Video Games, Art?

[Felon]

That's how most people end up successful.

You've thrown this line out twice in this thread with slight variations. The suggestion is that everyone gets successful the same way, and implicitly conveys that you therefore can't question any specific person's success. It's pretty equivocal.

That aside, I'm curious why you hold a guy who writes a webcomic to higher standards than blogs, editorials, and even most "hard news" outlets?

I'm curious as to what the heck you're talking about. You want to offer up an intelligent point of view, then be sincere about it. If you're going to pander and throw out some profanity so that your core audience thinks you're being cool, then you've forfeited on the grounds of phonyness.

And you don't read Tycho's thrice-weekly post looking for some sort of hard news or calmly stated point following all your high school debate teams rules. He's fully capable of doing it on most subjects when he wants to, but (a) he rarely feels the need to genuflect at various cultural institutions; and (b) he knows his audience is waiting for the punchline. Since he's a webcomic writer and not a news organization, he's entitled to give them that.

Ah, OK, then he's not trying to make some enlightened, heartfelt argument while throwing profanity around to hold lowbrow reader interest like some smarmy phony. It's actually the other way around; trying to behave like his opinion merited consideration is just part of a big joke. His words should be dismissed as a rant that's more about getting people to pay attention to him than any specific point. Just as long as there's no suggestion that you can have your cake and eat it too here.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

It's not about his age. It's about his role in the narrative. That accounts for 99% of the issue, just like it accounts for so many other decisions most people make. A lot of much younger film critics have the same opinion. Their purported reasons are contradictory and, frankly, irrelevant. After all, rationalization comes after reaction and well after experiencing the stimulus, in neural terms.

That last, incidentally, is why I can't agree with your definition of art. You decide if something is art before your brain comes up with the rationalization, so "watch[ing] and analyz[ing] and understand[ing] and reflect[ing]" are all subsequent events... but that's all rather far outside the scope of this discussion.

As for the phrase, "on the wrong side of history"... it's a silly phrase, rife with potential misunderstanding, but succinct. I think we have hit one of those misunderstandings of what it means. Roughly translated into base and imprecise language, I use it to mean, "when we write the history books, he will be established as incorrect." Basically, I take it as a given that some day in the near future we will reach a place where the culture at large agrees that video games can be art. Once the culture at large says so, and there is a canon of video game art, we will no longer have the luxury of claiming Ebert was correct on this, just like painters and writers no longer have the luxury of saying that the critics who insisted movies were not art were correct. (Man this is actually tough to talk about within forum rules).

Basically, he is insisting that the Sun orbits the Earth. As far as anyone knew for a long time, that was correct. But they were on the wrong side of history. As far as most people in the culture know, Ebert may be correct, but a handful of us have played games that pass into the realm of art, and we can conceive of many more.

I believe I will live to see a day when there is a canon of high Art video games. In this regard, the advancement of various kinds of artistic media, history really has been consistently progressive. We will see the situation play out such that Ebert will be dead wrong on this issue. The only place his age comes into play is this: Before we get to the point of having a video game canon and consensus on this, Ebert may be just plain dead. So I don't see any point in rubbing his nose in it. And I frankly hope he shuts up about the issue, because he'll only undermine his long term credibility by bearing a meaningless standard here.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Simple question, Felon:

Why do you think the writer of Penny Arcade should not engage in hyperbole or sensationalize? What makes him subject to greater scrutiny than blogs, editorials, or "news"? We do not live in a world where everything people type and post on the internet can be expected to be Truth. Heck, we don't live in a world where anything one human being says to another can be expected to be truth.

Ebert engaged in hyperbole in his piece, so what makes that acceptable, but Tycho so vile for (roughly) the same?

Heck, Tycho used less hyperbole than he usually does, whereas Ebert used probably more than he usually does. Even on a sliding scale, I'm not seeing why Penny Arcade is such a realm of sinners.

