I really wish that Gee had started off his paper on videogames as art by giving us a context and definition of art. Whether videogames are art or not largely depends on our definition of art. Roger Ebert for instance argues that games can never be art because of their interactive component. To a degree I understand his point. Is there a difference between playing Madden on your gaming console and actually playing on a football field? Shall we consider sports art as well?
Kellee Santiago works for thatgamecompany. Thatgamecompany produces stylistic games such as “flower” and the more recent “journey”. She defends videogames as a style of art by comparing how videogames have evolved throughout the years in the same way that art has evolved from cave paintings to what we have today. You can watch her 15 min speech at the bottom of this response from film critic Roger Ebert. Ebert has become infamous within the gaming community for claiming that games cannot be art. I will not explain all of Eberts points in his blog post but I strongly encourage you to read it and watch the video of Santiago that he is responding to http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html
While Ebert raises many great points in his response to angry gamers defending games as art, I believe he neglects a careful examination of the interactive component of videogames that James Gee explores in his paper Why Game Studies Now? Before I continue I will adhere to what Ebert asks of gamers at the end of his response… “Why are gamers so intensely concerned that games be defined as art?”. To be bluntly honest, as a gamer myself, I don’t care... but defining games as a new unique form of discourse is important for furthering the field of rhetorical studies. Along with new trends in discourse come new ways to reason. What do you think? Is it important to define games as art?
My central problem with Gee is that he does not define art. My other problem is that while he gives good arguments as to why games are art, he does not explain why it is important to define games as art. He says that through the manipulation of symbols such as shapes, games produce two different narratives (59). As humans we produce stories to rationalize the world around us…think back to Fisher’s narration as a human communication paradigm. If you are moving a block in a game, such as Tetris, we construct a story around it. Even games that have a more explained reason for moving a block, such as Ico, will generate a second narrative within the users mind.
When you see Zelda all pixilated you visualize in your head what the real Zelda would look like. So part of the story is generated by the designer and the other part of the story is generated by your interpretation of their design. When I was a kid I used to go into the manual section of my nes games and there would be all kinds of illustrations. In this case the designer is guiding the gamers interpretation of the narrative. Also in defense of videogames as art, Gee relates gaming to experiencing a symphony because “ambience, mood, feeling, sound and look” (59) act in the same way that tones of sound work to move you through a symphony.
The main difference between a symphony and a game is that a game, unlike a symphony, has two different narratives. On one hand the designer is guiding you through a main plot and on other hand you can choose how to experience that plot. Even older games such as the original Mario bros which seem much more guided than modern games such as Skyrim, have a plethora of ways to go through it. For an example watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDX3zfn1LTU. My favorite is from 1:00 to 1:50.
One question I would pose is, if we are to say videogames are art because we are co-producing the experience can we say anyone who plays a videogame is an artist? Throughout history, has it not been the technical skill of the artist that has made certain paintings a work of art and other paintings a piece of crap?
I think this is where Ebert struggles in defining it as art. Ebert points out that George Melies can be considered an artist from his film “A Voyage to the Moon” (1902) because “he has limited technical resources, but superior artistry and imagination”. It seems to me that Ebert is saying that the art depends on the quality. I would agree with this. Editing video for a news station, I can tell you that what we do is definitely not art. He also openly admits that games could be art someday, but are not right now.
Gee, Santiago, and Ebert all raise compelling points…who do you side with most?
Gee, J. (2006). Why game studies now? Video games: A new art form. Games and Culture, 1(1), 58-61
~David Koehn
Although I may be considered to have varying degrees of bias on this subject, I would say that video games are art. To me, art is something that is purposefully created to and does elicit an emotional response from an audience experiencing the creation. Films, novels, paintings, and music all fit this mold, and the emotional responses can be awe-inspiring (i.e. Citizen Cane, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Mona Lisa, Beethoven's Midnight Sonata), or awful (Jack and Jill, stick-figured finger pantings, any song from Nickelback). But they affect us nonetheless. Because art is so subjective and so dependent on the personal opinion of each member in the audience, I feel like we simply cannot define it any other way. One person might think Christopher Nolan is an artist, others might think he's a hack.
ReplyDeleteArt is so important in the discussion of rhetoric because the rhetoric of a piece is what makes it artful. Rhetoric itself was once considered one of the great arts. Hundreds of years ago, Longinus' On the Sublime was all about this principle and the beautiful, almost magical powers rhetoric can have.
So, can video games possess the same artistic and rhetorical power a great film, book, or painting can? The answer is a resounding yes. And while Space Invaders or Mario Brothers may lead naysayers to believe otherwise, even in their simplicity, they still fit the mold of, in at least my own, definition of art. More importantly, the majority of video games made today are not bound by the simple technological limitations that they once were. Does having digital artists making beautiful works in a fraction of the time it used to take make the scratched drawings of cavemen no longer art? Look at what games can be now http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmw78t8NgIE (the squeamish might want to click on the next link) , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kVHHD-OZyI . From Bioshock to the text based adventures of old, in my opinion, the possession of the visual, audio, and narrative components of a video game, all encompassed by interactivity, make video games works of art.
And in closing, in a response to the question posed in your last paragraph David, I do not believe that higher levels of interactivity make the player an artist. The line is blurred because an audience doesn't exactly take part in a painting the same way they do in video games, but the game world and all the possibilities in it are created by the artist (i.e. game developers, script and code writers, designers, etc). The pieces are there for the player to do their own with, and while the experience may be emotionally compelling or incredible, the player is not changing the baseline product.
I just want to start off by saying beautiful response! I like your example of Bioshock because it not only shows how games are today but encourage us to think about what games could be. The trailer for the game was more of a video but it made you forget you were watching a video. A similar trailer would be Killzone 2.
ReplyDeleteI see what your saying by your last argument but I would argue that some games offer so much freedom that it does allow the player to be an artist. Often when I am playing a game I find myself tweaking the camera to make the picture seem more theatrical. In Red Dead I would take my horse to the top of a hill and just watch the sun set behind the silhouette of the main character John Marston. Yes, I am doing all of this within the parameters of the world created by the game designers but isn't it still a form of directing in a way. An even more extreme example would be the game little big planet. The game developers give the player a world that they have already created. But then the player can manipulate that world to make their own levels.
David- Great point. I hadn't thought of literally manipulating the game aesthetics or even camera movement when I was making my argument. I guess I was thinking of it in other ways because my definition of art was "something that is purposefully created to and does elicit an emotional response from an audience experiencing the creation." I still hesitate to label the player an "artist" because they are doing those things strictly for themselves and, unless they capture it and put it on youtube, it wouldn't have a definitive audience other than the creator.
ReplyDeleteStill, great point though. This really opens the doors of Interactivity to not only playing the game, but manipulating the circumstances to create thematic instances of drama (John Marston riding into the sunset) or ridiculous moments of comedy (John Marston riding his horse into an oncoming train). Rhetorical moments given opportunity by the game creators, produced by the players.