Games-as-Art

I do not like arguments and discussions that revolve around entirely subjective measures concerning definitions - and find that the Games-as-Art argument falls into exactly this problem. That’s because definitions of art change depending on who one asks, and their qualifications for artistic merit shift in accordance to the individual. I even further do not enjoy this argument because of those involved in it; on one side, there are the gamers, fervently dedicated to legitimizing their craft (as any pioneer is wont to do), and on the other side lie the traditionalists, whom are fervently dedicated to protecting the sanctity of their craft - and each side has fundamental misunderstandings, typically, of what “their craft” represents. Note here that I recognize these are perhaps gross oversimplifications; individuals in each of the two groups undergo a crossover, and my binary setup ignores that. However, as will be made clear later, I find that in debating the two fields individuals fall into either of the two categories.

Towards a Definition of Art

Here’s the thing with art and the definition of art: it’s illusory. Today, any given individual that said that Van Gogh’s work wasn’t art would be laughed at; he would be called a philistine or worse, and his views would not be accepted. Even further, if that same individual attempted to lay the same criticism against the impressionist movement as a whole, he would likely suffer a far worse fate. Sure, he might find acceptance in an underground, niche-level publication, but his words would not be considered suitable to a mainstream audience (or even a mainstream art audience). Van Gogh is, however, considered one of the pre-eminent artists of the impressionist movement, lifted on high with such lofty figures as Renoir and Monet.

Yet Van Gogh wasn’t considered as much during his lifetime; his work was seen as inferior to that of other impressionists and lacking of merit. Impressionism as a whole was barely seen as a viable form of art - and yet today, we recognize both as hugely important figures and movements, and would disparage any criticisms to the contrary as stupid and ignorant. It strikes me that, at the time, the most influential of artists and art critics not attached to impressionism had a vested interest in ensuring that the previous art forms held dominance, and that impressionism remained, at best, “low art,” as Roger Ebert would say. I gather that this is because they had invested an education and career into another form of art, and that to acknowledge a young upstart version of the craft would be contradictory to their previous efforts, undermining and devaluing them. Ensuring their own career viability, one might say.

Again - today, impressionism and Van Gogh are inseparable with terms like “high art,” and therein lies the problem: that generations following those of an original creation are those that determine the “art-ishness” of a given thing. What this illustrates is that it falls not to a contemporary group of critics to determine whether or not something is worthy of the mantle of “art,” but rather those that follow them.

So What Was That About Interactivity?

One of the major criticisms against the Games-as-Art movement seems to revolve around interactivity, and the shifting nature of videogames. By which I mean, the player - not the creator - has influence over how the work is perceived. Whether they are bad at the game, miss certain details as a result of pursuing other methods of interaction, or any number of other things that can happen in a video games, they all suggest the same thing; that they simply must /change/ the game, in some way, in order for it to function. Roger Ebert, speaking towards this idea, said that
“I believe art is created by an artist. If you change it, you become the artist.” (http:// blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/archive/2007/07/30/croal- vs -ebert-vs- barker-on-whether-videogames-can-be-high-art- round-1.aspx)
But here’s the thing: art does not exist in a vacuum. Sure, some works do - for example, much of Van Gogh’s work can stand on its own in a museum and be understood. If I would have visited a museum and saw an original copy of Starry Night, it would appear much the same were I to visit it today. This is generally how art functions - but not all art. Installation art - artistic concepts designed around being placed somewhere that may or may not previously had art - has become a large movement in art communities, and is considered to be high art by most critics. (Worth pointing out: during its inception, it certainly was not considered high art - or even low art.)

However, if you were to visit an art installation of Heidi Hatry, you might find that her work somehow lacks the consistency normally associated with art - each time you were to visit a particular one of her many installations, it would change. This is because they are made out of untreated meat (http://bostonist.com/2009/02/17/heide-hatry-heads-tales-menard.php), and, well, meat rots. It changes on a day-to-day basis - it will not be the same for every viewer, and that is part of the point. She uses this changing effect, presumably, to illustrate a point that I will not attempt to define. Not only does her art change, but it requires the viewer to change - the viewer must walk around the exhibit, must experience the changing of perspective, must experience differences in perspective. They, simply by engaging and viewing the piece, must change the piece. They, simply by attending the exhibit when they do, must change the piece.

