Are video games art?
Of course they are – the interesting question is, what type(s) of art?
This is a summary of a paper I’ve been trying to find the time to finish for the last year. To do basic art theory in a couple of lines: from a philosophical point of view there are two main camps on the ‘what is art?’ question; the institutional approach and the functional approach. Institutionalists say something is art just in case it is treated by certain institutions with a particular type of social power as if it were art – for instance it is in a recognised art gallery with the label art. Hence it’s an empirical question about material and social facts. Functionalists say that something is art just in case it functions as art, that is, we have certain responses when apprehending it. These responses, or at least a sub-set of them, are often termed aesthetic responses.
In application, the Institutional approach does not strike me as too interesting. Applying it to computer games we simply ask – are games recognised by Institutions as art. The answer is that it is varied but growing. In the UK BAFTA have video game awards (I’ve been a judge), in the US, the National Endowment of the Arts now includes video games in its endowment program (I’ve had discussions with them about this); and in many countries, images from games are exhibited in gallery settings, and game music is played in concert halls. Now it can be argued that these are still just elements from games, and that the works featured are done so as artefacts of the craft of video game production (art theory distinguishes between art and craft).
So it’s a judgment call as to the point where games make the category shift.
Here we should note that much modern, post-modern and avant-garde art is still subject to some popularist debate over the meaning of art, and forms such as photography, film and television have taken time to be accepted. In short under this definition evidence seems to suggest that video games are or, are in the process of becoming, institutionally accepted as art.
I think the Functionalist question is much more interesting; as here we ask what are the characteristics of response we have to video games. Here I'm using the plural as I think that any given individual has multiple responses based on work, circumstance and person and that these differ by person. But I think that there are some characteristics of responses we can define particularly within the aesthetic sphere. So when noting any given type of response I’m not making the claim that everyone always has it nor that it excludes other responses / readings of a work, nor normatively which one(s) of these are correct.
First a small note about interactivity. I see aesthetic response as intrinsically bi-directional. That is appreciation of a work is a combination of what we apprehend (sense data if you will) and our critical faculties (basically see Kant on this one), thus there is a minimal level at which all aesthetic experience is interactive – this will become important in a moment.
I suggest that there broadly five attributes of games that characterise the aesthetic experience of a video games, four of these I note merely for book keeping purposes and more can be found in the standard literature on the subject, one I propose is unique to video games or works that share certain qualities with video games.
The five characteristics, roughly in order of level of abstraction are:
1. Code
2. Design patterns / gameplay i.e. as a non-animated design
3. Content: Components such as graphics, music, story (if there is one)
4. The act of game play i.e. as the animation of the design in a co-created act
5. An artistic performance of play i.e. a form of performance that has particular artistic merit and might be appreciated by an observer
For the sake of brevity I’m not going to talk about 1,2,3 and 5 as I suggest that the experience that we have of these characteristics in the context of video games does make them categorically different from the experience we would have in other contexts. Hence when we hear video game music, the experience of that in-and-of-itself is just the experience of music (though not only the experience of music - which I explore below). Whether things such as (1) ‘code’ or (5) ‘watching game play’ are aesthetic experience are things that I think are well covered in the literature on the topics as mathematics and watching sport as aesthetic experiences respectively.
The category of experience that I think is unique to video games is the aesthetics of game play itself. What I mean by this is the experiential qualities of the act of play that are a simultaneous combination of:
i. Apprehension of other aesthetic qualities e.g. the visuals
ii. The moment-by-moment interplay between the space of choices and affordances of the video game work, our choice among those options and the consequences of those choices
iii. The game-literate reading of the gameplay within the context of a give genre
iv. The kinaesthetics of game play
Basically I'm saying that it’s the experience that we as gamers have when we game, and what is important is that the experimental nature of it cannot be pinned down to any one element but is necessarily all of them together even if we are not conscious of one or more elements at any given moment. For example we might not be conscious of what we are doing with the controller as we may simply perceive our will giving agency to an avatar, but there will be some component of the experience that is related to the button pressing.
