121 réponses à ce sujet

[CybAnt1]

I don't have a particularly good definition of art myself, apart from the good old Potter Stewart standby of "I know it when I see it." (He was talking about pornography, but that's basically the same thing. Isn't it?) So I don't know that I can say that video games are art, because I don't know that I have a good understanding of what art is - not because I don't believe that video games can be art. But I think that Ebert's reasons for his particular definition of what was and was not art were flawed.
 

 

BTW, in Miller vs. California (1973), SCOTUS created a very important test that relates greatly to this! 

 

Potter was not trying to define pornography - he was trying to define obscenity - since the issue was really not figuring out what is pornography (which is more or less  legal in the U.S.), but rather what is obscene pornography (which, due to its obscenity, should not be protected by the 1st amendment).

 

So here's the test. One thing that makes something obscene is,

 

3) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

 

BTW, most people would say erotica is art, porn is not-art, but what Miller was really trying to establish was what was obscene and not-obscene. 

 

In the end, erotica or porn (and I think it's an interesting discussion where one begins and ends), is obscene, if it 1) appeals to the prurient interest, 2) goes against community standards (whose are those, exactly?), and there's the third test, lacks those values described above. That could result in something being obscene, and possibly lacking 1st amendment protections. (That doesn't mean Miller says it MUST be banned, just that it COULD be banned.)

 

BTW, my personal position is just because a medium, textual or visual, still or moving, with or without accompanying audio, depicts nudity and/or even yes, sexual activity, real or simulated, that does not make that content either obscene or pornographic (in essentiality). 

[Swoopdogg]

Films were once considered "not art", yet now they are. Video games are simply the next chapter.

 

Video games add a whole new layer to the art. The player has a say in the world (to varying extents). Not only have the artists put their own hearts and souls into the game, but now the player can put his/her own heart and soul into it. It's not just art; it's a whole new form of art.

 

So, you can say that elements within the game are art. The story's art. The graphics are art. The music is art. How is the whole game, then, not art?

 

Video games are art if they fulfill the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination.

Video games fulfill the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination.

Therefore, video games are art.

 

Plain and simple.

[CybAnt1]

Nicely stated. And I totally agree.

 

I like to return to a few things mentioned along the way on our journey.

 

1) The roots of the fantasy fiction genre lie in Medieval Romances. Particularly, the Arthurian Grail Romances. DAO is extremely resonant to this earlier historical genre of literature, especially the section dealing with the Sacred Urn, which is very Grail-like. I like the fact that this part of the game evokes these earlier tales. It really irritates me when people say romance was never part of (medieval, capital-R) Romance. It absolutely was: Tristan and Iseult being my favorite example. 

 

2) The story of the Darkspawn, the Maker, and the Black City, however true or not true the narrative ends up being ultimately to actual events, is very evocative of both the Tower of Babel story in Genesis, and Milton's Paradise Lost. BTW, I love the moments when little bits of codex-lore evoke Earth-stories in odd and curious ways, like how the story of Koslun (which we only know quite partially) is very similar to the story of the Buddha, or how Andraste, as it turns out, is named after Boudica's patron goddess. 

 

3) There is an obvious isometry between their hierarchies of demons and spirits, and medieval lore about the Seven Deadly Sins/Vices and Seven Grand Virtues. Someone on the writing team knows their medieval lore. Good stuff. 

 

... those are some things that make me feel this series has a bit of 'high art' to it as well as 'high fantasy' .... and I really enjoy.

 

Personally, Ebert reminds me of people who say that comic books can never be literature or art, either. And I know many, and I think they are as wrong as he is  . I always used to think that until I read some of my first graphic novels. Including Alan Moore's Watchmen, as well as V for Vendetta, both of which are great examples of good translation into film. 

 

IMHO, Watchmen deconstructs the typical superhero comic book, and asks an interesting question. What kind of people would don tights and go fight crime? There's only one character that has anything approximating "super powers," and his are so godlike that he is losing touch with the rest of humanity, including his girlfriend. But the rest? One thing that seems apparent is that a lot of people who want to don tights & fight might actually be psychopaths or sociopaths (at worst) or mildly neurotic (at best) (that would be Night Owl). The Comedian - a sociopath, but with something at the end that looks like a redemptive feature. Rohrshach - a sociopath, too - but such a strange & interesting one, his backstory ties into real world events (the Kitty Genovese murder). And Ozymandias? Well, the worst of all, but to say more would be the ultimate spoiler.