I'm not saying Tycho deserves any sort of "free pass", but I'm not sure why you think he's looking for one. He's speaking to his audience, same as Ebert is. And there's not a lot of overlap there, frankly. He has never set out to be some arbiter of truth, just a guy who writes a webcomic and fills the front page with what was essentially a blog before there were blogs. It is not in his job description to be fair, balanced, or socially appropriate.

You are looking for some sort of quiet dignity in the wrong place, and getting upset that it is not there.

Why do they deserve your ire? Frankly, I've wondered about that for quite some time.

 

[Dias Ex Machina]

God I love this conversation....

If the comic was presented as is, I would not have been upset. It was the blog. I found the comic funny. I know I have said this before; I just need to stress it.

"The wrong side of history" is misleading. It is also incredibly arrogant. By claiming "the wrong side of history" one is saying, "I am right in this and in the future, where I am vindicated, you will be condemned." Beyond the fact that the future is not certain by any means, this also brings up an interesting point. Ebert claims games "will never be art" which is an equal arrogant presumption. His point is that it would have been made by now. It is not like the days of Pong. The graphics have reached a point where this "game" which is an example of art would have been made. Now, I think the game has been made (Flower) but Ebert doesn't see it that way.

Now, I do have a problem with the statement, "Sun orbits the Earth". The earth revolving around the sun is a scientific fact. It can be measured and proven by the scientific method. The judgment of art is opinionated and subjective. You can't rate every potential work of art in every format on a universally accepted scale of "one to ten Picassos." What is considered art and what is not is based on personal opinion and cannot be overridden by public opinion. Yes, some overwhelming public approval will class a work of creation as art but there are voices still holding back in the video game debate.

Here is another point to consider. I was at work when I posted the earlier message. I asked my coworkers what they thought. I am 35 years of age. My many staff members range in age between as young as 19 and as old as...21. Upon being asked, I was shocked to find half of them felt that video games were not art. They contained art, but as one said, "I don't consider board games art."

Being old is no reason to discredit an argument. I am having this same debate with a friend of mine that insists that Norman Borlaug is incorrect in his views of agriculture, and said his wife was correct because she had done the research for her thesis and that Borlaug was out of date. I have explained to him that when his wife has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the National Medal of Science, I'll put her above Norman Borlaug. Until then, Norman wins.

 

[Fast Learner]

You don't see the criticism community of painting or sculpture loudly proclaiming these things because they already lost to film and have become comfortable with the notion of a bigger space for art to live in. Film, however, is currently King of the Mountain. Some filmmakers (and lots of film critics) have the memory deeply ingrained of when film wasn't Art. They remember when they were the virtuous Barbarians and Art was under the control of some Evil Empire. But they conquered that Empire, and in their minds Film sits on a throne. After all, that's what happens when you kill the other Arts and take their stuff, right? But they've been there a while, and now they're afraid some other barbarians are at the gate. They fear for their throne, not yet realizing that it is not and never was a singular throne.

So Ebert and some like him will stand up and deliver speeches to the people, telling them how awesome Film is, and how much Film has done for them, and how could they abandon Film for these upstart Barbarians, who aren't Art anyway.

Everyone is acting out their part in the cultural narrative. All of this has happened before and all of it will happen again.

Not that I really have anything to add, but I completely agree with this.

Second, I don't believe Roger is on the wrong side of history nor do I believe his opinion is solely based on his age. I sincerely believe that if he was born in 1850 and as an elder started watching the first films being made, he could admit to it as being art.

I disagree with this. I really do think that Roger is on the wrong side of history here. That's not condescending: I, too, am undoubtedly on the wrong side of history on a whole variety of opinions and perspectives. In fact, I suspect that it's completely impossible not to be on the wrong side of history in a whole bunch of ways during your time. We see what came before and what's around us now; it's nearly impossible to see how that's all going to fit in down the road.