What’s more, it is implicit in what I have said that there is a form of literacy at work. As with much art, and much that is criticised in the popular media, some works need to be read in relation to others, forms take on a grammar that has to be understood to understand certain elements of the work. Here we might think of Duchamp’s readmade’s – object that he chose and designated as art. Not only does one have to read these in their art-historical context of the time they were made, but also what is lost on non-French speakers is that the titles of many of the works also employ verbal puns.
Increasingly video games are making literacy explicit within the work – through referencing of other works, through using recognised mechanics and though playing with the expectations of the experienced gamer. For those that lack such literacy such elements are not even comprehended. While it’s not my focus here, so called video-game art often gives primacy to such elements e.g. Cory Archangel’s recent Beat the Champ (Barbican London February – May 2011: http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=11621) where a succession of treated video bowling games play endlessly bowling gutter balls.
Possibly the most interesting element of the aesthetic experience of games is the sophisticated nature of the co-created experience. One way we perceive a game is through the unfolding and collapsing options that we are presented with and the possible outcomes of those options. In choosing or not choosing at any given moment we are performing with the affordances set by the designer(s), and they are creating a topology of choices that we navigate through decisions. The experiential nature of this is not the choices at any given time nor the act of deciding by the dynamic interplay of the two over the play session (see Aarseth on this also Bogost and others on how Rhetoric operates in this sphere). Of course one needs a ludo* somewhere thus this fascet I term the ludo-aesthetic propoerties of video games.
Now one might argue that this is just the same as any other experience such as theatre, as in addition to the bi-directional nature of apprehension there is some interaction between the actors and the audience even if not made explicit. However there is not the same nature of choice as in games – Hamlet will always have the same fate. Likewise one might liken this to dance or playing sport. In these cases the interplay between rules, other actors, and oneself is of a very different character to video games. Certainly team sports unfold over time and some options collapse such as when one side scores of when one is attacking or defending, but the interplay with the confining nature of video game affordances and the experience that this generates is of a different nature.
This characteristic of video games is problematic from a critical perspective as to appreciate some aspect of them one needs access to direct experience. As while computer gamer are in many ways ‘like’ other experiences they are sufficiently different to require use. This is not to say that a video game cannot be studied without being played but there are certain characteristics there are unavailable with this. What’s more as noted above there are still further elements that are unavailable unless one has a certain literacy – though this might be likened to, say, the experience of jazz which is no doubt very different for those with a literacy in the form.
To speak to the popular debate for a moment, I feel that much criticism of video games as an art form derives from this lack of experience. A ‘cold’ use of a video game that does not willingly take on the nature of the experience cannot here be counted as experiencing a game, that’s like having music you don’t like on for a period that you endure. Another issues is saying video games are not art as they don’t provide a given aesthetic experience as well another form does e.g. games do not do narrative like films; but of course film does not do narrative like books. Thus it seems to me that the fact that video games lack features that some critics point to in other works by way of comparison – actually video games, in part do these things differently, and more importantly those particular characters of the aesthetic experience not the quintessential point of the form. That is it’s like normatively saying films are lacking because they don’t to just what books do in respect of narrative.
Lastly, from a more theoretic point of view I’m aware that in this piece I have merely asserted that experiences are aesthetic ones. Most of the ones I have pointed out are established the one that is not I have characterised but not defended the assertion that in virtue of these properties it constitutes an aesthetic experience by reference to the fundamental properties of aesthetics and extension of those in this case. There is an argument for that, but I’ll leave that for a philosophy paper as it’s mainly a technical category argument from analytical philosophy that’s not that interesting to most outside the field.
In summary video games are an art form, from a functional perspective, as they are capable of generating a range of aesthetic experiences, the character of one of these experiences is unique to video games in virtue of their particular interactivity and related literacy.
