Video Games and Art...
sixteenbynine has up a post about video games and art, sparked by a blog post of Roger Ebert's on the topic.
I think that 16x9 raises some interesting points, but that ultimately, they're not germane to the question as posed: Are video games art? Rather, they're examinations of 'why does it matter? why do people seem to need them to be?', which is a very fine topic for discussion itself, but... I'm more into the original question right now.
Mr. Ebert attacks the question from a familiar direction, "what is art?" and then seeks to determine whether video games can fit into that definition. That's a flawed approach. Art itself is a subjective determination - even the best definition he can come up with, in the end, amounts to 'you know it when you see it'.
I submit instead, that any evaluation of whether or not something is "art" based on the merits of what "art" is, is inherently subjective, and so cannot be any more persuasive than telling someone 'trust me on that'. And that... that never works.
Instead, let's turn it around.
What is a game?
Is chess the pieces? the board? Anyone who's played table-chess at a fast food restaurant knows that's a silly proposition. The board and pieces are representations of an abstract construction: the scenario presented to you by the other player, through the rules of the game. It's true even with solitaire, only the 'other player' is chance itself - did you get a card configuration that can be solved (guaranteed in some forms of solitaire, but not all), and if so, did you solve it?
The same is true of video games - the images and sounds are representations of abstract constructions: did you interact successfully with the other player through the rules? In most situations, this 'other player' is itself an abstraction, like chance in solitaire - did you respond, within the framework of the rules, correctly to the situation you were presented?
So what, then, is the actual game? It's not the cards, they're simply what you use to display the current scenario, and your response to it.
Is it the rules? They define the limits of your interaction with the presented scenario, after all. But that doesn't feel right. The Game of Life, for example, isn't 'spin the wheel and move the indicated number of spaces forward, reading the space on which you landed for additional directions'. Baseball isn't the contents of the MLB rulebook. It's simply described by those contents.
So, if a game is described by its rules, and game pieces are simply a medium through which to represent the scenario you are faced with, then I suggest that in fact, the game is exactly that: the interaction. "Tag" or "Hide-and-Seek" aren't their rules, they're the running around of children, laughing, screaming, dodging and grabbing. Baseball isn't the bat and ball, it's the interaction of trying to take a cylindrical bat to a spherical ball and hit it squarely.
In short, the game is the playing. And that's not art. You have a definite goal in playing the game - at each moment, there is a scenario you are attempting to correctly resolve to further your goals. Can that be artistic? Not to the player. Even so-called 'interactive art' isn't, not really. Rather, the 'interactive' nature lies in the artist's incorporation of possible variables, which the observer supplies. The observer isn't actually affecting the artwork, they are merely affecting their observation of the artwork.
So, how does this apply to video games? Rock Band, for example, isn't the music, and it's not the controllers. It's the process of attempting to match patterns in order to achieve a goal: convince the machine to play the music completely. The rest of it, the packaging, the plastic instruments, even the software itself are merely the tools you use to play the game. The game remains the playing.
So if the game is the playing of it, then what parallels does it have in the realm of artistic endeavor? It's not the musical instrument - that's our chess piece, the medium through which we demonstrate our playing of the game. It's not the physics of sound or sight or touch - those are our rules, the description of how we're allowed to play. No, playing the game is a process, and so we must look for a process.
I submit to you that I am right now engaged in that process. Playing the game is the act of creation - it is the writing of the story, the playing of the music, the painting of the picture, the performance of the dance. None of these things are art.
That's right, I included performance arts like dance and music in there and said 'that's not art'. Get used to it, it's not. Dancing isn't art, it's physical labor, just like taking the rock to the hole, or marching the pigskin down-field through a brutal meat-grinder of a defense. Certainly, the playing of music, even in its most transcendent moments, isn't an artistic experience. Rather, it's far more in line with the moment when your body wants to stop and fall down, and you keep pushing it just a few more yards, just up that next hill, and the endorphins kick in, and the pain and tired starts to fade, and you exceed the limits that only ever existed in your own self-doubt... but even in those moments, it's work. You might be feeling the music, but you're not floating in it the way you can as an observer. Because that's where the 'art' is: Art is what the observer sees. The beauty and grace of the dancer, the stirring power of the music. It's in the observation that "work" is translated into "art".
Games are the process of playing them. Art lies in the observation. A gamer is akin to a novelist, or a musician, or an athlete, and the coder is the guy who makes the typewriter, the violin, or the golf club. And those tools can themselves be works of art - certainly, a fine instrument is a thing of craft and beauty in its own right. But they're not the game - they're utilized for the game.
So for the gamer, he can see the artistry of the pieces, he can see the artistry of the writing of the rules, but he shouldn't confuse those things with the game. Those things are used by the game. They describe the game. They give him what he needs to play the game... but the game only exists in the playing.
