Video Games are officially recognized as an Art form.

[Wolfy]

http://gaming.icrontic.com/article/nea-video-games-are-an-art-form/

Oooh, it is a great day indeed.

:D Thoughts, opinions?

I think this has been a long time coming, really...but what changes will it bring to the industry and video games as a whole?

[Aurora Wayland]

About time. Woo!

[Callie Del Noire]

I like one of the comments..

"Eat a dick, Ebert!"

[Wolfy]

So...Since Video Games are considered an Art Form, how could this effect things like Censorship and the like?

[TheGlyphstone]

Modern museums will now have all the classic Renaissance paintings with naked women hidden away in a T-rated gallery that requires a separate admission ticket.

[Oniya]

The text version of Dante's Inferno would be rated M for Mature.

[CmdrRenegade]

I like one of the comments..

"Eat a dick, Ebert!"

To be fair, the guy did recant his position.

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/07/okay_kids_play_on_my_lawn.html

[Will]

Well, he didn't really.  He just said that he could be proven wrong at some point in the future.  And that he regretted touching the subject in the first place.

[Saerrael]

I think this has been a long time coming, really...but what changes will it bring to the industry and video games as a whole?

Actually, I'm thinking (or... hoping) 'serious', more traditional artists will try this form of art, too. I would love to see that happen.
And, games being recognized as art would make it less of an obstacle to venture out and into this branch without having the art world fall over the exploring artist.

*is slightly rambling, sorry*

Anyway. Yes, more interested on the impact this may or may not have on the art world, than it will have on the gaming industry >.>'

[Shjade]

Well, he didn't really.  He just said that he could be proven wrong at some point in the future.  And that he regretted touching the subject in the first place.

Pretty accurate. He did make a respectable effort toward examining his previous position and why he made the statements he did. Maybe he didn't reverse his position or even entirely remove it (he notes still holding his previous opinion, simply in a less vocal capacity), but at least he reasoned out why he holds that position in a manner that is completely understandable. I don't hold it against him. I don't even think it's a "he's too old" issue; it's just not for him. Nothing appeals to everyone.

[Funguy81]

Hehe, I just did my persuasive speech on this subject for my speech class. :grins: It should have been considered an artform long ago.

[Arcadia]

!!!

Art grants for game design, who would of thought? As an aspiring game designer, perhaps I'll be able to take advantage of this and become an actual game designer. Then again, I don't have especially arty development goals. But you never know

[rick957]

Here's a question related to the thread topic, for those of you who have played lots of video games ...

If you think that certain video games have value as works of art ...

And, if you have been exposed to great works of art in other mediums (besides video games) ...

Can you argue that the artistic value of certain video games is comparable to the artistic value of certain works in other mediums?

It would help if you would cite specific examples of each -- that is, a video game and a non-video game with comparable artistic merits -- and talk about the impact of each work on you personally.

What I'm curious about is whether people who have had exposure to great works of art can find comparable artistic value in video games, or if those who think video games have artistic merits do so only because they have too little experience with great art from other fields.

Any responses will be much appreciated.  :)

Oh wait, and one other question, regarding the article from the top post:  is anyone out there really comfortable with the idea that your tax dollars could go towards the development of a video game?  I'd really like to hear a thoughtful defense of that position, which I consider somewhat surprising.

P.S. I'm not hating on video games here; I honestly don't know much about them.  My personal favorite kinds of art are ones that are routinely looked down upon or considered too lowbrow or common to be art.

[Yorubi]

Considering what things are considered art, I don't see how they couldn't be.

Honestly putting a value on different styles of art to me just seems silly. It would like like comparing the poster of a movie with the movie itself in terms of relaying its message. The picture would be greatly hindered from what it can tell from the movie. They all of their own traits behind them that make them great.

[Will]

rick957 - In response to your first question, absolutely not.  I don't think even the best of video games compares to most other kinds of art.  Not even close.  I don't think that has much bearing on whether or not they qualify as art, of course.  They're just really, really primitive and unrealized in that sense.