But the definition -- or perhaps more importantly, the understanding -- of what is and is not art has evolved again and again. It's gone through slow changes and big upheavals. In the end the new kid has almost always been understood as art, despite there being giant communities of people who were sure it would end up otherwise. I cannot fathom these interactive media -- be they games or other forms of interactive artistic effort -- not being eventually embraced as art by the bulk of our culture. Where are the examples of creative non-literary things not being eventually accepted as art?

(And for that matter, literature of all forms is commonly considered to be of the Arts, even if we sub-categorize into art and literature after that.)

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

"The wrong side of history" is misleading. It is also incredibly arrogant. By claiming "the wrong side of history" one is saying, "I am right in this and in the future, where I am vindicated, you will be condemned." Beyond the fact that the future is not certain by any means, this also brings up an interesting point. Ebert claims games "will never be art" which is an equal arrogant presumption. His point is that it would have been made by now.

I'll cop to a small amount of presumption, but not arrogance. History repeats itself with stunning regularity. History shows a pattern:

1) A medium is invented
2) It is used badly for a while
3) It is derided for not being art and as a negative impact on youth
4) People figure out how to do commercially viable porn with it (optional)
5) It is derided more for not being art and is declared a pox on youth
6) Truly artful examples become more common
7) Screams that it is not art resonate from the rafters
8) Time passes with a few examples of undeniable art that are vociferously denied anyway
9) The Citizen Kane/Maus moment: Almost everyone jumps aboard and we largely forget what the fighting was all about. The average "man on the street" will say "Of course they can be art" when asked.

I am assuming, based on my experience watching the medium grow up, that video games are in fact on this path and are in the middle of step 6. Comics are probably the most recent medium to reach step 9. We haven't had them on the Senate floor in decades. Everyone acknowledges that they can communicate ideas, both good and bad.

Which is really all there is to it. Once you reach step 3, you have government/religion acknowledging that the medium is capable of communicating concepts. They just don't like the concepts being communicated. At that point, it's effectively all over except for waiting for the right artists to figure out how to present the right concepts in the right way to push the medium forward in the chain.

Interestingly, we re-fight this one with genres as well as media. In music, we had to go through a fast version of this whole process with heavy metal and rap most recently, but rock and roll before that, jazz before that, and so on. Impressionism and cubism both had to deal with this nonsense as well, even though painting in the broad sense was well established.

What is considered art and what is not is based on personal opinion and cannot be overridden by public opinion.

Yes and no. Each individual work is subject to interpretation by individuals. But a medium as a whole is subject to public opinion. No one can be taken seriously nowadays claiming that film is not an art form, or that comics are not an art form. The existence of awful B-movie dreck does not negate the fact that film is Art.

Yes, some overwhelming public approval will class a work of creation as art but there are voices still holding back in the video game debate.

Yep. Just like a number of decades ago, there were many, many voices insisting films could not be Art. Or more recently, that rap could not be Art. But these three cases are the same. The voices crying "NEVER!" were (and are) working against the tide.

Here is another point to consider. I was at work when I posted the earlier message. I asked my coworkers what they thought. I am 35 years of age. My many staff members range in age between as young as 19 and as old as...21. Upon being asked, I was shocked to find half of them felt that video games were not art.

Again, I've already said that age is not a primary factor here. Age is a red herring. It's all about the inevitability of history.

Being old is no reason to discredit an argument. I am having this same debate with a friend of mine that insists that Norman Borlaug is incorrect in his views of agriculture, and said his wife was correct because she had done the research for her thesis and that Borlaug was out of date. I have explained to him that when his wife has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and the National Medal of Science, I'll put her above Norman Borlaug. Until then, Norman wins.

Your position is bad science, you know.

