Wednesday, 19 September 2007
Can/should computer games be seen as an art form?
Although so far my research is fairly scant on this subject I just thought I'd get the ball rolling as soon as possible. It seems to me that a better way to look at it is how can a computer game not be art? I remember doing a set essay during my BA entitled 'What Is Art?' I recall at that stage finding that it is pretty impossible to give art a concise definition. If then 'Art' comes down to personal choice/interpretation then it would follow that anything can be art, and the onus is on the person who wishes to disprove the artistic merit of the subject in question.
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As you have commented it depends on an individual's interpretation of art and whether computer games can be encompassed within that terminology, if you choose to use art as a category. Fine art and digtial games share immediate aesthetic concerns, particularly those relating to formal concepts, such as light, tone, shade, composition, perspective etc and the problematics of endeavouring to deconstruct three dimensional space and experience on to a two dimnensional surface. The area which seems to have been overlooked by a great deal of critical debate is the nature of performativity, process and interpretation which is essential to interface with a game and could easily be compared with or to some installation or performance art. Doug Aitken was sponsored by Sony at the Serpentine Gallery a couple of years ago and made a series of works which challenged the audience to re-experience their concept of cold and ice, and in one room encouraged all the audience to lie on the floor using strategically placed plasma screens to create corners into which filmic worlds disappeared, similar to some affects within games that I have seen. The problem perhaps with defining computer games as fine art is that the debate within fine art still rages as to the role of the artist is it merely a suggestive, almost neutral role allowing audiences to make and interpret what they will of what is before them or does art require a definite response constructed within the artwork by the artist? Coming from a fine art background with little experience of computer games, i wonder whether a game could 'work' if an audiences' response to it was independent if it did not follow the prompts - ironically fine art which seems to sell and 'work' well as investment is not that which encourages independent thought. Perhaps what I am trying to say is what is fine art for? and what are computer games for? when they are both designed, constructed and conceived for the same end is that when they become similar and when the intention, when the 'proposition' for their construction is dissimilar they lose sight of each other under the umbrella of definition.
I guess I wasn't really trying to say that it was fine art more something akin to film or animation, there is almost always some form of narrative that pushes your character through the game, If the player didn't follow the prompts then they, more often than not, would be stuck on one level or stage of a game and would therefore be trying a number of different things in order to progress, if however they made a concious decision not to progress then it would almost be like pausing a scene in a film.
However not all games are linear, most 'massively multiplayer online games' (MMO's) basically have one, or more, online world that can be inhabited by thousands of people at any one time, with a game narrative that can be progressed at the player's discression. They can even come online and do absolutley nothing, just hang around. Maybe go to a certain area of the world to see experiance it. In a real world sense that would be exploration and maybe pursuing an apprecation of nature, architecture, wildlife etcetera. However in a constructed game world everything you look at and interact with is constructed by a team of artists and designers, so it would follow that you the player/viewer are in a sense no different to a a gallery or cinema viewer.
Does this make Videogames an immersive explorative art form more akin to Sir Anthony Caro's 'The Tower of Discovery'. After all there are elements of construction for human interaction;
http://www.sculpture.org.uk/image/000000100062-0-size640x480
'I had always thought that if you were to put a limit on sculpture it would be that sculpture is something that you are outside of, but why?'
Are videogames digital sculpture then, or simply an artistic medium in it's own right? I agree that videogames are in one sense like fine art in that they are viewed in two dimensions, but the character you control can usually move around in that two dimensional space is if it were truly three dimensional, more like an immersive sculpture.
As to the question of what is art for and what are videogames for well even then surely the same thing? money after all however noble the artists intentions everyone has financial obligations. Take the Mona Lisa an iconic piece of art, tyou could argue that this was done to make a profit if so then is the intention of the the artist that different to the collaborative effort of a game design company?
http://www.louvre.fr/llv/dossiers/visu_oal.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673229908&CURRENT_LLV_OAL%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673229908&bmLocale=en
'We know nothing about the commissioning of the portrait, its painting and payment. One of the first biographies of Leonardo states that it was painted for Francesco del Giocondo and is the portrait of his wife, Mona Lisa, whose maiden name was Gherardini. The birth of their third child in 1502 and the acquisition of a house would have been ideal pretexts for commissioning the portrait.'
That being said and if true, then surely it comes down to the viewer or player, as so much of art is down to opinion and interpretation. However I think computer games are more an amalgamation of previos art forms that could be argued to be an art form in it's infancy much like the birth of photography, and as there was a marked change in fine art after that time maybe the art world will have to adapt again.
Caro is an interesting artist to choose in your deconstruction or should I say evaluation of the audience response to both game and fine art. Caro was greatly criticised for constructing his sculptures as 'parts' rather than a whole, despite removing sculpture from the tradition of a plinth, of being viewed in a particular way. I think from your argument that you believe that audiences construct their narrative from the choices made within a game and perhaps you could interpret fine art as a series of visual codes that allow audiences to be directed in their interpretative choices. So perhaps you agree with Barthes that the interpretation of both art and game is not within the hand of the designer or artist but in the space between the game/artwork and the gamer/spectator.
Sarah Sutherland
Yes I do, but I'm gonna have to read some Barthes now to really come up with a constructive reply so It may be a while before I can reply.
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