So, in response to your second question, I think funding offers a chance for them to actually take steps in that direction, to be more fully realized as an art form.  Not just acknowledged on the basis of semantics, which changes absolutely nothing.

[Shjade]

Can you argue that the artistic value of certain video games is comparable to the artistic value of certain works in other mediums?

Define "artistic value" and show me the metric used for calculating it.

If it's subjective, the question is meaningless. Yes, you can argue whatever you like, but there's no point if it's purely opinion.

[PfefferKuchen]

I knew video games were art all the way back when we decided whoever lost at mario 3 battle game got punched by the winner. It was a reflection on adolescent culture and the place of the pow block in urban society.

NEA grants for games is a big step but it might be just in time for all of our grants to get budget-slashed.

[rick957]

Will -- thanks for the responses.  I wonder if your views are the most common ones around here.  My guess is that most people don't mind the idea of video games being considered art, though some may at least concede that they would be in a very primitive stage in terms of artistic value.  That's probably where I would come down on the art issue as well.  As to the government funding issue, I think that's a gross misuse of government funds, but I'm interested in hearing a well-reasoned counter-argument.

Shjade -- I'm reminded of that famous wit (or scoundrel) who once said, "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is."  :)

Can you argue that the artistic value of certain video games is comparable to the artistic value of certain works in other mediums?

Of course this question depends on numerous assumptions, one of which being that artistic value can be objectively determined.  You can dispute that assumption and render the question meaningless.  If you do, though, I have to point out that the objective meaning of language can also be disputed, thus rendering all verbal communication impossible and our entire conversation meaningless.  And very short.  :)  (Show me your definition of art and I'll show you mine, with about as much or as little elaboration as you give for yours, but if you want to do that, let's do it over here, shall we?)

[Shjade]

I already posted in that thread. ;p

As I imagine you can see from what I think of art there, it's not the kind of thing that has varying value: it provokes thought and emotional response or it doesn't. The extent of that response is going to vary from person to person, so people will no doubt feel some pieces resonate more strongly than others. Does that make them more valuable by medium? Maybe to individuals, but not inherently.

[rick957]

Well, I could quibble with your definition of art over in that other thread, but such a discussion seems out of place in this thread (plus, you didn't give a full definition over there yet, just the start of one, right?).  Similarly, I could quibble with what you seem to suggest here, (which strikes me as very odd; did you just suggest that all works of art have the same inherent value?  Really?), but that too seems off-topic unless we can relate it back to video games, which I don't know much about.  *shrugs*  Let me know if you want to discuss things further someplace or other.

[Will]

Will -- thanks for the responses.  I wonder if your views are the most common ones around here.  My guess is that most people don't mind the idea of video games being considered art, though some may at least concede that they would be in a very primitive stage in terms of artistic value.  That's probably where I would come down on the art issue as well.  As to the government funding issue, I think that's a gross misuse of government funds, but I'm interested in hearing a well-reasoned counter-argument.

Do you think funding art of any kind is a gross misuse of funds?  I don't see much reason to shut video games out of that money, aside from the aforementioned immaturity of it as an art form.  I think funding for the arts is pretty important to our society, though it may seem like an easy target for budget cuts at any given time.  I can understand tightening the belt, so to speak, but I think cuts should come from pretty much everywhere and everyone, not just slash deeply into certain vulnerable programs, like arts funding (which wouldn't take us very far on its own, anyway, I'm sure).

[rick957]

I honestly don't have a firm position on government funding of the arts.  On one hand, it seems inappropriate and frivolous as long as more important government services are underfunded, and I find it hard to believe that there aren't more important government services that could use more funds.  On the other hand, if National Public Radio and Public Television could not exist without their partial funding from the government, that possibility alone makes me in favor of government funding of the arts, at least in those two ultra-specific ways.

