theartofemergence

[theartofemergence]

“To think that there is a single, generally agreed upon concept of art is to get it precisely backwards. Americans’ attitude towards art is profoundly divided, disjointed and confused; and my message to gamers is to simply ignore the “is-it-art?” debate altogether”

                                                                                                   -Jim Preston

The whole idea of games as an artform has always caused plenty of debate. On one hand, you have your traditional art critics like Roger Ebert devaluing the medium of games based on an outdated (who passed away recently at the age of 71, no disrespect intended, but that can speak to his objectively outdated philosophy) and surface level understanding, and on the other hand, you have games theorists like Jesper Juul, who, while they couldn’t care less about the outcome of this squabble, find productive discourses brought up within the debate to help move games forward. Ian Bogost is another one of these theorists, and he cites the quote above to fellow game designer Jim Preston in Bogost’s book, “How to Do Stuff with Videogames,” the chapter aptly titled Art. While he agrees that Preston is right and that this debate is useless, Bogost is more interested in the bigger picture. “Forget games, art doesn’t have any sort of stable meaning in contemporary culture anyway” (9). If this is true, then why even bother?

Games obviously aren’t the first form of media to be questioned as Keith Stuart highlights in his article ‘Are Videogames Art: The debate that shouldn’t be.’ He alludes to how critics felt confused and frankly disrespected at the dawn of the new artistic movement Impressionism. Even though now we can take a step back and see the bigger picture-- this development leading to the likes of Monét and Cezanne-- when one is in the present it’s hard to visualize that larger timeline. As a post-impressionist painter, Van Gogh was seen as a madman and a failure during his lifetime, and a posterchild for the movement as a whole (Stuart Games).

However, almost a century later and long after his death, the bigger picture was understood and Van Gogh’s art was praised for its creative genius. So while The Starry Night has become a standard within fine art overtime, it was unfamiliar and foreign within the context of that period’s traditional art. Tailing these impressionistic movements and unknowingly standing on the shoulders of giants came several avant-garde developments that Bogost says “changed art for good,” and recontextualized its purpose, giving space for previously questioned pieces like The Starry Night to flourish (Bogost 9). Works like Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain-- simply a urinal placed in an art gallery rather than a bathroom-- “disrupted traditional notions” of art and made it hard to “distinguish art from its form or function alone; context bec[oming] the predominant factor,” crumbling down traditional nineteenth century convention of art for art’s sake (10).

If there’s anything Duchamp’s shitty practical joke can tell us about how video games relate to art, it’s that as Bogost would say, “there are no unified field theories of art. The pursuit of a pure, single account of art in any medium is a lost cause” (10). Yet we still have well respected critics like Roger Ebert titling their articles ‘Video Games can Never be Art,’ attempting to do to video games what they would never even dare to do to the avant-garde movements that share similar sentiments. The idea that something ‘can’t be art’ while that thing is still developing and maturing doesn’t do anyone any good. I’m sure people had similar thoughts about The Starry Night during the nineteenth century, or practically any of Jackson Pollock’s paintings in the twentieth, and frankly, I’m often hesitant to label a lot of what I see at the MoMA as art no matter how hard I try. However, the fourteen videogames that the MoMA fielded in their applied design gallery felt more like art than the three blank canvases I saw in the modern art exhibition when I visited. If anything, these examples have shown that art’s modern identity is “to force us to see things differently,” and maybe even “its very purpose...is to change, and to change us along with it” (Bogost 11). If that’s the case, why don’t we embrace games rather than disparage them?

The concept of ‘games art’ however is distinctly different than the question of are games art. According to Bogost, the term ‘games art’ refers to games that are prepared specifically for “exhibition in gallery or museum's” (11). Cory Arcangel’s Super Mario Clouds  fits with this idea. A hack of the classic Super Mario Bros. cartridge, Arcangel toyed with the hardware until the game displayed only the static blue background and the slowly floating clouds. It was exhibited in the Whitney in 2002, a simple projection onto an otherwise empty wall. With the removal of Mario and the rest of the environment, it was no longer interactive, the result being a game that gets exhibited, not one that gets played. 

How then, would Bogost categorize the collection of interactive web-based games currently exhibited in the Whitney by Porpentine Charity Heartscape? The display is somewhat secluded, as four computer booths sit in a single dark room separated from the rest of the Biennial. Each computer is running a different Twine (Twine being the name of the type of game and the open source engine used to create them). The creators of Twine call the engine “an open-source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear stories,” which basically consists of reading through short parts of a narrative and choosing one of the dynamic hypertext words to create a custom-ly crafted narrative. They’re essentially an evolved form of choose-your-own-adventure books. But, if the inherent interaction of these Twine’s disqualifies them as games art, then they’re probably what Jason Rohrer would call ‘art games’. Bogost cites Rohrer, another of his game design colleagues, for this term and the idea that “games can be construed natively as art” where they don't necessarily have to pledge “fealty to the fine art kingdom...It’s practitioners are game developers first, working artists second” (11). A quick google of Porpentine displays the first result: a Wikipedia article that matches up with that definition, the title labeled “Porpentine (game designer),” and the first line of the wiki stating “Porpentine Charity Heartscape is a video game designer, new media artist”-- game designer first, artist second (Wikipedia).