In application, the Institutional approach does not strike me as too interesting. Applying it to computer games we simply ask – are games recognised by Institutions as art. The answer is that it is varied but growing. In the UK BAFTA have video game awards (I’ve been a judge), in the US, the National Endowment of the Arts now includes video games in its endowment program (I’ve had discussions with them about this); and in many countries, images from games are exhibited in gallery settings, and game music is played in concert halls. Now it can be argued that these are still just elements from games, and that the works featured are done so as artefacts of the craft of video game production (art theory distinguishes between art and craft).
So it’s a judgment call as to the point where games make the category shift.
Here we should note that much modern, post-modern and avant-garde art is still subject to some popularist debate over the meaning of art, and forms such as photography, film and television have taken time to be accepted. In short under this definition evidence seems to suggest that video games are or, are in the process of becoming, institutionally accepted as art.
I think the Functionalist question is much more interesting; as here we ask what are the characteristics of response we have to video games. Here I'm using the plural as I think that any given individual has multiple responses based on work, circumstance and person and that these differ by person. But I think that there are some characteristics of responses we can define particularly within the aesthetic sphere. So when noting any given type of response I’m not making the claim that everyone always has it nor that it excludes other responses / readings of a work, nor normatively which one(s) of these are correct.
First a small note about interactivity. I see aesthetic response as intrinsically bi-directional. That is appreciation of a work is a combination of what we apprehend (sense data if you will) and our critical faculties (basically see Kant on this one), thus there is a minimal level at which all aesthetic experience is interactive – this will become important in a moment.
I suggest that there broadly five attributes of games that characterise the aesthetic experience of a video games, four of these I note merely for book keeping purposes and more can be found in the standard literature on the subject, one I propose is unique to video games or works that share certain qualities with video games.
The five characteristics, roughly in order of level of abstraction are:
1. Code
2. Design patterns / gameplay i.e. as a non-animated design
3. Content: Components such as graphics, music, story (if there is one)
4. The act of game play i.e. as the animation of the design in a co-created act
5. An artistic performance of play i.e. a form of performance that has particular artistic merit and might be appreciated by an observer
For the sake of brevity I’m not going to talk about 1,2,3 and 5 as I suggest that the experience that we have of these characteristics in the context of video games does make them categorically different from the experience we would have in other contexts. Hence when we hear video game music, the experience of that in-and-of-itself is just the experience of music (though not only the experience of music - which I explore below). Whether things such as (1) ‘code’ or (5) ‘watching game play’ are aesthetic experience are things that I think are well covered in the literature on the topics as mathematics and watching sport as aesthetic experiences respectively.
The category of experience that I think is unique to video games is the aesthetics of game play itself. What I mean by this is the experiential qualities of the act of play that are a simultaneous combination of:
i. Apprehension of other aesthetic qualities e.g. the visuals
ii. The moment-by-moment interplay between the space of choices and affordances of the video game work, our choice among those options and the consequences of those choices
iii. The game-literate reading of the gameplay within the context of a give genre
iv. The kinaesthetics of game play
Basically I'm saying that it’s the experience that we as gamers have when we game, and what is important is that the experimental nature of it cannot be pinned down to any one element but is necessarily all of them together even if we are not conscious of one or more elements at any given moment. For example we might not be conscious of what we are doing with the controller as we may simply perceive our will giving agency to an avatar, but there will be some component of the experience that is related to the button pressing.
What’s more, it is implicit in what I have said that there is a form of literacy at work. As with much art, and much that is criticised in the popular media, some works need to be read in relation to others, forms take on a grammar that has to be understood to understand certain elements of the work. Here we might think of Duchamp’s readmade’s – object that he chose and designated as art. Not only does one have to read these in their art-historical context of the time they were made, but also what is lost on non-French speakers is that the titles of many of the works also employ verbal puns.
Increasingly video games are making literacy explicit within the work – through referencing of other works, through using recognised mechanics and though playing with the expectations of the experienced gamer. For those that lack such literacy such elements are not even comprehended. While it’s not my focus here, so called video-game art often gives primacy to such elements e.g. Cory Archangel’s recent Beat the Champ (Barbican London February – May 2011: http://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=11621) where a succession of treated video bowling games play endlessly bowling gutter balls.
