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Message: <blockquote data-quote="two_fishes" data-source="post: 5966087" data-attributes="member: 62531">I think painting your house can be art. Are you doing for no other reason than to protect your house from the weather with no interest in colour? Not art. Are you at all interested in picking colours that are pleasing to the eye? Art.I think that singing happy birthday can be art. Are you singing just to fit in with everyone else? Not art. Are you doing it to amuse someone? Art.No. As a couple of other people have pointed out, I think you are making a mistake by insisting that only good art is really art. Even if something is crap, it can still be art. Art can be stupid, trivial, or vulgar.I consider anything produced in an attempt to provoke an aesthetic response to be art. By aesthetic I mean this:aes·thet·ic3. pertaining to, involving, or concerned with pure emotion and sensation as opposed to pure intellectuality. Is an RPG text intended to provoke an emotional response or arouse the senses? If so then yes, it is art. Is the RPG text intended as an intellectual exercise? If so, then no, it is not art. I think I might say that game rules in general are not art, but rather are created to provide a framework for making specific kinds of art. Playing games, in general, is art.This definition does, I think, exclude the Marcel Duchamp piece you referenced. It was made for an intellectual purpose, to make a statement about what is and is not art. It was not made to provoke an aesthetic response. It is not art. By way of another example, this is the difference between Aristophanes' Clouds and Plato's Republic. The former is art, the latter not.Or maybe not. To be honest I think that asking whether or not this or that is art is not a very important question (although it may be a fun question). It actually skips past the more important question. The more important question is Why does someone want to call something art? Is it to change the way that thing is appraised and talked about? Are you (the general you) trying to legitimize your activity for a particular audience? What does calling RPGs art mean? Does it change them?</blockquote>

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