In spite of my conflicted and uncertain views on government funding of the arts, I don't mind holding the view that no video games should be funded by tax dollars.  The linked article above lists the following for kinds of projects that grants are available for:

Projects may include high profile multi-part or single television and radio programs (documentaries and dramatic narratives); media created for theatrical release; performance programs; artistic segments for use within an existing series; multi-part webisodes; installations; and interactive games. Short films, five minutes and under, will be considered in packages of three or more.

Besides video games, I would just as soon not see government funding of "webisodes," multi-part or otherwise.  :)  The list is disturbingly broad.  Whatever the criteria are for deciding what projects are worth funding with public money, I hope the criteria are highly selective, and any criteria that lets through video games or webisodes seems insufficiently rigorous to me.

At the same time, I'm very poorly informed on the issue of government funding of the arts, and on the fields of video games and webisodes.  If anyone can show me a single video game or webisode that many people agree has great artistic merit, I may reconsider my bias against them being federally funded.

(... Wait.  No, I take that last line back.  I'd like to be as magnanimous and open-minded as possible, but there are just too many important artists out there who can't make ends meet readily enough to keep making art.  If we're handing out grants to artists, let's make some effort to put the least important ones towards the back of the line, and if we're short on funds, let's drop the least important artists first.  My apologies to struggling game developers everywhere!)

[Will]

I can understand your disdain for certain areas, like the "webisodes" thing.  I honestly can't say for sure that even is, to be honest.  But, specifically in the case of video games, my point is that non-commercial funding may give people a chance to overturn the preconceived notions that probably color your attitude here.

I think that the people responsible for deciding which projects get funded, along with the criteria they use, really make or break the situation for me.  I hope that they have a pretty critical eye in their judgments.  Obviously, I agree that quality artistic expression is more likely to arise in other areas, and I think funding should reflect that, but I am happy that video games can receive consideration.

[rick957]

It sounds like our views are very close on the matter; what you say there sounds very reasonable to me.

If one can accept the notion that video games could qualify as art -- which is far from an uncontested view -- I suppose the question becomes whether or not one entire artistic field or medium is intrinsically superior to any other.  I would say that certain fields contain a much larger number of individual works of indisputable artistic value, but when you look at the masterpieces in any given field, their accomplishments are so singular and remarkable that it's hard to compare them to anything else or rank them against each other.  Then again, I think it's safe to say, for example, that no film has been produced yet that can match the degree of artistic accomplishment in the best plays or poems ... but I'll bet there's a good argument to be made against that view, too ....

As to video games, though, I'd be more comfortable with the idea of federal funding if there was even one example out there of a game that most people agreed has uncontestable artistic merit, and I'm not aware of such a game yet, although Ebert (in the article linked above) identified one particular game that many gamers claimed had such merit.  Even a ghetto-ized, artistically-bankrupt medium like comic books (one of my personal favorite entertainment mediums) has one or two specific works that stand out as such extraordinary accomplishments that few would deny their artistic value.  Is the same true for video games?  I dunno, I'd like to hear what knowledgeable people think.

[Jude]

I definitely have more attachment to video games than I have to other works of art.  I can't think of a single novel, painting, or sculpture that I am invested in as, say, Fallout 3, Morrowind, or Final Fantasy XIII, etc.

I can recall seeing cutscenes in games that I thought were more beautiful and impressive than in any other medium.  I'll never forget how blown away I was by the firing of the Sister Ray, the death of Aeris, etc. in FF7.

There are characters who are more "real" and that I have more of a connection to than those in films -- take Nathan Drake of the Uncharted series for example.  Francis York Morgan from Deadly Premonition... Or even Wheatly from Portal 2.

There are songs I will never forget, that evoke memories of a time and place for me.  Every time I hear the Chrono Trigger soundtrack my mind involuntary shifts back to when I was playing it as a child.  It always evokes a great deal of fondness for the SNES era.

To me, video games are art, because that's how I respond to them.