Possibly the most interesting element of the aesthetic experience of games is the sophisticated nature of the co-created experience. One way we perceive a game is through the unfolding and collapsing options that we are presented with and the possible outcomes of those options. In choosing or not choosing at any given moment we are performing with the affordances set by the designer(s), and they are creating a topology of choices that we navigate through decisions. The experiential nature of this is not the choices at any given time nor the act of deciding by the dynamic interplay of the two over the play session (see Aarseth on this also Bogost and others on how Rhetoric operates in this sphere). Of course one needs a ludo* somewhere thus this fascet I term the ludo-aesthetic propoerties of video games.
Now one might argue that this is just the same as any other experience such as theatre, as in addition to the bi-directional nature of apprehension there is some interaction between the actors and the audience even if not made explicit. However there is not the same nature of choice as in games – Hamlet will always have the same fate. Likewise one might liken this to dance or playing sport. In these cases the interplay between rules, other actors, and oneself is of a very different character to video games. Certainly team sports unfold over time and some options collapse such as when one side scores of when one is attacking or defending, but the interplay with the confining nature of video game affordances and the experience that this generates is of a different nature.
This characteristic of video games is problematic from a critical perspective as to appreciate some aspect of them one needs access to direct experience. As while computer gamer are in many ways ‘like’ other experiences they are sufficiently different to require use. This is not to say that a video game cannot be studied without being played but there are certain characteristics there are unavailable with this. What’s more as noted above there are still further elements that are unavailable unless one has a certain literacy – though this might be likened to, say, the experience of jazz which is no doubt very different for those with a literacy in the form.
To speak to the popular debate for a moment, I feel that much criticism of video games as an art form derives from this lack of experience. A ‘cold’ use of a video game that does not willingly take on the nature of the experience cannot here be counted as experiencing a game, that’s like having music you don’t like on for a period that you endure. Another issues is saying video games are not art as they don’t provide a given aesthetic experience as well another form does e.g. games do not do narrative like films; but of course film does not do narrative like books. Thus it seems to me that the fact that video games lack features that some critics point to in other works by way of comparison – actually video games, in part do these things differently, and more importantly those particular characters of the aesthetic experience not the quintessential point of the form. That is it’s like normatively saying films are lacking because they don’t to just what books do in respect of narrative.
Lastly, from a more theoretic point of view I’m aware that in this piece I have merely asserted that experiences are aesthetic ones. Most of the ones I have pointed out are established the one that is not I have characterised but not defended the assertion that in virtue of these properties it constitutes an aesthetic experience by reference to the fundamental properties of aesthetics and extension of those in this case. There is an argument for that, but I’ll leave that for a philosophy paper as it’s mainly a technical category argument from analytical philosophy that’s not that interesting to most outside the field.
In summary video games are an art form, from a functional perspective, as they are capable of generating a range of aesthetic experiences, the character of one of these experiences is unique to video games in virtue of their particular interactivity and related literacy.
>the character of one of these experiences is unique to video games
I don't see why you draw a distinction between videogames and games in general, particularly as you're focusing on the playing of videogames as art (rather than the design of videogames, not that the two are mutually exclusive).
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Jun 06, 2011 at 04:12
Richard,
Well the particular mix I'm talking about it unique to video games. That's not to say there is not also a related experience that can come from different types of games e.g. one related to board game. The gameness though is only one of the elements that I pick out, I'm interested in that in combination with the other responses we have, in particular, to digital games - as opposed say to film, or digital art. There can be an intensity of experience that maybe I should also make note of.
ren
Posted by: Ren Reynolds | Jun 06, 2011 at 15:41
But some videogames are as different from one another in terms of the experience they deliver as they are from boardgames. Or would you say that playing a 1990s videogame version of Chess (such as Battlechess) is somehow closer to playing, say, Assassin's Creed II than it is to playing Chess?
