I concede that the majority of videogames I have played have not been art, it is an industry, more so than even the movie industry which still produces and distributes projects that required little more than a camera and a director with a vision. Film can be very direct. Videogames however are most commonly a team effort; it would be something else to see someone do an entire game by today's standards alone. But there are games which I believe are without a doubt art. And not because of flashy visuals, orchestrated music, or long CGI movies forcing cliche and melodramatic stories with laughable dialogue upon gamers.
Games tell their stories best on the surface; in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past the player rescues the princess rather than watching a short clip of the character rescuing the princess; the outcome does not change, but the journey is always unique and it is the journey which matters, not the end. Everything that happens unfolds during play before the gamer's eyes. The experience is the farthest reach of showing the audience rather than telling the audience in fiction. The audience gets to step in as the actor in the play. In the future it would great to be able to talk through the character via microphone so when you speak, it is real time, and it is the character's voice in the game.
Furthermore the Zelda IP draws on some of the oldest archetypes, makes allusions, and explores themes from stories like Beowulf, Le Morte d'Arthur, the Gospels, and Norish mythology.
I feel the medium of videogames can act as a path for expression. Art is the act of communicating, it may be Allen Ginsberg carrying on a conversation with Walt Whitman, Chuck Jones talking to Walt Disney, or Malory and Miyamoto. I believe history will look back upon early videogames and proclaim them art.
If you ask me, technology has changed things; and honestly the painter has been left behind. When the camera first came out painters sought to do things with color (another benefit of the new industrialized world) which the camera could not. And eventually moving pictures came along, so painters became abstract portraying objects in multiple perspectives from multiple moments in time; it became a technique, it became an aesthetic, and in my opinion was elitist. In writing classes one of the first things one learns is to not be abstract. I propose an analogy; Robert Frost vs Ezra Pound. Both poets explored imagism in their poetry, but Frost chose to keep to familiar subject matter and talked about it with a simpler tongue. Pound was less interested in the regular Joe reading his poetry. In the same way, painting has sort of gone off and left the masses far behind speaking only to other painters with their art. I much prefer Bacon to some geometric lines and three colors trying to tell me about composition. If I want to study composition I will look at Da Vinci.
If Whitman can sing about himself without form; then one can paint spontaneously. Art can be sculptural, organic, and still graphic.
If a story is told with images in words, then it can be told with images on film or in a game as only film and games can go where painting cannot without becoming abstract. Videogames and film are direct expressions of the fourth dimension. Like reading a book, one doesn't always have to play a game in the direction it is meant to be played. I see the videogame as the a place where the gamer gets to enter the stage and experience the side of art which is performance. The developer creates the world in which the story takes place, and the gamer plays the lead role in the tale; a great game is one which your friends can sit and watch and enjoy it along with you as though it were a movie, but I prefer coop.
Some quotes from the February issue of Official Playstation Magazine:
OPM: Have you heard of [film critic] Roger Ebert's assessment that videogames can never be viewed as art? How do you feel about that?
Hideo Kojima: I don't think they're art either, videogames. The thing is, art is something that radiates the artist, the person who creates that piece of art. If 100 people walk by and a single person is captivated by whatever that piece radiates, then it's art. But videogames aren't trying to capture one person. A videogame should make sure that all 100 people that play the game should enjoy the service provided by that videogame. It's something of service. It's not art. But I guess the way of providing service with that videogame is an artistic style, a form of art.
For example, look at a concept car. You don't have to be able to drive a car, but if it's called a car and it has artistic elements in the visuals, then it's art. But an actual car, like a videogame, is interactive, so it's something used by people, so it's like a car where you have to drive it. There are 100 people driving a car; they have 100 ways of driving it and using it. It could be families driving the car. It could be a couple driving a car. The owner of the car could be driving along the coastline, or they could go up into the mountains, so this car has to be able to be driven by all 100 of these people, so in that sense it's totally not art.
OPM: So do you think the user's involvement in affecting the outcome of a game affects a game's artistic credibility, because it's left to the user to "finish" the painting?
HK: Not necessarily. Online games maybe, because what you're doing is basically providing them the arena, the play tools, and leaving everything up to the player, so for online games, maybe yes. What I do with my videogames, and specifically Metal Gear Solid, is provide a canvas and paint and the paintbrushes to everyone who buys the game. Obviously, some people can draw well or paint well while some people cannot. I basically provide them with the tools and make sure these people are satisfied with their painting. They're like, "Man, I'm a marvelous artist. I can paint! I can draw!" I make sure they get the satisfaction when they play my games, that they're able to draw something that they're satisfied with at the end.
OPM: Games like Shadow of the Colossus and Ico are the game most often referred to as art in videogame form, due to their distinct visual quality. Many people point to those games as art. Do you think there are exceptions, such as these games, where you could look at them and say, "OK, those are art"? Or do you think all games fall under a blanket assessment?
HK: I think they're good games, but I think they're just another game. In [Shadow of the Colossus], you ride a horse. It's a horse; it looks like a horse. But in art, I can paint this cup [lifts up his coffee cup] and call the painting Horse. That's art. The music and the graphics used in a game--they have artistic elements, I agree. But everything else is very intuitive. It's easy to play in the sense that the horse looks like a horse and you obviously know that you have to ride the horse, so what I think it does is provide a service.
Maybe let's say there's a game out there where there's a boss that you cannot defeat. It's made that way. Normallly, when you beat the boss in a game, there's a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, but if you can't beat the boss at all, if what you're left with is a sense of loss, then maybe that could be defined as art. You know Taro Okamoto--he's dead but a very famous Japanese artist. I don't know the official English translation of it, but one of his pieces is called The Refusing Chair. It's something that sort of looks like a chair, but it's got bumps on it, so you can't sit on it, but if you do, it's going to hurt your butt. With videogames you have to make sure you can sit on the chair. That's why you want to think about art and videogames. I think the lousiest videogames can be considered art. Because bad games with no fun aren't really games, by definition.
OPM: Speaking of Mori Museum, there's an exhibit going on there right now on Hiroshi Sugimoto. One of the placecards on a photograph of a mathematically inspired sculpture has a quote of Sugimoto's that says, "Art resides even in things with no artistic intentions." So it's reasonable to suggest that a game has just as much opportunity to be art as an apple on a plate.
HK: You know, with videogames becoming something that anyone can play at any time because they've become so popular and mainstream in our lives, I think contemporary artists out there could use videogames and create art--like The Refusing Chair, the unplayable videogame. It's there, it looks playable, but you just can't control it.
What I got from the interview was that Hideo Kojima feels games and game design are more a craft than an art as games like pottery are ment to be used. I like that he thinks of his games as a canvas or sandbox; but his opinions on how games can't be art because they are something anyone can use are scary. Is great film not accessible; does not Shakespeare endure because he is easy to read? I believe if there is any reason a game is not art it is because of the interface keeping it from being directly interacted with by the gamer. That is why I decided to post this here. The Revolution can truly make games art.
You may disagree, you may believe there are no games at all that qualify as art, but I believe history will have louder voice and I believe, like a Spiderman comic or Elvis song, this new medium will have its day of recognition.
Topic: Video Games: Toys and Art (Read 5500 times)