[Zakharra]

 Considering some of the utter crap, real and figuratively, that is listed as art, video games should definately be on the art list. Today's generation doesn't visit the museums and art galleries, they play video games and online stuff. That is their medium and where they see art.

[GilmooDaddy]

Considering some of the utter crap, real and figuratively, that is listed as art, video games should definitely be on the art list. Today's generation doesn't visit the museums and art galleries, they play video games and online stuff. That is their medium and where they see art.

I agree with this statement entirely Zakharra. I have been playing video games since I was about 4 (around the same time the original NES came into being) and have found sheer beauty in countless video games. Although I have visited several galleries for one of my college course requirements, including the famous Museum of Modern Art in NYC, I generally can't relate to the pieces, nor do I enjoy being in the galleries period. Embracing myself in a video game world allows the enjoyment to come naturally and I honestly think that it's ridiculous that it has taken this long for video games to be considered an art form. Most video games take more time, effort, money, and dare I be so bold to say, creativity than any piece of art I've ever seen. As a matter of fact, most games all have countless amounts of pre production art (that can be absolutely wonderful) before the wheels are even in motion.

[Wolfy]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/110273-Fox-News-Attacks-NEA-for-Classifying-Games-as-Art

Well, I certainly saw this coming.

What is with Fox and video games..geez...>_> Is Jack Thompson one of their primary funders?

And, seeing the actual segment will give you brain damage, fair warning.

Seriously, it will kill your brain cells with stupidity. :D

[Brandon]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/110273-Fox-News-Attacks-NEA-for-Classifying-Games-as-Art

Well, I certainly saw this coming.

What is with Fox and video games..geez...>_> Is Jack Thompson one of their primary funders?

And, seeing the actual segment will give you brain damage, fair warning.

Seriously, it will kill your brain cells with stupidity. :D

I kind of expected that to be honest. Fox seems to be very anti-gamer in general and Im not even talking about violent or even somewhat controversial video games. Im talking like so anti-gamer they would outlaw minecraft if they could.

Actually I sometimes wonder if they take that stance purely because we, the gamers, watch them? Here me out here. The video game industry and what you could loosely call a community does IMO seem to have a bit of a self esteem issue. We tend to get outraged at any negative publicity easily as if we crave it. However if someones on our side we flock to them and seek all the sympathy we can get. Similar to what Ive seen by another movement which I will not name at this time

Anyway, Ive been wondering how to best express my absolute joy at the recognition of my favorite medium being recognized as a legitimate art form and after much thought I dont think I can. There just arent words in any language I know to say how awesome it is

[Wolfy]

I'm hoping that one day in the future, Fox News will piss off Anonymous, and get wiped off the map. :D

[TheGlyphstone]

Fox already did an expose special on Anonymous - the "hackers who blow up yellow vans" story. Much lulz were had.

[Harley]

I think Minecraft is a great example of art.

Now I want to play...  <_<

[Shjade]

I think Minecraft is a great example of art.

Now I want to play...  <_<

Ehhh...I'd say Minecraft is a medium for creating art, maybe. Paint's not art until you make something with it, ne?

[Harley]

Ehhh...I'd say Minecraft is a medium for creating art, maybe. Paint's not art until you make something with it, ne?

Well, that is what I meant, yes.  A medium.   ^^

[DudelRok]

The "before I begin" note:

1) I am a gamer.

2) I play a LOT of games.

3) I watch and listen to video games (outside of playing them).

4) Some games have, indeed, moved me to a great deal.

5) My opinion on games can apply to all "modern media."

Video games are not art, they are a medium to which art can be created and shared (at best), or an application which allows others to create their own art (as per usual).

See: Minecraft

Ehhh...I'd say Minecraft is a medium for creating art, maybe. Paint's not art until you make something with it, ne?