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Jun 07, 2011 at 18:51
The "Is it Art" question is of course mostly an argument about semantics. The article gets past that with some arguments that I don't think any artist would dispute in terms of qualties of human creative effort. (but again the distinction between creativity and "art" is still semantic.
I'm generally one with a broader definition of the word "art" but unfortunately it is a blunter word as is "love" which speaks to some of the very highest realms of human existance yet take so many different forms.
While the use of the word "art" in realation to games is comfotable to me, in my mind it is more about "artistry" or creative and able skill in one's craft, as in a skilled woodworker.
Certainly the work passes the creative expression idea of "art" as in children expressing themselves at school with paint and other adult hobbies of that nature.
If though, we think of "The Arts" , (where I don not think that recognition by museums and academia is the key, but what discerning people can define themselves), I'm not sure that the vast majority of games reach that hurdle.
An easy comparison might be to film, where an action flick like "Rambo" would have a tenuous reference to "the arts", a film like Rocky, which touches on the delicate relations of man to woman and man to his place in the world, has a much better claiim. "The Arts" requires a high level of focus of expression in a way that helps us understand or view with perspective part of the most vexing and unexpressable parts of our human experience.
Of course, that sort of thing isn't black or white, it scales and I suppose its more a matter of how much something actually hits a special harmonic expression with reality that is what is ultimately the point in whehter or not the work would be reffered to as a "memorable piece of art", not the effort or intention involved. Any Hitchcock film, even though it might have a simple plot not different from a cheap horror film, somehow gives us more....Capra's "its a wonderful life" somehow hit a human vein of emotion that something very similar might have just come across as cheap entertainment.
So, result, not intent, for that higher point of acclaim, but semantics in when and how the word might be used.
Posted by: Shander | Jun 08, 2011 at 16:49
Adding a bit more, there's no doubt in my mind that the medium has all the facets in place where something of significant artistic merit (with a capital A?) could spring from.
For a game as a whole to achieve that, it would take a developer with creative control like a Kubrik or Allen, Capra or Coppala to meld and discard, to demand and adjust with an aim to do more than just entertain but to jiggle mind and imagination in away that both opens thoughts and is comlete as a whole.
When the goal is more entertainment than expression, it's far far less likely to sorta hit that level.
I will say though, that there were times in my experience with WoW in the burning crusade that I had to step back and admire certain things for their color-pallets and shapes...Nagrand was more than creative for me but in someways very complete -- a little of a Dega copy perhaps. The costumes of some of the blood-elfs (if I can remember back 5 years, had some potential as runway haute fashion) ... it was more than evoking a race, there was an elegance to some of the cuts.
I played a number of muds, and D&D before than, and while there was plenty of "gourgling brooks" and "Stone Escarpment looms before you" in many, playing Avalon, I was struck with a completeness and grace in the descriptions, and a voice in the prose that was consitent room by room, description by description. The difference between inspired righting and something trite or cliche is thin indeed.
As far as recognition from the " art critics that be" there really is a bias to recognize things as art that are soley made for the purpose of inspiration, not decoration and not for use. A Stickly chair might grudgingly be acknowledged but a Hockney painting interpreting a Stickly chair is readily seen as Art. The goldn gate bridge, because of its utilty, is harder for people to refferr to as an art masterpiece than if it were a piece of metal sculpted for only art's sake.
There is that bias in the word for most people.... and perhaps its a backhanded insult at the notion of "art"... it needs to be "useless" ? lol ?
Posted by: Shander | Jun 08, 2011 at 18:14
There's no question in my mind that game design is art. I'd also argue that there is art involved in the creation of components of the overall artwork (in the visuals, in the level design, even in the programming).
What Ren seems to be arguing, though, is that there is art in the playing of videogames, and that this art is not the same as that in any other field including boardgames.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Jun 09, 2011 at 08:41
I probably would say the Battlechess is closer to traditional chess. But I think that’s a slightly different discussion that the one I was having.
