Is D&D Art?

[Dannyalcatraz]

Which then gets us talking about the muddy border between "Art" and "Design"- including the concept that "Design" at it's highest is simply functional "Art."



Design

 

[gamerprinter]

Which then gets us talking about the muddy border between "Art" and "Design"- including the concept that "Design" at it's highest is simply functional "Art."

Design

Agreed. That was the point of my previous post, and posting my map example. The design was to create a fully described, detailed explanation in scientific/realistic terms to what is in a given locale. I didn't create it for the art's sake, rather for the information provided in a clear map.

Yet, I still think my maps are art, as well.

 

[nedjer]

I didn't see anything there that contradicts my statement. All I saw were rules for a game of pretend, not the strictures of a school of art.

I have the most valued strictures of a school of art as the creation of the 'Great Work' and the encoding of function into design, i.e. the sets of rules and language the art encapsulates or elaborates.

I've linked to frivolous examples - not entirely kid friendly though all available in a church or public museum/ gallery - but art seems full of rules and language deliberately structured to offer different interpretations to different audiences.

7 Mind-Blowing Easter Eggs Hidden in Famous Works of Art | Cracked.com

So if you can play around with Bruegel's rules/ puns or act on your understanding of the symbolism of a Jesse tree, surely any game which incorporates functional art is right at the heart of the last 5000 years of Western art?

 

[nedjer]

Which then gets us talking about the muddy border between "Art" and "Design"- including the concept that "Design" at it's highest is simply functional "Art."



Design

I'm not keeping up here.

There is no mud for me on this. Design and art are indivisible, as is their functionality.

 

[wrecan]

If I dig up some gold, steal some gold, or recombine protons, neutrons and electrons from lead to make gold, it still sells for the same value in the market. It still makes the same prety jewelry.

But if you use fool's gold, it's not gold, even if nobody detects the forgery.

In other words, even if I accept your dog's spill as art, it may not be art. I may simply be mistaken or defrauded.

If I paint a painting and sell it as a Rembrandt, and I fool all the experts and buyers and auctioneers into thining it's a Rembrandt, is it a Rembrandt? I don't think it is. Maybe you do.

The means of generation can be detached from the value intrinsic in the object itself.

I don't think art is a function of value.

artificially generated still being a imprecise term. A truly natural event like a flower or sunset directly viewed wouldn't count, but a photo or painting would.

What if I convince you a natural event was artifically generated? What if I took you to Niagara Falls and convinced you that it was an artifical river generated to produce this awe-inspiring cascade effect as a work of art? If you accept it as art, is Niagara Falls now a piece of art?

How is that different than your dog's spill?

 

[wrecan]

I'd really like DannyAlcatraz to define art without referring to art itself as part of the definition. I cannot make heads nor tails as to how he distiguishes art from non-art. Can architecture be art? It is both functional and aesthetic. Can commercial art be art? (They put "art" right in the name!)

 

[nedjer]

I'd really like DannyAlcatraz to define art without referring to art itself as part of the definition. I cannot make heads nor tails as to how he distiguishes art from non-art. Can architecture be art? It is both functional and aesthetic. Can commercial art be art? (They put "art" right in the name!)

Art is constructed so I'd see it as art is architecture

 

[Janx]

But as I've said numerous times, playing a game could be art under the right circumstances: I just haven't ever seen it.



In exactly the same way as my Joe Satriani example waaaay upthread. Your dog (and Satch) created something that was not art (the painting, the noodling in the studio) that was later re-purposed/transformed by the actions of another entity AS art (you with your dog's painting, Satch's producer sampling the noodling for a rap recording).

The debate is settled. We have convinced Danny of a position he already held. Huzzah!

Moving on to the remaining dangling items:
I don't need to misrepresent my dog's art, it counts as "Found Object" art. If it looks cool, it becomes art.