While art games are more loyal to the games field than games art, the term fails to do much for players, creators, or anyone really. It’s a term that compromises between the respective fields, and inherently disrespects each by doing so. So, when I read that the MoMA had added fourteen games ranging from Pac-Man to Tetris to Portal-- not games art or art games-- to their collection in 2012, I was pleasantly surprised (Antonelli). That joy only lasted so long as I came across an article written literally a day after this addition titled ‘Sorry MoMA, video games are not art’ by Jonathan Jones. Jones subheads the piece with “exhibiting Pac-Man and Tetris alongside Picasso and Van Gogh will mean game over for any real understanding of art,” and hinges his argument on the idea that traditional art is a “series of personal visions where “a work of art is one person’s reaction to life.” He claims that “any definition of art that robs it of this inner response by a human creator is a worthless definition.” Even though slightly overstated, I see where he’s coming from. The idea that games are inherently an interactive medium puts the artist and the subject in the same grouping, where the worlds explored and influenced by the subject in games is the same process an artist goes through to make a piece of art. To Jones, putting a functioning game in an art exhibit is like putting a large blank canvas on the wall with carefully selected paintbrushes readily available, allowing subjects to paint their own Pollock. So yes, while it’s unsettling that the line between subject and artist becomes blurrier in games, this is just another transformation of arts apparently malleable ability. Disregarding the fact that it’s in another form, the personal identity that one projects onto a video game is the same that they project when viewing a traditional piece of art. Although the former’s identity physically influences the piece while the latter is an introspective dialogue, they both facilitate some kind of conversation, tangible or not.  

In this way, it’s possible to argue that all art is interactive. “The artist is never the sole arbiter of meaning, and artists, like game designers, build structures through which they communicate rather than dictate.” This is Keith Stuart directly addressing claims Jones makes in his response ‘Are video games art: the debate that shouldn’t be.’ While it’s clear that Jones doesn’t think the production of games is an artform, he leaves space for Stuart to complicate the idea of the games’ play revealing similarly artistic sentiments. Stuart cites Rod Humble’s 2007 game The Marriage, as an “important step...for games as art” because The Marriage’s “meaning arises solely through the ludic systems of its interactivity, rather than through the nature of it’s content. Humble’s game was one of the first to put the strengths unique to games at the forefront, not compromising them as the hybrid art form games were commonly thought to be. He didn’t want to incorporate a story, because stories could be told by other mediums. He didn’t want it to add a poem or sounds, because “they also have counterparts.” The result was strictly an abstract game, stripped down to its barebones. Two squares, one pink and one blue, each floating around aimlessly as different colored circles intermittently make their way about the screen. There are various different rules that affect the size of the two squares, for example, if you mouse over either square, the blue one reduces in size, but both squares start moving towards each other. If you asked Humble what the game was about, he’d say “the game was created to be played, to be enjoyed by each person exploring the rules and how it related to their own life.” For him personally, however, “The game is my expression of how a marriage feels. The blue and pink squares...have differing rules which must be balanced to keep the marriage going.” So, while the game doesn’t look like or show any recognizable visual signs of what we’d think of as art, it’s clear that games even in their most raw form can do a lot of what art does.

I think Stuart’s right in that part of the problem with the initial batch of games the MoMA fielded was that they were based in the principles of design rather than meaning, like The Marriage (granted, they were put in the applied design gallery, which is another whole discussion). Games exhibited like SimCity 2000 or Tetris were huge for games design-wise, but not in their artistic significance or aesthetic appeal. So, Jones might not be wrong in his dismissal applying specifically to that MoMA exhibit. However, before he disqualifies all games based on their inherent interactivity and emergent significance, I would hope that he gets to play some that are more about meaning than design. Games like Dear Esther or Journey “express and explore life, fear, and beauty,” concepts that have strong ties to art (Stuart Games).

For a game to qualify as an artwork we should ask: can they carry intellectual and emotional sophistication? Can they move you? Can they express complex ideas?  The answer is yes, yes and yes. may not be PacMan that does it for me. It isn’t Katamari Damacy or Bioshock or any of the other regular candidates. But one small example, 911 Survivor is a short mod that puts you into the World Trade Center after the first plane has hit and it’s an experience I will never forget. It prompted death threats and was withdrawn. It is as valid a work of art as any piece of ceramics, any ready made, any abstract expressionist painting. -Matt Adams 

911 Survivor for Adams’ was what Journey was for me. Playing it was an something I’ll never forget, an experience more visceral than any other connection I’ve had to a piece of art. I’m not the only one with this reaction-- pretty much anyone you ask who’s played Journey will give you a unique answer as to why it was so powerful to them. I’ll attempt to represent it, but my words can’t do it justice. If there’s anything game critics agree on about this game it’s that you must experience it to obtain its pure potency.