Games have art in them but are not art as a whole. I play games, unlike Mr. Ebert, and I still have to agree with him. Art is a passive experience, and the very second you add to that experience by directly influencing it... you are either the artist or what you are interacting with is not art. Then again, I've also had quite a fair share with *cough* actual art in my life. Shadow of the Colossus, like Ebert, is the closest that I can come to an agreement as "Artistic." However, "artistic" =/= "art." I'm "artistic" but I dare you to call this art with a straight face.

Chose your own adventure books, visual novels... you'd be hard pressed to find anyone, even within their own community, to classify such things as "art." They might say, "The writing was really well done," Or, "The still images were drawn with grace and style," But they wont tell you either are art. Come next, Anime is never classified as art in most instances. Even on sites made for it, Anime is given it's own little sub-category and stashed off in the corner.

Now the difference is this: Anime artists, adventure book writers and visual novel creators don't seek the validation.

Why do we (as a collective group) seek that validation? Why do we need it?

We couple this with the fact that games are formed based on business model (what will sell vs what wont) and the slow tainting of the independent market via XBL and PSN, you have yourself a consumerist product and nothing anyone with any lick of education could honestly call art. Though movies, music and even paintings are like this (now), so maybe the word art is the problem.

tl;dr Gamer to gamer, video games ain't art, and I agree with Ebert.

[Will]

Games have art in them but are not art as a whole. I play games, unlike Mr. Ebert, and I still have to agree with him. Art is a passive experience, and the very second you add to that experience by directly influencing it... you are either the artist or what you are interacting with is not art.

An awful lot of postmodern art explicitly breaks that rule.  Of course, a lot of people don't call it "art," but I disagree.

Interacting with art changes the way you view it.  It changes how it affects you.  I don't see how that prevents it from being art.  You can't do anything in a game that the developers didn't mean for you to do (excluding bugs, of course), so why is the experience suddenly "off the tracks" of art?  It's just... more expansive.  You're still having the experience they intended you to have.

[Shjade]

Dude, I can see your position and it's not entirely goofy, but you lost me at this point:

Come next, Anime is never classified as art in most instances. Even on sites made for it, Anime is given it's own little sub-category and stashed off in the corner.

That's just...no. Anime is art. Is it "high" or "fine" art? No, no more than the sketchy purple bunny you linked (at least not most of it), but it's certainly art. It's not "stashed off in the corner" on sites that include it; it's set aside as its own category for people to find it apart from other kinds of art, much as you might separate sculpture from photography. It's not its own medium, but it's something that appeals greatly to one group and is a total turn-off to another, so it's segregated. That doesn't mean anything about its status as art.

It seems like there's a disconnect in your argument where something can't be considered art if it's not above a certain quality and/or suits your taste, which is problematic.

[Oniya]

I see your bunny, and raise you a banana.

[Saerrael]

I'm feeling a bit off, so.. this will probably be half ramble/ lot of quoting. I hope it makes sense anyway.

"What Is Art?" (Russian: Что такое искусство? [Chto takoye iskusstvo?]; 1897 Leo Tolstoy

According to Tolstoy, art must create a specific emotional link between artist and audience, one that "infects" the viewer. Thus, real art requires the capacity to unite people via communication (clearness and genuineness are therefore crucial values). This aesthetic conception led Tolstoy to widen the criteria of what exactly a work of art is. He believed that the concept of art embraces any human activity in which one emitter, by means of external signs, transmits previously experienced feelings.

So, basically, art needs to 'infect'. Pull emotion from the viewer.

Interactive =/= art?

Interactive art is a genre of art in which the viewers participate in some way by providing an input in order to determine the outcome. Unlike traditional art forms wherein the interaction of the spectator is merely a mental event, interactivity allows for various types of navigation, assembly, and/or contribution to an artwork, which goes far beyond purely psychological activity. Interactivity as a medium produces meaning.

The earliest example of this would from the 1920s, but I found that to be quite meagre by our current standard. This was an interesting read to me, though.
By the way;

Art is a passive experience, and the very second you add to that experience by directly influencing it... you are either the artist or what you are interacting with is not art.