This idea - that the viewer changes the work of art simply by moving around and viewing it from different perspectives - is not new. It’s been around since the 15th century, and is known as anamorphosis, and the earliest known example of this was from Leonardo da Vinci. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphosis)

Although the viewer does not actually change the art piece itself, they are nonetheless required, in both Renaissance and modern art, to interact with it so that the art may effectively present itself. While it would seem that the viewer initially gives or contributes nothing to the piece, I disagree - the entire purpose behind these types of art movements is to /force/ the viewer to give something of themselves, even if that element is merely a change in perspective. Why that change cannot simply be a shift in perspective/position or, to cater to a more literal crowd, the burning of the calories required to move sufficiently, I do not know.
And yet, Ebert claims that only an artist can create art, and that the viewer must give nothing, change nothing, contribute nothing for the piece to remain art. Although I am no art critic and know little about Roger Ebert, it would seem that his knowledge of fine art - “high art,” as he might call it - is lacking in a variety of ways. But how does this apply to the games-as-art argument?

Interactive Art, Interactive Games

We’ve more or less established that interaction can be a core part of a piece of art, whether this come through a change in perspective or a shifting in time. But what about a shifting of input? Does this constitute a higher definition of interaction, a notion of a higher caliber than the alterations that are the tolls of the passage of time? I do not believe so. In fact, I believe that the decision of when to attend an exhibit, as with the rotting meat example, can have a greater impact on the piece than even the wildly varying controller inputs that a game can have.

That’s because the game, regardless of what the player may attempt to do, is entirely consistent with itself. (So long as he plays within the confines of the rules; ie, no exploiting or cheating. This is a fair point to make considering that an art viewer is assumed to not break the rules of viewership; ie, no touching the painting or burning down the gallery) No matter how far through any given player progresses through a game, or what vistas he perceives, or how many scores of orcs he may slay, the game is exactly the same. The disc or binary code that the game was delivered upon is not changed in any substantial way, unless saved game progress is considered “substantial.” The progression between one player to another through a game may vary, but the beginning and end points are the same, provided that they finish the game. The sound effects for each player, unless they have a faulty sound system, will remain consistent throughout the game.

Let’s compare these examples with the meat-art installation mentioned above. Although the code of the game may shift slightly to reflect a player’s progress through a game, so too will the meat installation shift with a viewer’s progress; they may attend the gallery multiple times, and each shift in time will reflect a shift in the state of rot of the meat. Any given player will progress through a non-linear RPG in a different way, but they will have the same approximate start and end patterns, similar to how the exhibit viewer will move through a gallery in a differing pattern from his compatriots, or, to return again to the question of time, will visit the gallery during different snapshots of decay. As each player of a game will have a slightly different audio/visual setup, they will perceive the game itself differently - but so too will the gallery viewer, depending on the time of day they visit or any physical disabilities that they may have.

If anything, it would seem that Hatry’s art is a more illusory and shifting thing than any video game could be. Afterall, she could not rely on a consistency of presentation even from day to day - whereas the gamer will find the introductory level of Contra to be identical in layout no matter how many times they play it or how many years have elapsed since their last play session.

Roger Ebert is a Bourgeois Fuck

I despise the difference in reception and understanding of “high” and “low” art. It strikes me that the primary difference between the two is the artist themselves; those artists that, during the Renaissance, had noble patronage and painted great works were considered to have made “high” art, whereas those lower-class artists that lacked noble patronage made “low” art. Although my difficulty with the terms were probably eluded to, both in the previous sentence and the title of this section, I feel nonetheless that it is important to write a bit more extensively on it.

“High” art, it would seem, is the art of the upper classes - that is to say, it is the art of the status quo. Generally and anecdotally speaking, “high” art forms are those that have been accepted by the community-at-large as being noble, goodly, and beautiful. It may or may not seek to challenge, to displace, to question - it merely serves the purpose of engaging those that already understand the form. This is not to say that “high” art is bad; as said earlier, Van Gogh is considered today to be “high” art, and I find his work to be bloody beautiful, the work of an elegant but twisted mind. Generally, “high” art also seems to be the art of the previous generation; it has been examined, studied, and criticized by many before, and has been deemed worthy of viewing by contemporary audiences.

“Low” art, on the other hand, is the art that challenges the status quo. Usually disparaged by contemporary critics as being “base” and “vulgar,” it is art that often attempts to challenge and question preconceived notions; “Must art be beautiful and hyper-realistic, like that of the Renaissance?” or, “Must art be accessible only to those whom have studied it extensively?” In the last three or four decades, an actual art movement has sprung up around the idea of “low” art - Lowbrow art.

The term “Lowbrow Art” was coined by Robert Williams, an artist that could not get his paintings displayed in any major or influential art galleries. He published a book, intentionally self-deprecating, called “The Lowbrow Art of Robt. Williams,” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowbrow_art) that contained art that Williams described as “cartoon-tainted abstract surrealism.” (from same source) Lowbrow Art is considered invalid by many art critics; the theory goes that an artform becomes legitimate when scholarly, internally-based criticism is done upon it, and since this is lacking, it is not “legitimate” art. However, this may be intentional - my room mate, a follower of the movement, characterized one of the struggles of the movement thusly; “It’s an attempt to create art that you don’t have to go to college and study to understand.” (thanks, Garrett) If the entire purpose of the form is to challenge “high” art, then why should the standards of “high” art - that of internal criticism - be held to it?

