Smithsonian And National Endowment For The Arts Ends Argument: Video Games ARE Art

[Icarus Moonsight]

Let the ineptitude begin! *called it*

[sheath]

Let the ineptitude begin! *called it*

Hah! Some of the games I would have voted for are on platforms I never played them on with choices I haven't even heard of! This is an open poll, anybody with an email address can vote.

Seriously, this must have been created by an individual or a group of like minded individuals and will amount to much "discussion".

[Icarus Moonsight]

Dare one speculate, a committee?

Want to sell me on something? Give me an argument or well thought out reasons for your stance, but a poll? Sheesh. Chicken-shit written all over it. We got the circus, now where's the bread?

[eskobar]

Several of us have had the "are games art" argument, but now the greatest art institution in the world steps in to rule in video games favor. The Smithsonian Art Museum will host "Art of Video Games" in 2012, running for six months. Although it won't take place in the actual Smithsonian, the American Art Museum is nearly as prestigious.

The reason why I put this in modern gaming as opposed to classic gaming was because the press release stated that the exhibit would showcase game art from the Atari VCS to the Playstation 3. Plus, the last two and current generation(in my opinion) have done more for the "are games art" argument than any other time frame.

I have a feeling that Mr. Ebert might sit this one out. Discuss your opinion about this upcoming groundbreaking exhibit that will showcase one of our favorite hobbies.

Is art created to profit ?

I think that is a very powerful argument that really makes a difference between real art and "artsy"

[Bojay1997]

Although I still believe that video games are a form of art, I find the criteria listed on the poll page for what they would like to put in the exhibit disturbing. Apparently, to qualify, a game has to be "visually spectacular" or contain "innovative design". Apparently if a game is not visually spectacular or innovative in its design, it's not art. I'm actually starting to warm to the "not-art" side of things now.

[sheath]

Art is anything that invokes the sublime. If this society valued philosophy at all everybody would have already concluded that only some games are art, and even then not everybody can appreciate them.

Mount Everest can be sublime to those who can see it in person, or it can just be a picture. The Sistine Chapel can be sublime to those who haven't been ruined by religion. A video game can be sublime if it is accessible enough, challenging enough, and it, the publisher, or the platform, hasn't ruined its opportunity.

[TonyTheTiger]

Art is anything that invokes the sublime. If this society valued philosophy at all everybody would have already concluded that only some games are art, and even then not everybody can appreciate them.

Mount Everest can be sublime to those who can see it in person, or it can just be a picture. The Sistine Chapel can be sublime to those who haven't been ruined by religion. A video game can be sublime if it is accessible enough, challenging enough, and it, the publisher, or the platform, hasn't ruined its opportunity.

With all due respect, that's very pretentious. Regardless of where games stand, it's a real turn off when art is used as a weapon like that.

Although I still believe that video games are a form of art, I find the criteria listed on the poll page for what they would like to put in the exhibit disturbing. Apparently, to qualify, a game has to be "visually spectacular" or contain "innovative design". Apparently if a game is not visually spectacular or innovative in its design, it's not art. I'm actually starting to warm to the "not-art" side of things now.

It's again those arbitrary lines we've gone back and forth over 100 times. I don't much like drawing lines in the sand when they're predicated on vague concepts like "innovative" and "spectacular." I don't get why they're not just saying "what are the best games" if that's the case. Can a shit game be innovative and visually spectacular? I assume so provided it's also a glitchy mess. But lord knows that's not going to make the cut.

Dare one speculate, a committee?

Want to sell me on something? Give me an argument or well thought out reasons for your stance, but a poll? Sheesh. Chicken-shit written all over it. We got the circus, now where's the bread?

It does sound eerily GameFAQs, doesn't it? I'm all for polls and public opinion and maybe some things like the Oscars would do well to take the blinders off and being more open to the real world. But something about this in particular comes off like a patronizing afterthought. Not the great respect conferred upon games that everybody expected, huh?

[PapaStu]

Is art created to profit ?

I think that is a very powerful argument that really makes a difference between real art and "artsy"

Yes. Art is sold by the artist for money day in and day out. My artist friends live on the sales of their works. Should someone choose to pay more than the actual costs in creation of sed 'art' (paint/brushes/canvas etc) then they are profiting.

There are entire business models based on the sales of art. Thomas Kinkade is just one of many artists that sell works in a business model built around max profits.

Movies are often considered art, and those are sold to the general public and the hopes are for profit with the release of any film.

[sheath]

With all due respect, that's very pretentious. Regardless of where games stand, it's a real turn off when art is used as a weapon like that.

I know, we live in a post-modern skeptic world and the philosophy I just crudely paraphrased from Plato and Kant is heavily looked down upon.

All the same, the alternative philosophical view simply states that everything is art and nothing is art, which makes the entire discussion worthless.