 

V for Vendetta? I think there is a reason why thousands of people all over the world are wearing Guy Fawkes masks. V is a very strange antihero too, an obvious monster (who knows what he is), a vigilante (who kills without mercy, well, at least he's willing at times to do it quickly and painlessly), but so wonderfully eloquent and his relationship with Edie Hammond, including his most awful of choices over what to do to her despite being in love with her - great lit. The story of Valerie - one of many reasons he chose his moniker - beautifully told. 

 

And definitely, in the graphic novel category, I would put Maus, which while it features comically-drawn rodents in comic book form, is anything but Mickey Mouse. 

 

 

 

Comic books CAN be for grownups, and so can video games. Why, some can even be for more than those in their 20s. 

[CybAnt1]

There are many people who argue games could tackle more 'serious' purposes, and still be games. One interesting discussion is whether ARGs could be 'serious' and I think some of these ideas could also apply to CRPGs. 

 

I believe Bioware uses a Narrativist approach in writing their games, using the GNS Model. 

 

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/GNS_Theory

Narrativism[edit]

Narrativism relies heavily on outlining or developing motives for the characters, putting them into situations where those motives come into mutual conflict, and making their decisions in the face of such stress the main driving force behind events. For example, a Samurai character sworn to honour and obey his lord might have that loyalty tested when directed to fight against his own rebellious son. A compassionate doctor might have his sense of charity tested when an enemy soldier comes under his care. On the lighter end of the spectrum, a student might have to decide whether to help her best friend cheat on an exam.

 

This has two main effects. Firstly, and in contrast to much Simulationist play, characters usually show considerable change and development over time. Secondly, any attempt at imposing a fixed storyline is either impossible or highly counterproductive. Moments of drama – which is to say, inner conflict on the part of the characters – inherently make player responses difficult to predict, and the consequences of such choices cannot be minimised. More than this, revisiting the characters' motives or underlying emotional themes over time often leads to a process of escalation: asking variations on the same "question", but at higher and higher levels of intensity, as exemplified through the situations and developments of play. The "answers" that the players supply, as exemplified through their characters' responses and their eventual repercussions, can then be taken as a kind of moral commentary on various human qualities or values under the circumstances. In short, it coaxes out an overall point or message, but as an after-effect or byproduct of play, rather than as an accessory to it.

[end]

 

That to me is the answer to the point in the article about games not speaking to us about being human. On the contrary, I think RPGs and CRPGs have the potential to speak to us about being human in the best possible way! By putting difficult moral choices before us, and thinking about the humanistic consequences of those choices. I agree with the other poster who said these games are about relationships. Absolutely. People say Dragon Age is not a dating sim. But I do believe, on as rudimentary a level as games are trying to do right now, it is a relationship sim. One of the most interesting things the approval/friendship system forces you to do in a game is think about how what you are doing affects your friends/companions -- and balancing the fact that they often have opposing value systems and expectations! 

 

http://journals.ub.u...icle/view/12162

 

The core conflict of BioWare’s 2011 digital role-playing game Dragon Age II places the Christianesque Chantry in opposition to both the hierarchical Qunari and the Circle of Magi. In Dragon Age II religious beliefs, particularly those of the Chantry, prove destructive; by demonstrating the chaos of religious conflict, the game guides the player to recognize the danger inherent in extremist devotion to religion, and argues that interpersonal relationships should form the basis of our ethics. In Dragon Age II, the player-character, Hawke, is evaluated by each of his (or her) non-player companions; the mechanic forms the basis for a fundamentally humanist ideological framework in the game’s world, despite the prevalence of a variety of religious beliefs. I suggest that the game retreats from systems of belief as ideal sources of ethical mores, instead turning to human interaction as a preferable means of determining social and personal ethics.

