What is Art?

[Capela]

Yep, that's what I've meant. It's been a while.

 

I guess the main problem is that most of the consumers actually like the completely-scripted-please-don't-think-for-yourself-"AAA"-games we have nowadays, similar like it is with movies or music. I mean most people go to cinema and watch movies like avatar or whatever, what may be not bad at all but isn't something I would call art (the movie, not the act of watching it ).

 

Anyways, even though the mainstream stays the mainstream, the real art has always survived, in literature, music and movies. So let's hope that the same counts for games and that there will always be some developers (and maybe even some publishers) out there, who prefer art over income.

 

Any game is pure art, some like it, and some not, thats why there is so many games, and art. Do i realy like Picasso..haa..no..but im crazy about Van Gogh.

[demagogue]

Any game is pure art, some like it, and some not, thats why there is so many games, and art. Do i realy like Picasso..haa..no..but im crazy about Van Gogh.

 

Hmm, not to open that can of worms, but I think that is getting to the difference between an art and a craft. Any game is definitely pure craft, since it involves all the craft work (not to be confused with Kraftwerk!) involved with making textures, music, sounds, voice acting, architecture and level design, coding, etc.

 

As for being artistic, there are two camps, I think. Some say art just means the same thing as craft; if you're doing some skilled activity that takes talent and training & that's making a creative product, then it's also art. Then every game would be that too. Another camp says it needs something more to elevate from craft into art, and that would be that it speaks to some humanist value, like reflects on the world or our lives in some enlightening way, or even the pure logic of matter and form or (in the case of a game) of intention and will in an enlightening way. But anyway it does something more than just take craft work to make it. On that reasoning, not every game is necessarily artistic unless it meets that standard under some fair interpretation most people would fairly recognize, even if (as you say) some people enjoy it and other people don't.

 

I would make a case for the 2nd camp, but I recognize other people are probably in the 1st camp. But it's not a science anyway; there's not some Platonic line separating the two you can test in a lab, so there's room for people to have different opinions on the issue IMO.

[Capela]

Hmm, not to open that can of worms, but I think that is getting to the difference between an art and a craft. Any game is definitely pure craft, since it involves all the craft work (not to be confused with Kraftwerk!) involved with making textures, music, sounds, voice acting, architecture and level design, coding, etc.

 

As for being artistic, there are two camps, I think. Some say art just means the same thing as craft; if you're doing some skilled activity that takes talent and training & that's making a creative product, then it's also art. Then every game would be that too. Another camp says it needs something more to elevate from craft into art, and that would be that it speaks to some humanist value, like reflects on the world or our lives in some enlightening way, or even the pure logic of matter and form or (in the case of a game) of intention and will in an enlightening way. But anyway it does something more than just take craft work to make it. On that reasoning, not every game is necessarily artistic unless it meets that standard under some fair interpretation most people would fairly recognize, even if (as you say) some people enjoy it and other people don't.

 

I would make a case for the 2nd camp, but I recognize other people are probably in the 1st camp. But it's not a science anyway; there's not some Platonic line separating the two you can test in a lab, so there's room for people to have different opinions on the issue IMO.

 

Thanks for your point of view. Realy ... art and a craft realy make me think about it.

Edited April 30, 2013 by Capela

[Obsttorte]

Any game is pure art, some like it, and some not, thats why there is so many games, and art. Do i realy like Picasso..haa..no..but im crazy about Van Gogh.

Your comparison doesn't fit. Art is only art if the artist actually want to create art (like both Picasso and van Gogh did). If you just want to create profit (what may be more caused by the pubs then the devs), you'll never create art.

 

Art is the voice of the soul, independently from it's "quality".

[Obsttorte]

not to be confused with Kraftwerk!

Is Kraftwerk an english word, too? That's funny (like kindergarten, or -garden as you write it).

[ungoliant]

I wonder what's their media plan. Like post on FB every 2 days till summer gamescon, then reveal gameplay video - another round of gamemag reviews... and so on

i think it's likely they're going to hide their shamed faces for a while. I've heard they're going to put something up at e3 in june, but if they're hiding the demo that they needed "all hands on deck" to make in 6+ months, and the results were so bad they can't share it with the rest of us, I think its pretty likely they'll be going back into hiding for another year or 2. 2014 release? not on your life. the next "media plan" will likely kick off around their proposed 'release date'.

God forbid squeenix cuts funding (pretty likely, considering the circumstances), they might even scrap the project and turn it into vaporware as many of us suspected it would be years ago.

 

edit: Also, kraftwerk is not english. its an old-ass electronic music band. I've heard of them, but haven't really checked them out.

Edited April 30, 2013 by ungoliant

[Capela]

Your comparison doesn't fit. Art is only art if the artist actually want to create art (like both Picasso and van Gogh did). If you just want to create profit (what may be more caused by the pubs then the devs), you'll never create art.

 

Art is the voice of the soul, independently from it's "quality".

 

Im sorry, but artist do their art for profit....for long time ago...I think i open a pandora box that i will to close it now..thanks.

[Sotha]

Art is the voice of the soul, independently from it's "quality".

 

Ah, I always thought that the purpose of art is to transmit feelings or generate discussion.

[demagogue]

edit: Also, kraftwerk is not english. its an old-ass electronic music band. I've heard of them, but haven't really checked them out.

 

Yes, I was making this joke because I know how many Germans we have, although that band was popular, and funny, for everybody, not just Germans.