To counter that though, a misrepresentation, once found out, greatly reduces the value of art. ([MENTION=64825]wrecan[/MENTION]) Value need not be limited to just $$. Value being the value we place on a piece as a work of art, rather than just an ordinary object.

so if I sell wrecan my dog art as dog art, it's art. If I lie to him, it's fraudulent and it won't be art. Because the art world is fickle like that. The same holds true for his Niagara Falls machine.

the fancy armor, and GP's maps being art is based on that logic I've been discussing. They are both man-made and both beautiful. The beautiful part, especially signifying EXTRA effort to make them look good. The maps could have been done plainly. The armor could have had less polish or less engineering flourishes added to them.

 

[Ahnehnois]

It may seem 'artistic' but the intent was to provide as much information as possible within a simple map so the GM gets a better description as to what is going on. I really didn't do it for the sake of art, however, I cannot escape my understanding of artistic balance, color theory and all the elements of design in any concept I put pen to paper with. I want it to look 'real' within the confines of hand-work. If I draw something poorly, it could alter what the GM really sees.

Given that this is my intent, does that in any way take away the fact that the map is also a piece of art?

I think the elements of design are part of it, but what makes it art is the fact that the place represented in the map doesn't exist.

If you were drawing a map of a real place, that map would not be your creation in the same sense. The fact that you or someone else created a fictional landscape makes the whole thing a product of human skill, which makes it more 'artistic'. Just as Middle Earth, Forgotten Realms (or insert fantasy setting of preference) are in and of themselves artistic creations, so are homebrew setting elements.

 

[Mallus]

I think anyone arguing that those participating in an RPG session are not creating art would, by necessity, need to explain why improv theater is art (since it is widely considered so), but playing an RPG would not be.

It's this question that got me to reverse my stance on RPG play creating art. Well that and seeing some contemporary art installations built around the notion of art as play.

The gamers are (usually) sitting down to play a game.

But therein lies the rub: gamers are sitting down to play a game in which they create fictional characters, explore fictional worlds, and often perform in the manner of (awful, hammy, sub-Shatneresque) actors.

In my my (new-ish) view, RPG's are art because the activities undertaken during the course of play strongly resemble what occurs in more traditional art forms like fiction writing and theater.

Let me ask the reciprocal question: if playing D&D is art, then why isn't playing Monopoly art?

Because Monopoly play itself doesn't resemble any form of narrative art. There are no characters. Sure, you could write a short story about people playing Monopoly, but that's a different animal (or, I suppose, you could write a pomo piece, a la A. A. Ammons, where you anthropomorphize Monopoly piece into people, but that's something more than a description of the normal scope of play)

However, when people play RPG's, they do create fictional characters, who go on and do things in a fictional setting (even if it's a rather narrow one containing mainly subterranean rooms full of monsters). You can easily write the story of what occurs in-game, but it already strongly resembles a traditional narrative.

In fact, if you try to write fiction about playing an RPG, you get this double narrative, two sets of characters, one in the in-game fiction and the other without.

If he weren't dead, I'd say that's a job for Andy Warhol.

As an aside, there are enough artists still aping Warhol to get the job done!

The Louvre in Paris has an entire wing dedicated to knight's armor and that's an art museum, not a history museum. Thus armor which is not intended to be art is art, in spite of that.

As another aside, while it ain't no Louvre, the Philadelphia Art museum ha a good collection of beautiful arms and armor, including some lovely antique firearms.

I'd like to end with a something I rarely do on this board: quote EGG.

"As a role-player, you become Falstaff the Fighter...<snip>... You act out the game as this character, staying within your "God-given abilities", and as molded by your philosophical and moral ethics (called alignment). You interact with your fellow players, not as Jim and Bob and Mary who work at the office together, but as Falstaff the Fighter, Angore the Cleric, and Filmar, the mistress of magic! The Dungeon Master will act the part of everyone else, and present to you a variety of new characters to talk with, drink with, gamble with, adventure with, and often fight with! Each of you will become an artful Thespian as time goes by... <snip>

Bolding mine.

So during a typical game you're supposed to create a PC, name them after one of the great characters in Western literature, go off and have a rather full-sounding imaginary life, complete with conversations with made-up people and even simulations of other recreational activities (because, apparently all work and no play make Falstaff a dull PC), all in addition to the more goal-oriented activities like treasure-finding and monster-slaying, while you become a better amateur actor.

How is this not, at the very least, some form of --as I believe Umbran termed it-- folk art?