The game will never be art - but the performance of the game, as observed by the bystander or the camera... now that.... that certainly could be.
I think that 16x9 raises some interesting points, but that ultimately, they're not germane to the question as posed: Are video games art? Rather, they're examinations of 'why does it matter? why do people seem to need them to be?', which is a very fine topic for discussion itself, but... I'm more into the original question right now.
Mr. Ebert attacks the question from a familiar direction, "what is art?" and then seeks to determine whether video games can fit into that definition. That's a flawed approach. Art itself is a subjective determination - even the best definition he can come up with, in the end, amounts to 'you know it when you see it'.
I submit instead, that any evaluation of whether or not something is "art" based on the merits of what "art" is, is inherently subjective, and so cannot be any more persuasive than telling someone 'trust me on that'. And that... that never works.
Instead, let's turn it around.
What is a game?
Is chess the pieces? the board? Anyone who's played table-chess at a fast food restaurant knows that's a silly proposition. The board and pieces are representations of an abstract construction: the scenario presented to you by the other player, through the rules of the game. It's true even with solitaire, only the 'other player' is chance itself - did you get a card configuration that can be solved (guaranteed in some forms of solitaire, but not all), and if so, did you solve it?
The same is true of video games - the images and sounds are representations of abstract constructions: did you interact successfully with the other player through the rules? In most situations, this 'other player' is itself an abstraction, like chance in solitaire - did you respond, within the framework of the rules, correctly to the situation you were presented?
So what, then, is the actual game? It's not the cards, they're simply what you use to display the current scenario, and your response to it.
Is it the rules? They define the limits of your interaction with the presented scenario, after all. But that doesn't feel right. The Game of Life, for example, isn't 'spin the wheel and move the indicated number of spaces forward, reading the space on which you landed for additional directions'. Baseball isn't the contents of the MLB rulebook. It's simply described by those contents.
So, if a game is described by its rules, and game pieces are simply a medium through which to represent the scenario you are faced with, then I suggest that in fact, the game is exactly that: the interaction. "Tag" or "Hide-and-Seek" aren't their rules, they're the running around of children, laughing, screaming, dodging and grabbing. Baseball isn't the bat and ball, it's the interaction of trying to take a cylindrical bat to a spherical ball and hit it squarely.
In short, the game is the playing. And that's not art. You have a definite goal in playing the game - at each moment, there is a scenario you are attempting to correctly resolve to further your goals. Can that be artistic? Not to the player. Even so-called 'interactive art' isn't, not really. Rather, the 'interactive' nature lies in the artist's incorporation of possible variables, which the observer supplies. The observer isn't actually affecting the artwork, they are merely affecting their observation of the artwork.
So, how does this apply to video games? Rock Band, for example, isn't the music, and it's not the controllers. It's the process of attempting to match patterns in order to achieve a goal: convince the machine to play the music completely. The rest of it, the packaging, the plastic instruments, even the software itself are merely the tools you use to play the game. The game remains the playing.
So if the game is the playing of it, then what parallels does it have in the realm of artistic endeavor? It's not the musical instrument - that's our chess piece, the medium through which we demonstrate our playing of the game. It's not the physics of sound or sight or touch - those are our rules, the description of how we're allowed to play. No, playing the game is a process, and so we must look for a process.
I submit to you that I am right now engaged in that process. Playing the game is the act of creation - it is the writing of the story, the playing of the music, the painting of the picture, the performance of the dance. None of these things are art.
That's right, I included performance arts like dance and music in there and said 'that's not art'. Get used to it, it's not. Dancing isn't art, it's physical labor, just like taking the rock to the hole, or marching the pigskin down-field through a brutal meat-grinder of a defense. Certainly, the playing of music, even in its most transcendent moments, isn't an artistic experience. Rather, it's far more in line with the moment when your body wants to stop and fall down, and you keep pushing it just a few more yards, just up that next hill, and the endorphins kick in, and the pain and tired starts to fade, and you exceed the limits that only ever existed in your own self-doubt... but even in those moments, it's work. You might be feeling the music, but you're not floating in it the way you can as an observer. Because that's where the 'art' is: Art is what the observer sees. The beauty and grace of the dancer, the stirring power of the music. It's in the observation that "work" is translated into "art".
Games are the process of playing them. Art lies in the observation. A gamer is akin to a novelist, or a musician, or an athlete, and the coder is the guy who makes the typewriter, the violin, or the golf club. And those tools can themselves be works of art - certainly, a fine instrument is a thing of craft and beauty in its own right. But they're not the game - they're utilized for the game.
So for the gamer, he can see the artistry of the pieces, he can see the artistry of the writing of the rules, but he shouldn't confuse those things with the game. Those things are used by the game. They describe the game. They give him what he needs to play the game... but the game only exists in the playing.
The game will never be art - but the performance of the game, as observed by the bystander or the camera... now that.... that certainly could be.