In the popular and middle-brow world there has been a discussion of games and art and, in some quarters, a round reject of video games being capable of being art. Academically I’ve not found a defence of the view of games as art that I’ve been happy with – those that I have found have either focused on excellence in some traditional areas, or looked at interactivity out of context – what accounts seemed to lack is any notion of games being situated within a context and that one can accumulate literacy that is part of the experience. Thus I wanted to establish that computer games could be art in virtue of the experience they can create and it struck me that this had a particular character.
Now, like with any art form there is then a discussion about any given putative token of that form. For example we can ask is something a painting or a sculpture, we can ask if it is art or just craft, whether it’s good art etc etc. All these are valid but not what I was addressing here.
Posted by: Ren Reynolds | Jun 09, 2011 at 10:39
Richard,
I tend to it in the philosophical camp that tends not to see properties as essentially inhering in artefacts but in our experience of them – which of course is related but the properties we talk about are the ones we have direct experiential access too. So when applying the Functionalist theory of art to games it’s the property of our experience of the work that counts. Now we can just look at or hear a computer game, if so the experience falls into one of the other categories out outlined. But when we experience a game through play then I’m suggesting that the experience of a computer game has aspects that are both aesthetic and different from say the standard way we experience a book or a picture or a board game (of course we can play with a book).
It might be that I should actually work on a general theory of the aesthetics of play as there are elements that I've identified that may be a play aesthetic that would give rise to slightly different experiences if we are playing with a video game or a board game or a stick. Then again it might be that the play experience is not an aesthetic one when looked at generally, but only in conjunction with a given type of artifact.
Ren
Posted by: Ren Reynolds | Jun 09, 2011 at 10:46
Ren>I tend to it in the philosophical camp that tends not to see properties as essentially inhering in artefacts but in our experience of them
Well, non-physical properties, yes. Then again, even physical properties are often artefacts of our experience of them. If I say "this ring is made of gold", what I'm really saying is that this set of particular atoms, which I am arbitrarily grouping together and calling a ring, is made up primarily of atoms of gold. To the universe, however, those are just part of an unimaginably vast cloud of atoms interacting with one another in various fixed ways.
So yes, basically I agree with you on that.
Your argument seems to be that because playing computer games is a different experience to anything else, that makes them a different kind of art to everything else. I have two problems with this.
Firstly, and maybe I'm misunderstanding you here, you seem to be saying that the art is in the playing. I see there can be art in play, yes, but this art is enabled by the design of the game. It's like saying that the art in a novel is in the reading of it, not in the authoring of it. I guess you could argue that in the case of computer games the art emerges from a dialogue between the designer and the player, but I don't buy that. The art of play is different from the art of design because the symbols they use are different. I like the idea of using the fact that computer games are experienced differently to other creative works as support for the idea that game design is an art form. I don't see how you can make the play itself part of that, though, except in a designed-for sense. It may be an art, but it's a separate art.
Secondly, computer games are not homogenous. The experience of playing different genres of game can be vary greatly. I would particularly draw a distinction between single, multiplayer and massively-multiplayer as step changes of experiences. I don't think you've yet got to the heart of what they have in common, which makes it difficult to accept the proposition that they share a "computer game" aesthetic that isn't shared by other computer-based products (Powerpoint slides) or other game types (board games) or indeed other game types played on computer (play-by-email). Come to that, the visual aesthetics of games from the early 1980s are so different to those of today, it could be argued that the further into the past you go, the less likely it becomes that a "computer game" of the era is the same basic art form as what you're describing; as a corollary, today's games are going to be a different art form to those 30 years in the future. There's no common thread of experience (well, there is - they're all games - but that's not the thread you're aiming at).
I'm not trying to break your theory here, I'm just trying to understand it.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Jun 11, 2011 at 06:47
i think you might want to examine the history of "artifacts as art" that are based on the "changes that occur to it and viewer while being interacted upon by a viewer" and what that thinking means in the examination of "art". i think youll find that there is no "aesthetic" per say to find in the traditional meaning, but only a "gestalt"-overall feeling- to the entire process.
experiential art. hamlet may always have the same fate, but how YOU FEEL about it, WILL and can change with time, and experience.