Also, how did I use art as a weapon?

[eskobar]

Yes. Art is sold by the artist for money day in and day out. My artist friends live on the sales of their works. Should someone choose to pay more than the actual costs in creation of sed 'art' (paint/brushes/canvas etc) then they are profiting.

There are entire business models based on the sales of art. Thomas Kinkade is just one of many artists that sell works in a business model built around max profits.

Movies are often considered art, and those are sold to the general public and the hopes are for profit with the release of any film.

Aren't you "cheaping" art ?

Art is obviously a very profitable bussines, but the REAL ART was not created to profit.

You obviously can sell "art" .... but the real business is made from artists that made great independent efforts to Art Galleries and Museums. If REAL ART could be sold that easy, thousands of Pollocks and VanGoghs could exist.

Movies that are considered as art are always independent films that struggle to reach an audience, not even the best Hollywood movies rank among the true masterpieces of cinematography.

If Dalí or Picasso painted only to make money, they couldn't create such pieces. The greatest and most recognized TRUE ARTIST were never filled with gold in his pockets.

[Wolfrider31]

Aren't you "cheaping" art ?

Art is obviously a very profitable bussines, but the REAL ART was not created to profit.

You obviously can sell "art" .... but the real business is made from artists that made great independent efforts to Art Galleries and Museums. If REAL ART could be sold that easy, thousands of Pollocks and VanGoghs could exist.

Movies that are considered as art are always independent films that struggle to reach an audience, not even the best Hollywood movies rank among the true masterpieces of cinematography.

If Dalí or Picasso painted only to make money, they couldn't create such pieces. The greatest and most recognized TRUE ARTIST were never filled with gold in his pockets.

Shakespeare would like to have a word with you. Actually, if you look at the history of art and literature a great many artists were incredibly affluent - or at least supported financially by the aristocracy. It wasn't because art was particularly profitable, but you simply couldn't be a member of the working class and still have time to devote yourself to artistic endeavors. In fact pretty much all the literature written from the Augustan Period to the end of the Romantic period were written by those from the upper class. Music and visual art follows a similar trend.

[Ryaan1234]

You know what, I'm going to throw my $0.02 in here.

Art embodies the human ability to express oneself. It can be made for profit, to send a message, and even for fun. That's the beauty of it. At least that's how I see it. Video games as art? Yes, I think in a way all video games are art. For instance something like Ocarina of Time would be the art world's equivalent of the Mona Lisa, mainstream, brilliant, and loved by many. What about Madden 94? Would that be art too? Yes, it would be a really basic nondescript flower painting. (Imagine something you see hanging in the doctor's office )

I believe there are different "tiers" of art ranging from the really boring mass produced pieces (Kinkade is a great example) up to the really wonderful pieces Da Vinci and Dali created. Lowbrow and highbrow if you will. We can then classify video games as art where the really amazing ones stand out and the games created just for profit (and some other categories) fall into the lower tier. You don't have to judge Guitar Hero 27 on the same level as Earthbound. Some people use art as a catch-all term where it means everything needs to be judged equally. And that's not the case.

Art is obviously a very profitable bussines, but the REAL ART was not created to profit.

This is one of the STUPIDEST things I have read in a long time. Some of the most respected pieces of art were created for profit! For instance Da Vinci's The Last Supper was created on commission!

[sheath]

You know what, I'm going to throw my $0.02 in here.

Art embodies the human ability to express oneself. It can be made for profit, to send a message, and even for fun. That's the beauty of it. At least that's how I see it. Video games as art? Yes, I think in a way all video games are art. For instance something like Ocarina of Time would be the art world's equivalent of the Mona Lisa, mainstream, brilliant, and loved by many. What about Madden 94? Would that be art too? Yes, it would be a really basic nondescript flower painting. (Imagine something you see hanging in the doctor's office )

I believe there are different "tiers" of art ranging from the really boring mass produced pieces (Kinkade is a great example) up to the really wonderful pieces Da Vinci and Dali created. Lowbrow and highbrow if you will. We can then classify video games as art where the really amazing ones stand out and the games created just for profit (and some other categories) fall into the lower tier. You don't have to judge Guitar Hero 27 on the same level as Earthbound. Some people use art as a catch-all term where it means everything needs to be judged equally. And that's not the case.

Just to be clear, the above is undoubtedly a reflection on a post-modern (current) world view. If the history of aesthetics ended today this would be the "winner" by sheer volume.

I would like to point out that the philosophy of aesthetics has been much more specific throughout human history until today. The alternative view that is popular today would say that the law of gravity is not a law at all. Tomorrow you might drop something and and the law of gravity will be something else entirely.

I don't live in that world, so I prefer the pre-modern view on art as well. In gaming, that means anything that makes me think of something more than myself.