Doesn't that fall into the same category as saying you become a fashion designer when you put on clothes? And, no, not trying to be funny, here. Interactive art is designed to be interacted with and will follow patterns when interacted with. Those who created this are the artist, those who manipulate the art, are viewers.
Unless you hack into the pattern, of course. But, coming back to my fashion idea, that would be same as to unravel a sweater and make something else out of it.

I think, basing on 'art needs to infect' and on the definition of interactive art, one can see a game as art.
The 'infection' doesn't need to be strong. Poor art is still art. One might just not enjoy it.

Anyway!
[/my two cents]

[DudelRok]

An awful lot of postmodern art explicitly breaks that rule.  Of course, a lot of people don't call it "art," but I disagree.

Interacting with art changes the way you view it.  It changes how it affects you.  I don't see how that prevents it from being art.  You can't do anything in a game that the developers didn't mean for you to do (excluding bugs, of course), so why is the experience suddenly "off the tracks" of art?  It's just... more expansive.  You're still having the experience they intended you to have.

Games with multiple endings? (Like Drakengard)

Games with no ending or point? (Minecraft)

Sandbox games?

The FPS?

Games who's purpose is to repulse?

Movie tie in games?

Game sequels?

Final Fantasy (Insert Number Here)?

Also: Postmodern art isn't art.

Dude, I can see your position and it's not entirely goofy, but you lost me at this point:

Games have art in them but are not art as a whole. I play games, unlike Mr. Ebert, and I still have to agree with him. Art is a passive experience, and the very second you add to that experience by directly influencing it... you are either the artist or what you are interacting with is not art.

That's just...no. Anime is art. Is it "high" or "fine" art? No, no more than the sketchy purple bunny you linked (at least not most of it), but it's certainly art. It's not "stashed off in the corner" on sites that include it; it's set aside as its own category for people to find it apart from other kinds of art, much as you might separate sculpture from photography. It's not its own medium, but it's something that appeals greatly to one group and is a total turn-off to another, so it's segregated. That doesn't mean anything about its status as art.

It seems like there's a disconnect in your argument where something can't be considered art if it's not above a certain quality and/or suits your taste, which is problematic.

1) I like Anime.

2) Quality is an issue, indeed.

3) Segregation does, indeed, say something about it's status as art.

Anything separated very specifically from everything else is either superior to the majority or inferior to the majority. That's basic sociology and psychology. In western culture, at least, Anime is very much considered an inferior form of art but cartoons and animations are already on the bridge as it is. Again, the definition of art could be the problem.

The rest of this breaks down to consumerism. Anime is something fed to people, it isn't made to be artistic or even sourced as art. It's created as a means to make money, which is inherently against common art concepts.

If it's a product is it not art.

I see your bunny, and raise you a banana.

Yet you say this in jest.

However, banana wasn't done in paint, banana shows a clear understanding of color contrast and banana was done by freaking Andy Warhol. "Banana" in that instance, is product sold by name. It isn't art. If I went "lol rabbit" (which I did) and made money of fit, I'd STILL not call "Rabbit" art.

Soup can isn't art, either.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

I'm feeling a bit off, so.. this will probably be half ramble/ lot of quoting. I hope it makes sense anyway.

"What Is Art?" (Russian: Что такое искусство? [Chto takoye iskusstvo?]; 1897 Leo Tolstoy

According to Tolstoy, art must create a specific emotional link between artist and audience, one that "infects" the viewer. Thus, real art requires the capacity to unite people via communication (clearness and genuineness are therefore crucial values). This aesthetic conception led Tolstoy to widen the criteria of what exactly a work of art is. He believed that the concept of art embraces any human activity in which one emitter, by means of external signs, transmits previously experienced feelings.

So, basically, art needs to 'infect'. Pull emotion from the viewer.

Interactive =/= art?

Interactive art is a genre of art in which the viewers participate in some way by providing an input in order to determine the outcome. Unlike traditional art forms wherein the interaction of the spectator is merely a mental event, interactivity allows for various types of navigation, assembly, and/or contribution to an artwork, which goes far beyond purely psychological activity. Interactivity as a medium produces meaning.