[end]

[Wolfen09]

if some terrible rap stars and pop stars can call themselves artists, then im pretty sure the homeless man who just puked on the side walk could do so too....  as for video games, definitely...  just because its mainly used as an entertainment tool doesnt mean it isnt art.... i mean movies are considered art, and thats made for entertainment purposes.

 

As for its effects on me

 

1.  I can read better

2.  I have an outlet for my aggression and stress instead of violence or drinking (hold on to that last part a bit)

3.  I socially interact with others, pretty much the equal amount people do on facebook

4.  Keeps my mind sharp and physical dexterity up

5.  It makes for good conversation topics (with younger generation) when we are out in the real world and have to interact with people

[Iakus]

I hope Dragon Age isn't art.

 

After ME3, I'd rather have entertainment.

[stephen_dedalus]

If the last century of art criticism and literary theory has taught us anything, it's that anything can be art if the people consuming are thinking of it as art, feeling it to be art, or otherwise registering it in the ways that they tend to register art.  The animating question for me as a consumer of media is no longer whether a thing is or is not art, but whether that thing is good art or bad art, and, perhaps, the related question of what criteria I use in my role as arbiter of artistic value for myself.

 

As far as games go, I tend to feel that the most artistically successful games are the ones that make the boundary between narrative and gameplay somewhat permable.  Bioware games, for example, tend to compartmentalize these two dimensions--gameplay leads to scenes of exposition that further the narrative--and consequently I tend to feel that these games are not entirely compelling as art.   That's not to say that they're not entertaining or rewarding, or that they're unequivocally bad art, but they do seem to somewhat clumsily arrange an uneasy relationship between form and content. There are, of course, occasional exceptions (ME 2's Suicide Mission and the pursuit of Hespith through the Dead Trenches in DA:O come to mind), but my own subjective experience with Bioware games is that gameplay is a thing that must be gotten through in order to reach the next stage in the story and the consequent development of the narrative's themes.  Conversely, a game like Shadow of the Colossus strikes me as more tangibly artful because of the way it collapses gameplay and narrative into the same dimension.  It explores themes of loneliness, desperation, sublime landscape and a sense of place, moral compromise, friendship, loss, and despair by incorporating the experience of these themes into the game mechanics.  The gameplay is the story, for the most part, and, at least for me, that means feeling those themes with an immediacy unmatched in games that separate story and gameplay.  And that's how I distinguish good art, or effective art, from art that is less successful: I correlate aesthetic impact with artistic success.  I suppose that makes me something of a late Romantic.

 

So, yes, games are art, but at a moment when everything is art, or anything can be art, that affirmation doesn't really affirm much of anything.  But to assume permission to evaluate and distinguish between art that moves us and art that doesn't is to reformulate the question in a way that makes it relevant again, and also makes condemnations of the entire medium of video games (Ebert's or anyone else's) far too general to have any real rhetorical power.

[A Crusty Knight Of Colour]

There is a weird trend of attributing transcendent qualities to a work because people deem it as 'art'.

Art is really just a form of expression conveyed through a work, and video games is one medium in which this is possible.

But many people I've seen who care intensely about the subject strike me as incredibly insecure about their hobby (gaming) and the argument is made for the purposes of elevating themselves, as opposed to a way of appreciating games.

You see the same things happen with comic book fans who insist on calling them 'graphic novels' and pseudo-intellectual journalists/gamers clamoring over a supposed 'Citizen Kane' moment.

Not saying that is necessarily the case in this thread, but it is all too common in my experience.

[Mr.House]

I hope Dragon Age isn't art.

 

After ME3, I'd rather have entertainment.

Art=/=bad endings

[CybAnt1]

You see the same things happen with comic book fans who insist on calling them 'graphic novels' and pseudo-intellectual journalists/gamers clamoring over a supposed 'Citizen Kane' moment.

Not saying that is necessarily the case in this thread, but it is all too common in my experience.

 

Not all comic books are graphic novels, but graphic novels are a subset of comic books.

 

BTW, two things that I think are not opposed are art, and fun or entertainment. I don't think there is a dichotomy of "artiness" versus being fun.