If there had been a Nobel prize when Gregor Mendel did his experiments, I'd have been happy to see him win it, but that doesn't mean he had the whole picture. There are massively more complicated interactions governing what was going on in his work. He's still a pillar of genetics, but hundreds of people have proven some of what he did wrong, far more complicated than he thought, and so on. Science is progressive. We move forward, we develop new ways of collecting more detailed data and new understandings of the complex interactions in the world. Being out of date is not the same as being wrong. With the tools and understanding he had available, Borlaug did amazing work, but we can't put older science on such a pedestal that we're afraid to question it or build on it. That is antithetical to the very nature of science.

To the specific case of Borlaug, his work helped feed a lot of people, but there are consequences to his methods that aren't all positive. For example, increasing energy demand at the expense of worker demand in developing nations. This created an artificially high demand for something they did not have (energy) and an artificially low demand for something they did (labor). There's a lot of recent work showing that many of those countries can get substantial yield increases out of improving low-level management practices that are more labor intensive than energy intensive, in addition to a larger base of employed workers. It also substantially decreases the need for high energy-cost fertilizers and pesticides, so for the same net cost, you're getting higher yields and also paying more local workers, which is good for the economy. That's not throwing Borlaug out completely, but it does show that he was not 100% right. No one ever is in science. There is always room for improvement.

Borlaug helped put a lot of infrastructure in place that was and is needed, but we can't call an end to it there and assume because he was partially right that all the problems are solved.

Besides, the guys who get the prizes are the guys who get the thing in public eyes. Most of the real work is done by the people iterating in their wake.

 

[Dias Ex Machina]

Well, you don't know the specifics of our conversation regarding Borlaug so let's not go there. I have done the research as well and find his ideas still equally valid today. Either way, I will not get into that discussion here.

Additionally, I also feel we've gotten off track. You are preaching to the converted. Games like Flower have proven the media can present an artistic vision. What I am arguing is that Penny Arcade failed to offer a real argument to best Roger and instead went on a character attack, citing his age and obsolete views as example. That made the case against Roger worse, not better. They sank below the Santiago instead of building upon it.

If Roger is on the wrong side of history and if many people are, like you and I (even if they mean well), than PA could also be considered on the wrong side of history as well. There is no pattern to a media in its evolution to having the capacity of being art. It has never followed that simple flow chart. It only applies to comics and movies (and now to games). ((Note...I do understand, you are also making a joke)) I won't believe for a second that storytelling followed such simply lines. We developed language; the first fiction followed quickly after. I would also insist that visible art also evolved into an imaginative form skipping most of the steps you mention. I feel, for example, that pen & paper role playing games will never be considered art. It was never given a chance and most likely never will.

Video Games are in this debate only because they followed a model already covered by comic books and movies. When the first sculpture was carved, I cannot think for one second that it was disregarded as not being art. It might have had purpose (religious obviously), but it was also artistic and was considered art by the people who saw it.

What bothers me is that so few people criticizing Roger seem to have actually read his blog. Obviously, you have, which is why I am still here. I don't need to defend Roger's point. I don't need to defend him against PA really as PA brought nothing to the table. Santiago and Ebert had respect for each other. Ebert complimented her ("I urge you to watch her talk, which is embedded below. It's only 15 minutes long, and she makes the time pass quickly.") I don't need to defend his position on art because his points are concise and better worded than I ever could attempt. Whenever an argument is cited, I could just cut and paste. Because people define art in different ways (as Ebert also directly points out), you only need to endorse one to prove yourself right. Just disregard the other definitions. We can bounce about this until the end of the Mayan Calendar (heh); it's not going to change these individual definitions.

So besides that fact, that I AGREE that Video Games can be artistic, and comparing them to the evolution of comics and movies is actually acceptable, it does not change the fact that Penny Arcade's personal attack on Roger for having an adverse opinion to their own did not help the case to prove Roger was wrong. If it did, I wouldn't be defending him so much. If they played it civil in their blog and then made fun of him in their comic, I would never have started this thread. It was the personal attack in their blog I found so cross, not necessarily the message being sent.

