the sound, but if you want that, buy a $1,000 pair of studio-level headphones. There. You just spent more on headphones than many people spend on a refrigerator.
I think ignoring that produced, mixed, and re-mixed music is an artistic production and should be recognized as such and shouldn't be subject to some fruitless quest to achieve a perfection that doesn't exist.
Even audiophiles will admit this, in an indirect way. Many of them prefer vinyl records to digital or CD. I'd imagine that most people willingly gave up those for the clear sound available on CD's. You can't possibly get that on vinyl. You'll have cracks, pops, and constant hiss. But audiophiles love that.
I'm not here to attack the validity of that position. In fact, I completely understand. I too don't think someone has heard Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds until they've heard it on vinyl. What I'm pointing out is that these are, at least theoretically, faults in the recording. Yet, somehow, it makes them better. Because it's about the recording and not specifically what's being recorded. The recording itself is part of the artistic process that can augment, and even completely change the final music. The fact that so many vinyl-lovers are also older, meaning they grew up in the age of vinyl, is not surprising. If this article is to be believed, once those old audiophiles pass on, we may end up with a new generation of audio fanatics who prefer compressed digital music. Is it just because their ears are used to the sound? Perhaps. Is it better or worse? That's impossible to answer. What if a producer takes a symphony and purposely jacks up the volume and adds a thundering bassline, then piles on some distortion. Is that inferior to the original? How is the clarity better than the distortion? Is No-Fi music by the Wavves inferior to the Rolling Stones?
The quest for perfection has no end because its baked into the concept. It's not that people would never be satisfied, it's because there is no end to even reach towards. It's people with lots of money grabbing out into an existential darkness, trying to find what they think they want.
A recording shouldn't even try to be like you're there. The way to do that is set up two microphones on either side of a mannequin's head, then place it somewhere in the studio. But then you'll get people complaining that the guitar is muffled, and the drums are too loud, and you can't really hear the singer of the piano. The last thing we would want is to be like we're there. I certainly don't. If I want that, I'll buy some live versions (which certainly have their own appeal). Otherwise, I want each instrument mic'd up to the hilt so I can hear something superior to the original product.
Fidelity means accuracy or exactness... and sexual faithfullness, but regardless, accuracy of what? How can something that at any stage is legitimate, be accurate? As an audiophile, the goal is to draw out as much as possible from the music. To hear it as the musician and producer heard it, because it's art. I want to know what the artist wanted me to know. They created an end product from a performance that, truly, does have details to be drawn out. But the refrain from audiophiles is that many high-end pieces of hardware aren't better or worse, they're "different," which is the most limp argument I've ever heard.
I don't want different. I don't want to turn my living room into a personal, electronic piece of art that reinterprets the music over and over again for ever-increasing amounts of money. I want to get as close to what the intent of the product was as possible, and then stop phutzing around. Anything beyond that, I think, damages the end product.
In this response to a Boing Boing article about Michael Fremer, a famous audiophile, Mr. Fremer points out how many audio engineers are serious audiophiles. And how many of them prefer vinyl because it sounds closer to the original tapes.
While I agree with the quest for fidelity to the original tapes, this isn't a good argument. What the original engineers and producers are saying is that it sounds closer to the original MASTER. Which of course they're going to like the most, they made it. They obviously liked it the most, or they would have made it different. When they say that they dislike the CD, they're saying they dislike the different master of the audio. Now I'm not saying there aren't large differences between CD's and records, but the bulk of the difference between versions is what audio engineer mastered the tapes.
Moreover, there's a big difference between an audio engineer and some general engineer. I would certainly expect audio engineers to be audiophiles. They are not engineers in the hardest sense.
As this article from Rolling Stone discusses, the primary cause of a drop in quality and fidelity in today's music has nothing to do with the medium on which its transferred, but the actual masters. It has to do with the art and not the canvas. In it, they specifically mention The Arctic Monkeys, which makes me happy. I bought the CD and had high quality FLAC files of their other works and it all sounded like crap. It was the master.
I am also not attacking audiophiles insofar as they are audiophiles. Trust me, they have a point. Music played on a $50,000 setup sounds fucking amazing. I myself have spent thousands on various audio setups through the years. I'm also not arguing the idea of diminishing returns, where fifty thousand dollars can get you 95% of the way there, but you need one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to get 96% of the way there. I'm arguing that returns stop at a certain point. As in, you can go no farther. All you can do is phutz around at the limit. It is there where things sound "different" and not "better." I find that silly. I have an entirely different goal as opposed to different or better. I want to achieve fidelity to what the producer originally heard. For example, Brian Wilson was deaf in one ear. He only ever worked in mono. As such, a stereo mix of Good Vibrations would be pointless. I want to hear what Wilson heard, because it is his art. I would even argue that I would want to hear the song through only one ear.
Sound weird? Yeah, a little. But I consider it better to have a strange end than have no end at all. The actual music is only part of the product. Every step of the way affects what I hear. The room, the instrument, the producer, and the medium. It is ALL part of the art.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
In the Eye of the Beholder.
Not the D&D beholder, mind you. If for no other reason than they have a whole load of eyes. I don't play D&D, but any self respecting geek knows a lot about it. And is that an oxymoron? Is it even possible to have a self-respecting geek? Huh. I dunno.
Regardless, what lies in the eye of the beholder? Beauty, of course. I'm semi-obsessed with beauty. The very concept of aesthetics is infinitely interesting. What is beauty? How is something beautiful? I don't think this sort of stuff is idle conjecture.