 

But then, that said, of course, as fun and enjoyment are related, it really relates to what you enjoy. I guess I find "arty" things to also be ... enjoyable. Perhaps others find them ... pretentious, or something else they view as not-fun.

 

So be it. It goes with being different people.

[Gravisanimi]

In order to say whether games are art, we have to ask another question, which forgive me if that has indeed been asked.

 

What is the definition of art?

 

Art defines itself, escaping definition, it is the label that can be placed on anything, but due to the human nature of categorization, we need a definition, but can't keep a solid one.

 

So, in short, games are an art form if they want to be, simply say so.

[CybAnt1]

In order to say whether games are art, we have to ask another question, which forgive me if that has indeed been asked.

 

What is the definition of art?

 

You're not the first person to make the point.

 

All I would say is, I do find it interesting that people say there is no exact definition of it, yet there are encyclopedia articles on it, and definitions of it in Webster's Dictionary.

 

I will repeat my point: not everybody seems to agree on what is "news" and yet we have professional journalists that seem to be going out trying to report on it, or whatever the profession has consensed or agreed upon is it.

 

That definitions are contested, that some people often feel they are too narrow - OR too broad - doesn't mean there aren't large pools of consensus, which result in working definitions that most (not all) people agree on.

 

To take another example, it seems there is no universal agreement on the question of "what is funny" or "what is humor" - for example - yet people are often able to discuss what they find humorous, without a lot of people protesting that not everybody can agree on what constitutes funniness, so what is the point of the discussion.

[SlottsMachine]

This could be in Scuttlebutt, but I think best belongs in Story & Characters. 

 

 

Jokes on you smart guy. This apparently belongs in Off-Topic. 

[CybAnt1]

Is this not an acceptable definition? I guess if you feel it doesn't define art, tell me why it doesn't. I accept this definition. Someone else basically cited it earlier.

 

-- the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

 

BTW, nothing in that definition means you can't experience beauty, sublimity, and emotional power, and also "have fun" or interact with the work (which is why I think Ebert is wrong).

 

So then, if you prefer, the question might be (if you accept this definition) -- does this game have beauty and emotional power? Beauty can be more than visual experience, so we already know DAI will be visually stunning at one level, but this is only one kind of beauty.

 

My answer is yes. You can think I'm asking because I'm being pretentious or want to elevate myself, no it's because I find a certain richness within my hobby, and I want to talk with people who can sense it, also.

 

I want to hear from other people who feel the same way. Of course, also from those who don't, that's inevitable.

[CybAnt1]

Jokes on you smart guy. This apparently belongs in Off-Topic. 

 

So a moderator decided. I can see a case for why it has nothing to do, per se, with the upcoming game Dragon Age Inquisition, though I would disagree. It is an upcoming part of a series, and I was talking about the qualities of the series as a whole.

 

But where I do not understand is why it doesn't belong in any Dragon Age forum, given Dragon Age is in the title. That, admittedly, mystifies me.

[SlottsMachine]

Most of the time a person knows what is intended to be humorous even if they themselves to do not find it to be so. Is everything including my finger painting (which is pretty dope by the way) considered art or do we go by a more hoity toity definition.  

[CybAnt1]

What was wrong with the definition I gave above? It's as "hoity toity" as you choose to view it.

 

BTW, I also agree with people who stated earlier that it's a beginning point. Then you need criteria for separating low art from high art, and good art from bad art.

 

Pop music is often considered low art or folk art, orchestra and ballet high art. BTW, I personally don't think there's anything bad about low art, simply because it's popular and doesn't go out of its way to be seen as "fine".

 

There's both good and bad high and low art, and nothing wrong with low art, and I admittedly don't even like that word "low" so maybe we could simply stick with "popular" or "folk".

 

So now, if you want my answer to the topic title, I would say Dragon Age is good popular art, and not the only video game worthy of the designation, but one of several. Personally, I am not anyone else, but I would not say Space Invaders is good art, even if it is entertaining.

 

Of course, I kind of have an implicit "speaks to the human condition" thing which I add to my personal definition.

[SlottsMachine]

^I'm only really half paying attention. 