A violin picks up in the background as you get slowly panning wide shots of an empty desert. A star-like particle falls and glides through the mountains of sand, until the violin suddenly dies off as fast as it began, and there you are: a faceless, cloaked figure in the middle of the desert. You aren’t given any objective or direction, as your airy steps drift through the sand. It kicks behind you with each step, your cape fluttering majestically with the wind. As you make your way towards a towering mountain in the distance, you wander about tombstones and ancient ruins that scatter the desert.

Somewhere in your path you may encounter another player with an identical avatar, pulled from the online servers. They are visually no different than you, no username or identification, no nothing-- purely anonymous. The only thing that makes them any different is their movement and actions within the game. Communication between the two of you is limited to various tones of a single chirp, and no words come on screen during gameplay. You cannot compete with your like-bodied companion, or physically interact (even the collision detection was removed so players couldn’t knock each other off walkways) (Stuart Journey). You see, Journey is unlike traditional games. There is no fail state. There is no winning or losing. There’s no way to die, or any time limit pushing you forward. With all tensions of standard games lifted, the two of you continue on your voyage together, aimlessly wandering the expansive world, solving harmless cooperative puzzles, and helping each other move forward.

While Journey is aesthetically beautiful, and basically any still from the game could hold its own in an art museum, the power of it’s aesthetic beauty isn’t even close to the value of its emergent gameplay. While the emotional prowess is derived from the grand landscapes, looming soundtrack, and lack of distinct direction (all of which being concrete, non-emergent properties), experiencing these feelings first hand and interacting with them rather than simply observing them only amplifies one’s connection. Journey makes you feel anxious, but not because the time is ticking or because you’re losing, rather the lack thereof. The absence of any pressure turns into a pressure of it’s own, manifesting in an innate quest to search for meaning. If we go back to the three questions Adam’s asks that qualify games as art (can they carry intellectual and emotional sophistication? Can they move you? Can they express complex ideas?), Journey passes each with flying colors by doing so little. Even though in the end it’s all virtual, Journey doesn’t feel like that. It feels like it has somehow become a part of you. While a traditional piece of art can have an everlasting emotional effect, the piece itself is in fact influencing, yet distinctly separate from our own experiences. As artists and subjects also stay separate in traditional pieces (where a lot of times it feels like the artist is talking down to the subject), games place both on the same playing field, creating a more intimate connection between them. Viewing a painting is like catching a glimpse into the artist's world, while playing a game is living, breathing, and changing the artists painting and the entire world that surrounds it, one choice at a time. “Journey is art without all the baggage; it is art without a gallery, art without a critical elite telling you what it means or where it fits into their esoteric pantheon” (Stuart Journey). I want to take a step back on my earlier claim that viewing a piece of traditional art and playing a game are internally the same-- they aren’t. Play mandates the conversation between the subject and the artist, where the only way to see the full painting is to take part in creating it yourself.

References

Antonelli, Paola. "MoMA | Video Games: 14 in the Collection, for Starters." InsideOut. Museum of Modern Art, 29 Nov. 2012. Web. 10 May 2017.

Arcangel, Cory. Super Mario Clouds. 2002. Projected NES modification. The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

Bogost, Ian. “Art.” How to Do Things With Videogames, NED - New edition ed., vol. 38,

University of Minnesota Press, 2011, pp. 9–17,

www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.cttttmwd.4.

Chan, As Told to Dawn. "Porpentine Charity Heartscape Talks about Her Works in the 2017 Whitney Biennial." Artforum.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2017.

Ebert, Roger. "Video Games Can Never Be Art | Roger Ebert's Journal | Roger Ebert." RogerEbert.com. N.p., 16 Apr. 2010. Web. 10 May 2017.

Humble, Rod. "The Marriage." Yes. N.p., 2007. Web. 10 May 2017.

Jones, Jonathan. "Sorry MoMA, Video Games Are Not Art." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 30 Nov. 2012. Web. 10 May 2017.

Journey. thatgamecompany. 2012. Video game.

Parker, Laura. "A Journey to Make Video Games Into Art." The New Yorker. The New Yorker, 08 May 2017. Web. 10 May 2017.

"Porpentine (game Designer)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 16 Apr. 2017. Web. 10 May 2017.

Stuart, Keith. "Are Video Games Art: The Debate That Shouldn't Be." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 06 Dec. 2012. Web. 10 May 2017.

Stuart, Keith. "Is Journey a Game or a Piece of Interactive Art?" The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 15 Mar. 2012. Web. 10 May 2017.

The Marriage. Rod Humble. 2007. Video game.

"Twine Is an Open-source Tool for Telling Interactive, Nonlinear Stories." Twine / An Open-source Tool for Telling Interactive, Nonlinear Stories. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2017.

Twine. Porpentine Charity Heartscape, 2017. Web. 9 May 2017. <http://slimedaughter.com/>