Posted by: c3 | Jun 11, 2011 at 17:12
Ren>> I tend to it in the philosophical camp that tends not to see properties as essentially inhering in artefacts but in our experience of them
Richard > Well, non-physical properties, yes. Then again, even physical properties are often artefacts of our experience of them. If I say "this ring is made of gold", what I'm really saying is that this set of particular atoms, which I am arbitrarily grouping together and calling a ring, is made up primarily of atoms of gold. To the universe, however, those are just part of an unimaginably vast cloud of atoms interacting with one another in various fixed ways.
The philosophy of science is a bit of a side-track but, many would tend to say that that’s all metaphor.
The kinda thing was pointing out was the difference between saying (1) ‘it is cold’ and (2) ‘I have the experience of it being cold’ – in aesthetic theory as I understand it people tend to be talking about the latter. Given the main subject of what I’m on about the distinction might not matter as this specific point is common to the nature of aesthetic experience and does not very across the things that one is having the experience of. That is in a painting or watching a play, it’s not the thing but the experience of the thing that theorists tend to talk about. I was just clarifying for those that have not read aesthetics.
Richard >Your argument seems to be that because playing computer games is a different experience to anything else, that makes them a different kind of art to everything else. I have two problems with this.
I’m saying the nature of the experience contains things that are common e.g. looking at pictures, and then a combination that is different from anything else I can think of.
Richard > Firstly, and maybe I'm misunderstanding you here, you seem to be saying that the art is in the playing.
I’m not sure we are using terms in the same way. I’m talking much more about aesthetics than art. I’m focusing on aesthetic experience which a category of experience we sometimes have when apprehend some works. Art is a category that is applied to some works – I gave the two main theories of how this categorisation operates. I’m using work as general term for artefacts, performances etc and apprehend for the mode by which we exerpeince them – read, watch etc.
Richard > I see there can be art in play, yes, but this art is enabled by the design of the game. It's like saying that the art in a novel is in the reading of it, not in the authoring of it.
I’m saying that the aesthetic experience comes from reading, yes. There is a different experience that comes from writing – I’ve not made a comment on the nature of the latter.
Richard > I guess you could argue that in the case of computer games the art emerges from a dialogue between the designer and the player, but I don't buy that.
That is what I’m saying.
Richard > The art of play is different from the art of design because the symbols they use are different. I like the idea of using the fact that computer games are experienced differently to other creative works as support for the idea that game design is an art form. I don't see how you can make the play itself part of that, though, except in a designed-for sense. It may be an art, but it's a separate art.
I’m not sure how you are using ‘art’ here. I’ve not made any comment on the act of design. But I have said that the design in-and-of-itself can have aesthetic qualities – these are distinct, in some ways, from the ones that come about through play. There are arguments about things like mathematical proofs, I’m sure there are ones about writing – I’ve noted that at least some of these exist but I’m not focusing on them here as there is a large existent literature in some areas e.g. code as art.
Richard > Secondly, computer games are not homogenous. The experience of playing different genres of game can be vary greatly. I would particularly draw a distinction between single, multiplayer and massively-multiplayer as step changes of experiences. I don't think you've yet got to the heart of what they have in common, which makes it difficult to accept the proposition that they share a "computer game" aesthetic that isn't shared by other computer-based products (Powerpoint slides) or other game types (board games) or indeed other game types played on computer (play-by-email). Come to that, the visual aesthetics of games from the early 1980s are so different to those of today, it could be argued that the further into the past you go, the less likely it becomes that a "computer game" of the era is the same basic art form as what you're describing; as a corollary, today's games are going to be a different art form to those 30 years in the future. There's no common thread of experience (well, there is - they're all games - but that's not the thread you're aiming at).