On a side note, I think the best way to prove to Roger that games can be art is to modify Flower so that when you complete the game, the final task resets it, forcing you to play through the entire game again, and the last mission actually removes the flowers from the doorsill, forcing to rebuild until the process repeats again, into infinity...

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Perhaps the best way to cap my thoughts here is to say that Tycho is smarter than all of us. He saw that there isn't an argument worth having so he didn't bother. This will play out as it has before without any input from a pop artist like Tycho.

As I've said, we're all playing out our roles here.

Ebert is marshaling imaginary defenses against imaginary barbarian hordes.

Tycho is being the "Voice of the New Generation", complete with disdain for the statesmen of the "Old Generation."

Senators, clergymen, and critics are holding intermittent witch hunts.*

I'm joining the ranks of pedantic stand-up philosophers.**

Members of the public who don't have a horse in this race are hanging out, mostly quietly hoping for some good pyres to throw stuff on before this plays itself out.

All is proceeding according to the usual parameters, including my ridiculous prose.
___________________
* Pretending that "Manhunt" and "Waco Resurrection" are both popular and emblematic of the medium can only be a witch hunt in action. Everyone once "knew" that movies were only a vehicle for sex and violence or that Renaissance sculpture and painting were expressions of the Devil that were corrupting the youth. The pattern wends its way through recorded history too convincingly to not be truly ancient. I'm quite certain bawdy stories and bodily functions preceded the oral histories that gave us The Odyssey. We know for a fact that the first writing was for accounting purposes. And while it's possible the very first sculpture might have been art, the second through two-thousand and fifth sculptures were probably elaborations on the phallus. People don't really change much at the end of the day, or the eon.

** Literally. I've taken to avoiding sitting at my desk, so this is being done from the vertical.

 

[Felon]

Why do they deserve your ire? Frankly, I've wondered about that for quite some time.

Really? That's rather flattering, if you think about it.

The answer is "immaturity". One of the notable signs of growing up is coming to the realization that life is not fair. A subset of this realization is deciding that it is not our place to concern ourselves with whether other people have obtained what they deserve. Seek to obtain what you can for yourself, and displace the desire for others' come-uppance from your mind. While I accept the basic precept that entitlement is a delusion, I find myself lamentably incapable of high-fiving those who seem patently undeserving of success. Therefore, the discovery that crude illustrations, gratuitous crude language, and not-terribly-clever humor equates to "massive internet sensation" brushes that very nerve. In short, "what's the big friggin' deal about this???"

Then I listened to the D&D podcasts, commented on how the PA guys sounded, and was promptly banned for a week for insulting fellow ENWorlders. I didn't flame them for any postings in these forums mind you (as they don't really post here), just commented on their public appearance the same way one might comment on Tom Cruise for jumping on Oprah's furniture. Although we frequently lambaste public figures for how they behave in public appearances, you should have a care 'lest that public figure should turn out to be an ENWorlder. In that event, they are protected from negative remarks. Tom Cruise should stop trying to abduct Muhammed and simply sign up for a $3/month community supporter account. This did not endear them to me further, I must be honest.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Really? That's rather flattering, if you think about it.

Meh. I'm not sitting up nights thinking about it, but you are frequently memorable in any thread where they come up, even tangentially, so there have been reminder trials.

I guess I'm fine with their immaturity because it's part of the act. I've seen them be incredibly mature in contexts where it was appropriate, which means there is a switch they can turn on and off. And they know which way they need to flip that switch when they write comics and posts, and which way they need to flip that switch when they're, for example, talking about charity work. They will unleash the beast when talking about media of various kinds, because that's what people go to their site to see.

Immaturity in a lot of contexts is just good salesmanship. Look at Hollywood. There isn't enough mature fare coming out of the studio system in a year to fill a solid weekend, but the studios will always be the money makers, and the art house films will always be virtuous and poor.

Maybe it's selling out, but then you don't feed your family, much less start impressive low-overhead charities, by being virtuous and poor.