[Capela]

Yes, I was making this joke because I know how many Germans we have, although that band was popular, and funny, for everybody, not just Germans.

 

Lol i have two vinniel? dont know how to say it in english....Vinyl i think..one its from kraftwerk ..im a robot....and the other is from haaaa... dont remenber, i fuck.......shit....Man at work...."business as usual" Im Old but like what i do..in this case.........

Edited April 30, 2013 by Capela

[Obsttorte]

Ah, I always thought that the purpose of art is to transmit feelings or generate discussion.

That's what I've meant? Maybe I should stop talking in methaporas.

edit: Also, kraftwerk is not english. its an old-ass electronic music band. I've heard of them, but haven't really checked them out.

I know the band. It just wasn't quiet clear from the context that this was meant.

Im sorry, but artist do their art for profit....for long time ago...I think i open a pandora box that i will to close it now..thanks.

Maybe I was a bit unclear. Obviously artists have to life from their art. The question is just how much you are ready to transmigrate from what you want to say to what the people want to hear to increase the personal profit gained by what you are doing. There is an invisible line that , once crossed, turns art into AAA-mainstram shit.

 

I may also add that this is just my personal opinion As demagogue already explained opinions may differ about this topic.

 

And opening a pandoras box about a certain topic, thus meaning giving the people the chance to post their opinion about it without insulting each other (what didn't happen here) is IMHO something good. You can only learn if you get the chance to listen to other peoples opinions. (I guess now I'm at a point were I sound like a teacher ... sorry, three beer and four whiskey ).

[Sotha]

That's what I've meant? Maybe I should stop talking in methaporas.

 

If art is

Ah, I always thought that the purpose of art is to transmit feelings or generate discussion.

 

Then

Art is only art if the artist actually want to create art (like both Picasso and van Gogh did). If you just want to create profit (what may be more caused by the pubs then the devs), you'll never create art.

is in contradiction.

 

In terms of provoked feelings and discussion that has been aroused, Thief 4 is already great and debated piece of art, when it does not even exist yet! Alternatively we could consider each released screenshot, teaser and info-bit as art, because it is *them* that generate the feelings and the discussion.

 

Expression or activity of human creativity... Yep, you could put a lot of things into that box.

[ungoliant]

i think it's likely they're going to hide their shamed faces for a while

 

Looks like I was right. The "in-game footage coming soon" part of the Thief4 city watch news thread on eidos forums was removed. Once again, don't expect anything at e3 or probably at all this year.

[Obsttorte]

In terms of provoked feelings and discussion that has been aroused, Thief 4 is already great and debated piece of art

Going by this definition it would even be art if I vomit on the street, as it would definetely provoke people and arouse discussion

 

I thought more of that in the sense that someone wants to arouse discussion about the issues that are content of the art created. Thief 4 going to be a bad game is definetely nothing the developers want to express with there released information, don't you think.

[Ishtvan]

I've heard it said by I can't remember who: "you can have craft without art, but you can't have art without craft." In most cases I think this is true, but every once in a while something simple (without 'craft') can still make you feel an emotion, maybe qualifying as art.

 

It's easy to apply this to games, though. Craft without art would be something like EA's The Godfather. A lot of people spent time on the craft of it, making models & textures, voice acting, programming, etc. But then it all boils down to an experience where you go to Neighborhood #3 and buy Gun Upgrade #2, and it gets so repetitive that you just stop playing (at least I did). I can't think of a game example of art without craft, unless you apply that to an extremely simple gameplay concept that yields hours of entertainment (Angry Birds?), but that may just be an example of excellent gameplay design craft.

[Sotha]

Going by this definition it would even be art if I vomit on the street, as it would definetely provoke people and arouse discussion

 

Well... In my country, there was a H U G E public debate about art in general, when in some exhibitions some artist presented a blender mixing shit and semen. On other exhibition there was a video which showed dying kittens, which also resulted in a huge uproar.

 

The loose definition of art results in genuinely endless source of debate.

[demagogue]

I think it's better to think in terms of schools. Then you're not debating something that can't objectively be answered really anyway (is it really "art", whatever that is), but you're asking if it fits fairly in a given school of thought or not.

 

So there's impressionism, cubism, logical formalism. There's surrealism and anti-art (where you get mustached Mona Lisas & urinals), there's folk crafts, there's kitsch crafts, there's alt-folk craft... I mean, not every pile of feces would be accepted by the surrealists as anti-art, but some might (and you know the standard, because my avatar wrote the manifesto that tells you). There's still some interpretation involved, but that's at least a question you can make traction with.

 

And in game making, there are the different genres and schools of game making, which have their different standards and fashions and styles. In our case, we adhere to a school of thought that sticks to minimalism with the gameplay, hud, immersion, and simulation with our world, etc., and a lot of the same ideals the original Thief series had, when you read its manifestos (they did write some). T4 has different values in mind, which are associated with a different school of thought that they may be more or less faithful or fair to. Talking about those different schools of thought is always better than the abstract idea of "art" IMO.

[ERH+]

According to mentioned art/craft line, Picasso would be artist but most of cubists should be considered as craftsmen and copyists. You could tell that landscape is piece of art, mostly because you remember it from your childhood as pattern of colour, or because its symmetry is somehow mesmerising. Artists don't just copy nature, they create simplified model of it, but still working with our senses in same way as nature's original. So you have Rothko's simple colour stripes representing landscape, or gate, and you still can tell what you looking at.

Edited May 2, 2013 by ERH+