AuthorTopic: Official Off-Topic Thread  (Read 318527 times)

Offline AdamAtomic

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #400 on: August 12, 2008, 01:58:58 am
The idea that video games are the only interactive art form is patently ridiculous.  If novels, paintings, film and theater were not interactive we would not enjoy them even a little bit.  The fact that you as the audience or reader are constantly reconstructing and reorganizing the narrative, judging the characters, wondering what will happen next...these are all the things that make these art forms what they are.  Video games merely extend this process into the literal.


by that logic, a bird in flight, completely beyond my power, is interactive.  I can wonder where it came from, where it's going, condemn it as unintelligent or worship its freedom from human "rationality."  This doesn't make the bird interactive, it only means that I am alive and that my perception of the world's output is subjective.

videogames, on the other hand, are one of few art forms (there is an excessive amount of interactive installation and performance art that was forgotten in the list) where the users input changes the output.  That is a dramatic and vital difference and it's both an expanding and a limiting factor depending on the context.

That's a pretty crazy stretch :P  Film of a bird in flight in the context of an entire film, or a painting of a bird in flight, is to me VERY different from simply seeing a bird outside, because there is a director or a photographer or a painter interpreting and changing it and showing it to us in their own way.  Viewing or consumption of artistic works IS interactive in a way that passive observation of natural phenomena is not.  And of course, video games are interactive in a way that other art forms are not, I wholeheartedly agree.

My point is simply that the idea that games can't be art because they are interactive just rings very false to me.  They are *more* interactive, that's all.  The idea of arbitrarily drawing a line in the interactive sand is just crazy, and I've never understood Ebert's reasoning behind it.

Offline Helm

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #401 on: August 12, 2008, 05:45:36 am
Conceit, I feel the same way sadly.

Offline Conzeit

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #402 on: August 12, 2008, 05:58:15 am
I know man! everyone answers with a differently geared wall of text, so in the end you have to make more and more separate walls of text for each one..until it just becomes imposible  :huh: not bad for our first venue into this sort of stuff tho, it made me happy to see it spring up at all.

I'm gonna look up one of the 46984534 posssible comics I could chose from from the selection of artists you mentioned and see if it strikes me as much as Moore...doubt it tho. With Moore it's more than the art, it's his whole magician view of reality....I hope I can find someone where I live that can mentor me on this like I wish Moore did. Dont worry tho, I'm not about to chase gypsies asking them to teach me magic.....I know the closest thing to real magic is art...and Shamanism =)...fortunatedly I live in Colombia and we have a few indian tribes...so I have some hope of finding real shamans.

form the looks of this, for a discussion on this to go somewhere it'd have to be moderated  :o
« Last Edit: August 12, 2008, 05:59:57 am by Conceit »

Offline JJ Naas

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #403 on: August 12, 2008, 06:23:26 am
My point is simply that the idea that games can't be art because they are interactive just rings very false to me.  They are *more* interactive, that's all.  The idea of arbitrarily drawing a line in the interactive sand is just crazy, and I've never understood Ebert's reasoning behind it.

Museums of modern art have housed interactive multimedia-installations since the 70's at least (Videoplace), so at least somebody has considered them to be art. Hasn't Ebert ever seen those? Well, I've seen a few of those, and while they may be amusing for 30 seconds, they are hardly games. For example, they may consist of you trying to move a blue box inside a red box while screeching metallic sounds are played on the background. (Well, that's my experience anyway.)

The controller mechanism is never more complicated than a one button joystick or computer generating images and sounds based on in which part of the room you're standing on or whatever. The controller mechanism tries to be as transparent as possible, no need to learn combos on a pad or memorize a bunch of quick commands on keyboards in order to "enjoy" the art.

They don't try to be books, movies, musical compositions or representative art. In other words, they lack a story-like narrative. You don't do quests or develop your character. The don't have cut-scenes, coherent soundtracks and the visuals tend to be more or less abstract. They don't have a high-score board or a learning curve. So, they try to be as digital and computerized as possible, lending as little as possible from other arts, so there's some sort of a point in that aspect I guess. But also...

...these don't make you cry, they merely make you amused for 30 seconds, so it seems they have been considered to be art for the sake of their technological gimmicks and feats rather than for the sake of their content.

Offline Helm

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #404 on: August 12, 2008, 07:26:05 am
Yes in that a videogame managed to make someone cry places it squarely on top of all these 'interactive art installations'.

Offline MrMister

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #405 on: August 12, 2008, 09:12:07 am
The main reason videogames can't be art is because they're made to sell copies, not to express something. They're a consumer product.   You can glorify games like Shadow of the Colossus but in the end it was made to pander to a specific audience.
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Offline Helm

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #406 on: August 12, 2008, 09:22:54 am
Hm however pretty much all the art that has been widely influential has been product-ed, asides from videogames. This doesn't mean to say it was designed to be a product, but at the end it was made into one to reach its audience. This might change in the future with digital forms of distribution and perhaps micro-donations and whatnot, but then we'd be talking about a different thing.

I will agree that 'will it sell?' becomes a huge concern when making a videogame and that if that concern overtakes the conceptual goal of the design team the game's artistic value is compromised. This is a pretty widespread notion I think.

Offline .TakaM

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #407 on: August 12, 2008, 09:47:57 am
The main reason videogames can't be art is because they're made to sell copies, not to express something. They're a consumer product.   You can glorify games like Shadow of the Colossus but in the end it was made to pander to a specific audience.
uh... movies, books, music, statues and paintings all get sold.
You might as well be arguing that they're not art because they're popular
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Offline Ben2theEdge

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #408 on: August 12, 2008, 01:22:42 pm
If architecture can be considered art then so can video games. (And it is, btw) The renaissance was big into interactive art, hence the sculptures which the viewer can walk around and view from any angle he likes, and the architecture in which you can actually be immersed inside a work of art, as well as multi-layered painting techniques that reflect light depending on where you're standing in relation to them. (Don't forget the reason that the Mona Lisa resonates with people is the way she appears to interact with the viewer) Creating art is an interactive experience and the creation itself can be considered an art form, that's what theater is - the art is created in front of an audience in real-time. A video game player is essentially an actor creating a performance in real-time according to a script written by a game designer on a set with props created by artists and engineers. Because the player is part of the art form does not negate the artistic merit any more than actors negate theater as art.

Commercial appeal or even marketability does not affect "art" status. Don't forget that most of the classic art that we adore so much was created (in part) to advertise the Catholic church in the days before billboards and newspaper ads, and that does absolutely nothing to diminish its beauty or credibility. Even commercial projects have expression in them, even if it's buried deep after hours of executive meetings and focus group testing. There's always someone (or multiple someones) on that project that was losing sleep to express their vision, even if the end result was tampered with. If you look hard enough you can find it, and sometimes you don't even have to look that hard.
« Last Edit: August 12, 2008, 01:26:12 pm by Ben2theEdge »
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Offline ndchristie

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #409 on: August 12, 2008, 02:05:35 pm
there's also a truckload of art that is all about reproduction.  you can't throw out printmaking!
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