As per my comment on one of your previous remarks – I need to think about the primary class here. Is it that there is an aesthetic of play and that different computer games share it; or maybe there is a quality of experience of some computer games that elevates them. This gets tricky as if one asks a philosopher why one painting is art and another is not – there’s no short or universally agreed answer. But people agree that paintings can be art – that is can give rise to an aesthetic experience etc. So I think the best I can do is layout a set of criteria and then others can argue whether any given game or gameplay experience meets them or not – these will differ based on person etc.
Posted by: Ren Reynolds | Jun 11, 2011 at 17:51
c3 s > i think you might want to examine the history of "artifacts as art" that are based on the "changes that occur to it and viewer while being interacted upon by a viewer" and what that thinking means in the examination of "art". i think youll find that there is no "aesthetic" per say to find in the traditional meaning, but only a "gestalt"-overall feeling- to the entire process.
I’m not really sure what you are getting at. I’m coming from a fairly traditional 20C notion of aesthetic theory. I threw a little Kant in there for those that don’t quite get philosophers distinctions between things and the apprehension of things.
> experiential art. hamlet may always have the same fate, but how YOU FEEL about it, WILL and can change with time, and experience.
That’s why I noted in the original post “I see aesthetic response as intrinsically bi-directional”
Posted by: Ren Reynolds | Jun 11, 2011 at 17:55
Ren>I’m saying the nature of the experience contains things that are common e.g. looking at pictures, and then a combination that is different from anything else I can think of.
Is it important that the pictures are on a screen? Or could they be 3D objects you see in the real world? Or objects you see in your imagination? If it's important they're on a screen, why?
>I’m talking much more about aesthetics than art.
OK, well I accept that the aesthetic experience of the player is important to a game's design, and that although it's framed by the game design itself it's also very often under the strong control of the individual player, too. However, that, too will have been accounted for by the designer.
What I don't accept is that the joint creation of this aesthetic experience is the dominant art of computer games.
>I’ve not made any comment on the act of design. But I have said that the design in-and-of-itself can have aesthetic qualities – these are distinct, in some ways, from the ones that come about through play.
I think you're under-appreciating game design. It's not something like programming or mathematics that can only be appreciated by a practitioner: players of games can and do read what the game designer is saying to them through the game. Game designs give rise to an aesthetic appreciation, but they also carry meaning.
Richard
Posted by: Richard Bartle | Jun 14, 2011 at 07:24
I've been reading on photography recently and there was this interesting argument of John Szarkowski about the emergence of a consciousness of photography. He claims that photographers learned from their own experiences and the multitude of other photographs being produced. With time, a shared vocabulary emerged, and the images became umistakably "photographs". His point is that this vision had no school or aesthetic theory than photograpy itself. So, a history of photography should refer to how photographers have become aware of, and have developed particular characteristic of the medium.
I wonder what you think about the "consciousness" of video games, and whether you could identify certain historical milestones in the emergence of a vision unique to video games.
Posted by: altugi | Jun 21, 2011 at 15:28
Leaning back and thinking about the way you speak of the institutional approach here, some thoughts popped up in mind. I'll try to summarize:
What you miss about the institutional approach here is that they ask questions like why and how. The emergence or presence of recognition as art is where their inquiry starts, not where it ends. Isn't it a bit naive to believe they just leave it by "yes, there are institutions that recognize games art, for example x, y, z".
The simplification of their approach would probably strike them as an symptom of institutionalization itself. Your approach to them becomes interesting to them at the point where you have no problem in writing them off as uninteresting: this write-off of theirs could be read as a gesture related to a certain degree of instiutionalization; a degree of institutionalization that makes redundant (or perceived as uninteresting) the question of institutionalization.
The confidence in answering the question "are games art?" with "of course they are" *is* the very subject of this approach. How come this confidence exists now, but couldn't exist 30 years ago? What has changed? What made it possible that this question can even be asked now? It's much more about archeology than about listing facts about institutions that say "yes, games are art."
The institutional approach, I believe, deals with the pleasure you find in playing with the functional approach. They would say that this pleasure is related to discourse and power, thus institution.
Posted by: altugi | Jun 22, 2011 at 15:17