 

I suppose I personally believe most things to be art unless its something that has been streamlined to death for commercial reasons or it has zero redeeming qualities. 

[CybAnt1]

If the last century of art criticism and literary theory has taught us anything, it's that anything can be art if the people consuming are thinking of it as art, feeling it to be art, or otherwise registering it in the ways that they tend to register art.  The animating question for me as a consumer of media is no longer whether a thing is or is not art, but whether that thing is good art or bad art, and, perhaps, the related question of what criteria I use in my role as arbiter of artistic value for myself.

 

As far as games go, I tend to feel that the most artistically successful games are the ones that make the boundary between narrative and gameplay somewhat permable.  Bioware games, for example, tend to compartmentalize these two dimensions--gameplay leads to scenes of exposition that further the narrative--and consequently I tend to feel that these games are not entirely compelling as art.   That's not to say that they're not entertaining or rewarding, or that they're unequivocally bad art, but they do seem to somewhat clumsily arrange an uneasy relationship between form and content. There are, of course, occasional exceptions (ME 2's Suicide Mission and the pursuit of Hespith through the Dead Trenches in DA:O come to mind), but my own subjective experience with Bioware games is that gameplay is a thing that must be gotten through in order to reach the next stage in the story and the consequent development of the narrative's themes.  Conversely, a game like Shadow of the Colossus strikes me as more tangibly artful because of the way it collapses gameplay and narrative into the same dimension.  It explores themes of loneliness, desperation, sublime landscape and a sense of place, moral compromise, friendship, loss, and despair by incorporating the experience of these themes into the game mechanics.  The gameplay is the story, for the most part, and, at least for me, that means feeling those themes with an immediacy unmatched in games that separate story and gameplay.  And that's how I distinguish good art, or effective art, from art that is less successful: I correlate aesthetic impact with artistic success.  I suppose that makes me something of a late Romantic.

 

So, yes, games are art, but at a moment when everything is art, or anything can be art, that affirmation doesn't really affirm much of anything.  But to assume permission to evaluate and distinguish between art that moves us and art that doesn't is to reformulate the question in a way that makes it relevant again, and also makes condemnations of the entire medium of video games (Ebert's or anyone else's) far too general to have any real rhetorical power.

 

Mr. Dedalus, as a huge fan of James Joyce, let me just say, thank you for answering in a non-simplistic way.

 

Give my regards to the folk of Dublin.

[bmwcrazy]

Jay Baruchel: "I'm not a big art guy."

James Franco: "You don't like art?"

Jay Baruchel: "Well, come on..."

James Franco: "You play video games?"

Jay Baruchel: "Yes."

James Franco: "Well, guess what buddy? You like art."

Jay Baruchel: "Yup."

James Franco: "You ever been to Subway?"

Jay Baruchel: "Yes."

James Franco: "You order a sandwich? Somebody put that together for you, dude. That's art."

Seth Rogen: "Sandwich artist."

James Franco: "So, let me lay this on you, Jay..."

Jay Baruchel: "Oh, f***."

James Franco: "Your mama's p**** was the canvas. Your dad's d*** was the paintbrush. Boom! You're the art. Huh?"

Jay Baruchel: "Thanks, James Franco."

James Franco: "You've got it."

 

[CybAnt1]

'Twas a great scene, and a valid point.

 

That is sort of the point Dr. Manhattan makes to Silk Spectre, in the very pivotal scene on Mars, in Watchmen.

[Gravisanimi]

Is this not an acceptable definition? I guess if you feel it doesn't define art, tell me why it doesn't. I accept this definition. Someone else basically cited it earlier.

 

-- the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.

 

I can mostly agree with this, but that does in fact limit it to authorial intent.

Why did they make the thing they made?

 

And I wonder how Martial Arts works into this?