Humans have a nasty habit of understanding and basing their world around abstract concepts. Some of the most important things in the average life are love, beauty, religion, and identity. There's no way to define those things. Yet, definition or not, they are of critical importance and should be understood to whatever degree they can be.
I love the idea of beauty because I think, at its core, it is more about appreciation. Something is beautiful if we can appreciate what it is. Most people would not find the average fangtooth fish beautiful, but I do. I find the very nature of its being remarkable. So perfect. It is exactly what it needs to be. I don't think we can call something not beautiful just because we are repulsed by it.
Beauty is a human construct. It is something that stems from the frontal lobe. Whether we are attracted to something likely has its roots deep in the more primal areas of our noggin, but beauty is a more advanced concept. It's something that can be analyzed and dissected. The fangtooth fish may be repulsive, but that's a primal response to something that could be dangerous. Many people are repulsed by spiders, but if pressed, I think most would admit some obvious beauty to their existence. Their delicate features. Their skill in creating some of nature's most amazing artwork. The way they dance, fly, and move elegantly through the air on invisible threads.
Perhaps humans associate beauty with creation. A painting can be beautiful, or a building, because it is a creation. An expression of humanity that can be easily understood by other humans. But a craggy rock face? Humans may even associate the world with a creator because so much of the world seems so beautiful, that it must have a creator. An artist expressing something. Funny how that's pretty much the entire Intelligent Design argument.
We can grasp things that seem created, or things so vast that they are beyond comprehension. We see only uniformity and none of the chaotic details. A mountain is beautiful, but not a craggy rock face, or a slide of dirt. Where does the beauty come from if every part is not beautiful? I think beauty as appreciation is something more people should contemplate.
I always felt this was important in the past few years, as the boom times of home equity, easy credit, and jaw-dropping growth in Asia fueled the luxury goods market into a roaring inferno. Sales at niche stores like Bergdorf Goodman, Sak's, and Nordstrom were well above historical average, and the sheer number of designers names out there would leave you dumbfounded. I mean, seriously, how many fucking people are actually out there who want, and can afford, a $1,500 bag designed by a gay man who doesn't shower?
The term beautiful gets thrown around so bloody often in the fashion world because, I think, it's the best word people can come up with to rationalize and defend their obscene purchase. "Oh, I had to have the bag because it was so beautiful." Oh yes, your artistic appreciation was obviously the primary driver behind your purchase. The fact that it was simply the "it" bag had nothing to do with it, I'm sure.
If people gave more thought to beauty, would the sales have been any less atmospheric? I imagine not. Buying the "it" product for the fact that it is the "it" product is a totally viable reason for the purchase. But I'd hope people would recognize the purchase for what it is, and maybe even find themselves a bit more discerning in which "it" products to buy.
Regardless, what lies in the eye of the beholder? Beauty, of course. I'm semi-obsessed with beauty. The very concept of aesthetics is infinitely interesting. What is beauty? How is something beautiful? I don't think this sort of stuff is idle conjecture.
Humans have a nasty habit of understanding and basing their world around abstract concepts. Some of the most important things in the average life are love, beauty, religion, and identity. There's no way to define those things. Yet, definition or not, they are of critical importance and should be understood to whatever degree they can be.
I love the idea of beauty because I think, at its core, it is more about appreciation. Something is beautiful if we can appreciate what it is. Most people would not find the average fangtooth fish beautiful, but I do. I find the very nature of its being remarkable. So perfect. It is exactly what it needs to be. I don't think we can call something not beautiful just because we are repulsed by it.
Beauty is a human construct. It is something that stems from the frontal lobe. Whether we are attracted to something likely has its roots deep in the more primal areas of our noggin, but beauty is a more advanced concept. It's something that can be analyzed and dissected. The fangtooth fish may be repulsive, but that's a primal response to something that could be dangerous. Many people are repulsed by spiders, but if pressed, I think most would admit some obvious beauty to their existence. Their delicate features. Their skill in creating some of nature's most amazing artwork. The way they dance, fly, and move elegantly through the air on invisible threads.
Perhaps humans associate beauty with creation. A painting can be beautiful, or a building, because it is a creation. An expression of humanity that can be easily understood by other humans. But a craggy rock face? Humans may even associate the world with a creator because so much of the world seems so beautiful, that it must have a creator. An artist expressing something. Funny how that's pretty much the entire Intelligent Design argument.
We can grasp things that seem created, or things so vast that they are beyond comprehension. We see only uniformity and none of the chaotic details. A mountain is beautiful, but not a craggy rock face, or a slide of dirt. Where does the beauty come from if every part is not beautiful? I think beauty as appreciation is something more people should contemplate.
I always felt this was important in the past few years, as the boom times of home equity, easy credit, and jaw-dropping growth in Asia fueled the luxury goods market into a roaring inferno. Sales at niche stores like Bergdorf Goodman, Sak's, and Nordstrom were well above historical average, and the sheer number of designers names out there would leave you dumbfounded. I mean, seriously, how many fucking people are actually out there who want, and can afford, a $1,500 bag designed by a gay man who doesn't shower?
The term beautiful gets thrown around so bloody often in the fashion world because, I think, it's the best word people can come up with to rationalize and defend their obscene purchase. "Oh, I had to have the bag because it was so beautiful." Oh yes, your artistic appreciation was obviously the primary driver behind your purchase. The fact that it was simply the "it" bag had nothing to do with it, I'm sure.
If people gave more thought to beauty, would the sales have been any less atmospheric? I imagine not. Buying the "it" product for the fact that it is the "it" product is a totally viable reason for the purchase. But I'd hope people would recognize the purchase for what it is, and maybe even find themselves a bit more discerning in which "it" products to buy.
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