What I mean to do is to paint Ebert as an upper-class elitist that shares many similarities with art-elitists from generations past; he is unable to identify new and significant movements, he disparages attempts from new movements to legitimize themselves, and fails to understand that the contemporarily-held definition is illusory and will thus change over time. I involve this line of thinking for a specific reason; he said that “Anything can be art. Even a can of Campbell's soup. What I should have said is that games could not be high art, as I understand it.” (http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/levelup/archive/2007/07/30/croal-vs-ebert-vs-barker-on-whether-videogames-can-be-high-art-round-1.aspx)

This is problematic for many reasons; as I’ve tried to show, his definitions of art-in-general are weak and terribly flawed, demonstrating a lack of understanding of the field, and his accusation against games-as-art never being able to attain “high” art status merely signifies him as a member of the established art community - that same established art community that, time and time again, has failed to recognize new mediums and forms as being worthy of the term “art.”

So Are Videogames Art?

I do not know. As the term “art” is so politically and controversially charged, I don’t even like to use it. As a poet, I write what I believe I know sometimes and what I’d like to know often - but I’d rarely call it art. I despise being called an artist and the weird, counter-culture dirty-city-hippie connotations that it carries. But I’m pretty sure that games can be art - but not all of them.

Similar to cinema, some works are much more profound and important than others, and one does not require an in-depth understanding of the form to see as much. Films like The Fountain are beautiful expressions of specific mindsets, agonizing over the realities of life; others, like 300 are wonderfully bloody and carnage-filled carnivals of excess, and I find the term “art” to apply to them both for obviously different reasons. However, some films - like, say, Battle Royale, a Japanese film about middle schoolers killing each other, are probably not art. One of the definitions my room mate has given (that he does not necessarily cling to at all times) is the purpose of the work; was it created to forward a medium, to make a statement, to create something beautiful? Or was it created to make somebody a bunch of money? If the answer is the latter, then, probably, it is not art; if the former, then it is. This is clearly problematic in that to do just about anything in the United States it has to be something designed to make money (if you’re getting funding for the work) - so there are a great many blurry lines.

This is especially because most major videogames are enormous financial endeavours from parent companies; AAA titles are quickly turning into tens-of-millions of dollar affairs. This is why I instead turn to more indie-based games to look for art.

Passage is a very short game. It is also light on controls, with the player only being able to move up, down, or forward. In fact, it isn’t really much of a game - it’s much more of a statement about death, and the futility of life. You cannot win this game. No matter what the player does, he will die in the end. They can choose whether or not to fall in love with a woman, and although this increases your lifespan, it also makes it much more difficult to navigate the maze that is the game.

Sure, when I play the game I might walk ten steps forward, three up, and two down; but I will still die. When you play the game, you might befriend the woman, walk fifteen steps forward, two down, and one up - but you will still die, in love or not. I might even score more points than you - but if you cannot win the game and just die in the end, then what do they even matter? Passage takes care not to state much directly to you, instead letting the player figure things out for themselves - similar to the way an excellent poet need not state an emotion as much as paint it through words, or a director need not tell you the scene is sad as much as provide a series of evocative imagery.

In the case of Passage, I’m really not sure how this can be characterized as anything but “art.” Graphically, its reminiscent of the SNES games of yore; 256 colors, low resolution, smooth animations. It’s almost like an oil painting in this. What I am not sure of at all, however, is whether or not Passage is even a game.

You cannot win. There is no competition. There are no outcomes but death. No challenges lie within its confines. Are these things that break the definition of a game for Passage? I am, again, not at all sure - but just the same, I find it a captivating and stimulating - if depressing - experience, that I have returned to many times and probably will many more through my passage of life.

Like the anamorphosis paintings of da Vinci and the bizarrely-abstracted images of Van Gogh, Passage shows us something that has not been before; it is an experience that is unique to itself. Videogames are in a similar state; until the end of the 20th century, videogames could have barely even been conceived of. Under what absurd pretense is it that we, when viewing these things contemporarily, can come to attempt to define them as - or deny them as being - art? Holding games up to prior definitions of art is as silly as holding new art forms up to the definitions of old ones - it would be like trying to analyze the black folk-metal stylings of the Norwegian band Windir with the standards we apply to Brittney Spears, and wondering why it failed to conform to our standards. Undoubtedly, the vast majority of modern music critics would denounce Windir as being a terrible sort of burden, a catastrophe to inflict upon the ear drum. But .. didn’t contemporary critics of the Beatles say the same thing?