Hey guys, Ebert's right.

[jizzmatic2000]

Understand that despite being a mediocre, unproductive artist (I guess now I've devolved into an "appreciator of the arts," the saddest type), most serious discussion on that subject of subjectiveness first makes my eyes roll. Then, it bursts the blood vessels controlling the pressure behind them, inflating them to ridiculous proportions. I call

Comments

[rake_blackguard]

This stumped me for a few hours. I suppose we're now a part of the turtleneck-and-beret set, the "What IS art? Are we art? Is art art?" set.

I contend that video games are not art simply because nobody's really figured out how to make them art. Fundamental to artistic expression is evoking emotion. And I can think of two games that did that: when Eli Vance is killed at the end of "Half-Life 2: Episode 2" and when General Fuckface kills Ghost and then Roach (who you're playing at that time) in "Modern Warfare 2." In both occasions I felt genuine horror, especially the latter, where (from your still-alive POV) you're swung into a ditch and lit on fire. I'm fairly certain I shouted at my screen

[jizzmatic2000]

"I suppose we're now a part of the turtleneck-and-beret set...
It's awful feeling, isn't it?

"Fundamental to artistic expression is evoking emotion."
Right. However, in the examples you mentioned, the game sort of takes over in those moments, no? Sort of an in-game, POV, quasi-cinematic? I think in those instances, at least when they manipulate an emotional response, games are art, but, then again, in those moments you're not really playing a game so much as you are watching a movie. If control wasn't wrested from you, and you had the skill to change those poignant moments, would you have? Would those moments have been as meaningful? Were the moments of gameplay before and afterwards as emotionally rewarding?

"While the designer of a game doesn't dictate the specific course a player might take, there's really not a whole lot of wiggle room."This goes with #6, and I didn't give it enough credit as a valid point. While many games have a specific "main quest" (you mentioned Oblivion. Zelda's another example, and is even more

[cleahpatra]

I just want to say that I take offense that you called Midna a Shadowslut. She was PRINCESS Shadowslut, dammit!

[jizzmatic2000]

It's hard to remember her royal title when she's constantly sniffing for wolfcock.

That's awful. I'm sorry, Midna and Leah.

[igorxa]

Ebert has obviously never heard of interactive art. He needs to get with the modern art scene and shut the fuck up. What really makes me angry about his argument is that he's not willing to entertain the idea of art being anything but his definition, which I take as being insincere to art itself. Also, he tweets way too damn much.

I think one of the main points of art is to stretch the boundaries of what art is. What about performance art? Is it not a valid form? Of course it is. Appreciation of that artform is up to the one experiencing it.

Here's the rub: just because it's art doesn't mean it's good art. And the converse is true. Most art is crap, but it's still art.

[jizzmatic2000]

"He needs to get with the modern art scene and shut the fuck up."

#1., #1a.

"...he's not willing to entertain the idea of art being anything but his definition, which I take as being insincere to art itself."

Valid point, but most of us are unwilling to give any concrete definition. When we can provide a definition, it often isn't something we can all agree upon. I suppose, like you've said, this is the nature of art, but it makes the word goddamn useless if it represents anything human-made. Some people will argue even that isn't a qualifier anymore. It makes any discussion on the topic a worthless endeavor. Ebert's definition is limiting, but it also adds meaning to an otherwise empty word. Art is the ethereal, uni-directional conduit between creator and viewer (or listener, or audience, or whatever human sensory receptor). If that conduit allows bi-directional travel via viewer interaction, then the nature of the source creation changes. Ebert thinks this change makes the source not-art. I'll be willing to settle for it

[rake_blackguard]

Oh christ, now Fatty and Baldo are in on it.

[jizzmatic2000]

I saw that. I think they're saying

1. The issue is unimportant.
I totally agree.

2. The issue is unimportant because games are so totally art.
Well...

3. End of discussion, what do we win?
Fuck.

"Why am I so bald?!"

[jizzmatic2000]

Not to spam your inbox, but a friend of mine also mentioned the PA comic on a different forum and I realized that I addressed, here, Tycho's post more than the comic itself. So here's a revised form of Tycho's "thought experiment:"

If 100 mechanical engineers created robots for FIVE YEARS, how could the result not be Optimus Prime?

I don't argue that games don't contain art, nor do I argue that the work of game artists is sub-par, but I don't think the end result -- the compiling of their efforts into one, interactive form --is art. I'm getting there, though.

[rake_blackguard]

"Not to spam your inbox"

>9 messages

Perhaps we can agree on vidya being a "lesser" art, not to be lumped into the same category as symphonies and film but in good company with mashups and collages?

If only effort determined whether or not something was art then Sisyphus would be considered the greatest mythological artist of all time. Of all TIME.

[phantom_photon]

I was just thinking about SimCity today,* and how Will Wright called it a "toy" as opposed to a "game" because there is no specific goal for the users.

Anyway, Ebert says games can't be art because they are, unlike prior recipients of the honorable title: music, film, literature, visual (painting, illustration, sculpture), interactive. Passive media allows a direct connection between the creator (or creators) and the audience.

Sure, that's one definition of art. Let's call it the "Ebert Definition 2009," or "ED-209" for short. You can't argue that a definition is true or false, only that it is more or less useful than some other one

[jizzmatic2000]

Fucking hell! ED-209 is the best name for this. Major props for that. I'm not going to address your comment point-by-point because i agree with most of it. I do, however, disagree with the examples you've provided, as all of them either aren't, themselves, directly manipulated by the audience (a song), or are unintended uses of an installation (children using a statue in a game of hide-and-seek). But I certainly do think it is a problem of definitions, and your all-emcompassing substitution solves the problem. Granted, the word -- even by your definition, which I accept as my own now -- is still fairly useless, but it's only as impotent as a concept like "love."

"Since I'm tearing down ED-209..."

Don't waste your time! Just present it with an emergency stairway.

By the way, A: 5 guys sucking off 6 guys, unless they're all listening to Slayer.

[phantom_photon]

The big issue with ED-209 seems to be its explicit exclusion of all interactivity. It's only art if the audience passively sits on our asses? That was an idea introduced by rich, lazy, useless nobles and re-introduced by rich, lazy, useless Hollywood producers. Why should we be stuck with it? Why is it more "pure" if we can't play along?

It might not be clear from my examples, but I'm trying to show that video games are not the first medium in which the creator(s) deliberately expect their work to be manipulated by the audience. Not long ago a "hit song" referred to sheet music - not recordings - because families were expected to play their own versions at home. Les Paul and Antonio Stradivari designed their creations specifically to be manipulated by their audience. For a modern non-digital example, what about public architecture projects like Amsterdam's tribute to Max Euwe?

Speaking of which, ED-209 requires that chess is, by definition, not art. Why not? Marcel Duchamp says "all chess players are artists," though he

[phantom_photon]

oops, Max Euweplein's link is busted. try this wikimedia commons link instead.

[doovies]

But, on the plus side, eBert is EXTREMELY dead now and he died HORRIBLY.