[Ryaan1234]

I don't live in that world, so I prefer the pre-modern view on art as well. In gaming, that means anything that makes me think of something more than myself.

Laughing gleefully, Sheath sits by the fireside with a vintage wine in one hand, and a SNES controller in the other, going on and on about how Shaq-Fu is an incredibly wonderful work of art because it makes him think of something more than his own self.

>_>

For you to be pretentious in this matter is absurd. To say that a game is art simply because it "makes you think of something more than yourself" is simplifying the concept of art too much for my tastes and at least to me it says that you think of nothing but yourself all the time.

With my first post in this thread I just attempted to solve the main problem with considering games as art. If you think of something like Shining Force (which undoubtedly in my book is a fine work of art) then the idea is that you must consider something like Grand Theft Auto by the same standards. That's not always the case and I don't think it has ever been the case with works in the art world. Things are held to different standards by different people.

[sheath]

For you to be pretentious in this matter is absurd. To say that a game is art simply because it "makes you think of something more than yourself" is simplifying the concept of art too much for my tastes and at least to me it says that you think of nothing but yourself all the time.

I agree. I was attempting, and obviously failed, to make the concept more relateable. I would summarize aesthetics proper as more of a love of things beautiful. Art to me is whatever makes me forget myself or that causes me to see myself as infinitely smaller than something else.

People today don't like to think like that, but that was the perspective of most of the artists we know and love today.

[TonyTheTiger]

I've said this before, maybe even in this very thread, but it all comes down to a slippery slope when you start defining stuff.

A game like Ico is often lauded as an artistic achievement. But it's also a good game. What if it were shitty? All other things being the same, all aesthetics being identical, what if it froze up a lot and had bad physics? What if it also had a non-functional save feature and laughable hit detection? That's why this poll seems less about art than simply about general quality.

Technically, by definition, a functionally bad game should also be able to meet the standard of "art." But I just don't see that happening in the real world.

[The 1 2 P]

I just put my picks in, although I completely skipped over a good bit because I didn't feel that none of the three selectable answers were worth it. I also had to smh at the fact that E.T. for the 2600 was a selectable entry But what I found most dissappointing were the selections for the PS1. It's one of my favorite systems and yet I didn't want to vote for any of those games. But obviously they couldn't list every game so it is what it is

[TonyTheTiger]

I also had to smh at the fact that E.T. for the 2600 was a selectable entry

I guess bad games can be art, too? Hm, maybe this poll has more value than I originally gave it credit for.

[The 1 2 P]

I guess bad games can be art, too?

Of course they can, just like bad sculptures and bad paintings are still considered art. My stance was just that a more deserving game should have been in it's place but then theres the argument of who decides whats more deserving.

[Icarus Moonsight]

I know, we live in a post-modern skeptic world and the philosophy I just crudely paraphrased from Plato and Kant is heavily looked down upon.

All the same, the alternative philosophical view simply states that everything is art and nothing is art, which makes the entire discussion worthless.

Also, how did I use art as a weapon?

Valuing truth over opinion. That's the weapon. Tony's a nice guy, but that's one instance where our views consistently clash. Opinions have to fall to truth, or there is no such thing as either. They then blur together, internally speaking.

I do disagree with you vehemently one one issue. The world in general has accepted Kant in regard to truth, knowledge and the nature of reality. This recent sampling of muck-about nonsense is the result. Kant took Plato and secularized Platonic other-worldly essences through the analytic-synthetic dichotomy (Aristotle had problems with identifying the source of concepts as well, slightly materialist with a dose of Plato). Effectively throwing out gods along with objective truth. It classifies truth into two exhaustive and mutually exclusive groups, one group says nothing about reality, the other says nothing about 'actual' truth because facts need not be so... insofar as they could have been different. Abnegated truth, opinions played wild, gravity could repel instead of attract tomorrow, "How do magnets work?"... Welcome to the world.

This is why you get an exhibit and not a new philosophical work including video games into art. Where standards are defined and arguments are made. The Emperor has to be naked and clothed all at once.

Art as sublime leaves me wanting. I don't accept some things Rand wrote about her philosophy of art, but I feel as if she had a rail of insight that may inspire a lead to something better than what's already out there. Art is the last of the schools in my hierarchy, because it's founded upon the rest. Most of the world hasn't even begun to accept and act on a proper base, let alone the top. We have much work and time to go.

Art is deeply personal, whether it is your creation in question, or your reaction/interpretation of another's. Art has to have something to do with me primarily, not externalities as prime, or it's just irrelevant as art. Materialist/Egoist/Individualist... Couldn't have guessed huh?

Otherwise, we are on the same page. Everyone should care about philosophy, because everyone operates on it, explicitly or implicitly.