[Cainhurst Crow]

The big secret of art, is that there is no distinction between what is or isn't art. Everything is art, especially now a-days, when you have movies, books, paintings, sculptures, models, photographs, exhibits, displays, live performers, music, random assortments of noises, graffiti, it's ridiculous to claim games aren't art when many so called art experts hail things like a picture of a soap can or other modern art pieces into the category, in my opinion. Anything that expresses an idea, invokes an emotion, conveys a message, no matter what the message or the form of that communication or evocation, seems to be considered art, that's at least the way people have defended modern art to me when I asked what made it art and not nonsense. Given that, I don't see how you would consider video games not worthy of this, even as far as story conveying art goes, unless you simply didn't pay attention to some of the recent or even older forms of games.

 

Here's the thing though, most of these people aren't actually arguing whether something is or isn't art when they talk about what is or isn't art. They're talking about status, what status does this work have in the community of critics whose entire carriers depend on the pomposity of their opinions. It's all a fake debate, a shadow on the wall cast back in the time when artists were distinguished as a separate class of citizen in the caste system of ancient society, someone who made things of worth and was thus worth a lot themselves. It's this resin from that time that seeps into a lot of these debates about whether something is or isn't whatever, or debates of authenticity, or debates of whether something is high or low or medium or medium rare. All of it is just people bickering about how they deserve more praise and respect then everyone else and the discarding of logic or reason to do so, lest someone question why there are so many naked emperors and empresses in the room yelling at one another.

[CybAnt1]

That's an interesting response, it's similar to others, I just don't happen to completely agree with it.   BTW, I'm not an artist (well, at least not by most conventional definitions), a professional art critic, or really heavily part of the "art world". I certainly don't think of myself as an elitist snob, but I can't control how others regard me. 

 

I think the best responses - in the article - to Ebert were that the only reason he doesn't accept video games as an art form is that they are in their infancy, and almost every art form in its infancy was dismissed initially by those snobby critics as not-art. I could also point to the first radio shows, or TV programs. I think those responses are spot on. 

 

I have been a lover of good literature for a long time, and I certainly think of literature as an art form. To me, it would be an interesting question to what extent the Dragon Age novels are good literature: I confess I can't say as I haven't read them. I have read fantasy books in the past, and have a real soft spot, just as one example, for Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion stories. Also - though it is outside the fantasy genre and usually put in supernatural/horror - also for H.P. Lovecraft's fiction. And, of course, I've read Tolkien, as well as seen the film adaptations.

 

You know what I like in Tolkien's books? The relationships. What drives the story is not just the scenery, by that I mean, wizards, dragons, orcs, hobbits, balrogs, and precious one true rings. No, what I really like is Samwise Gamgee's incredibly loyalty to Frodo, or the way in which Faramir so desperately seeks the love of his father, or yes, also, the star-crossed love of Aragorn and Arwen. Or that painfully bittersweet ending of the Fellowship on the shores of the sea. I know some people debate Tolkien's quality as a writer but these are often so poignant. 

 

MHO - which as always you can take or leave - what makes great literature great is it speaks to the human condition. Which faces universal problems, whether they be in the 12th century, 21st century, or 31st century. Perhaps in all epochs and all eras humans have been searching for meaning and purpose in their lives. Why cannot really great games help in that quest, just as I think good art has. And to me this is a big and important thing: Angry Birds cannot make you think more deeply about some of the deepest of life's questions, but Dragon Age could. (And personally, I think it's been aspiring to.) 

 

My position is that CRPGs and other story-driven/narratively-dense games (thing is, I don't know too many outside of the CRPGs that try; well you do have the adventure games like Myst, for example, the Simulation games like The Sims or SimEarth, or the Strategy games like Civilization) have a chance to speak to the human condition in a way that Angry Birds, Super Mario Kart, Space Invaders, Pong, etc. can't. I know it's a challenge as some people will never want a game to be anything more than "just" "a game" and perhaps there is a real difficult juggling act in getting it to remain-a-fun-game while evoking-some-artistic-qualities, but I personally see Bioware trying, and for that ... I applaud. 

 

Dragon Age has great literary qualities, it seems to be aspiring to be taken as great literature, I guess I would say, "moar please." It has the power to evoke the great tales of the past. But, and I've said this before, and will say it again, it has to decide what it wants to be more like: (interactive) Arthurian Tales, or Angry Birds. You can call me whatever names you want, personally I find one direction the wrong direction for the series to go in.

 

Which is why I started this thread.