The earliest example of this would from the 1920s, but I found that to be quite meagre by our current standard. This was an interesting read to me, though.
By the way; Doesn't that fall into the same category as saying you become a fashion designer when you put on clothes? And, no, not trying to be funny, here. Interactive art is designed to be interacted with and will follow patterns when interacted with. Those who created this are the artist, those who manipulate the art, are viewers.
Unless you hack into the pattern, of course. But, coming back to my fashion idea, that would be same as to unravel a sweater and make something else out of it.

I think, basing on 'art needs to infect' and on the definition of interactive art, one can see a game as art.
The 'infection' doesn't need to be strong. Poor art is still art. One might just not enjoy it.

Anyway!
[/my two cents]

Spoiler-ed for size.

I can honestly say I hate the argument: "Poor art is still art." Attempting art and failing at it isn't art. Hitting the ball is not the same as not hitting the ball, It's missing the ball.

This is another situation where it would be hard pressed to even find "fellow artists" would accept their own "bad art" as, well, "actually art." In my opinion it's also a horrible mentality to have. It's like blind acceptance or "keeping an open mind without critical thought."

You accept all the rubbish and can't see the gems through it.

Your argument for interactive art is a very interesting one, though. I want to say there is, however, a difference between what Leo Tolstoy has in mind and what video games are. Tolstoy is talking a singular experience that is the same for everyone who participates in it. See my response to Will on that one. It's a very large vague area which people either blindly accept or, like me, call bullshit.

[Oniya]

Yet you say this in jest.

However, banana wasn't done in paint, banana shows a clear understanding of color contrast and banana was done by freaking Andy Warhol. "Banana" in that instance, is product sold by name. It isn't art. If I went "lol rabbit" (which I did) and made money of fit, I'd STILL not call "Rabbit" art.

Soup can isn't art, either.

I do say it in jest - to some extent.  There are apparently enough people that do consider this and 'Soup can' to be art to put it in museums, though.

[NotoriusBEN]

Games with multiple endings? (Like Drakengard)
However, banana wasn't done in paint, banana shows a clear understanding of color contrast and banana was done by freaking Andy Warhol. "Banana" in that instance, is product sold by name. It isn't art. If I went "lol rabbit" (which I did) and made money of fit, I'd STILL not call "Rabbit" art.

So it is art because it was done by Andy Warhol?

****************************************

On my viewpoint...

not everything is art. and it is increasingly difficult to tell what *is* art in an increasingly media saturated world.

not all paintings are art, nor sculptures, nor books, nor movies, and neither should all games be considered art.
there are some things that just exist as a good experience because it is escapist.
a bunch of RA Salvatore's books, pulp comics, some action flicks, most games.


I think it becomes difficult to tell what is art or worthwhile is because we have developed a ways to literally store *everything*
for practical *eternity*.  Case and point, this here internet.

Im sure there was tons of material from the egyptians and romans and others throughout history, but because they didnt have
a reliable storage medium, only the most pertinent things (or well stored things) made it to our present day.

I wouldnt put it past them to have had as much garbage information as we do, they just threw it away because they couldnt store it.
and it rotted away because they couldnt store it.

hopefully im making sense. (its late)

[DudelRok]

First: I repeat my question...

Why do we (as a collective group of gamers) seek validation? Why do we need it?

I do say it in jest - to some extent.  There are apparently enough people that do consider this and 'Soup can' to be art to put it in museums, though.

Well in the case of Banana and Soup Can there is either a message trying to be said or a point to be made. There purpose is not money as a game's purpose is. Though Banana is as it is because Andy Warhol, which could mean it's simply product but because it is Andy Warhol it tends to get a pass on the assumption it isn't product. Team Ico works like this (as does Kojima with his storytelling), which is why their video games are typically seen as art by many who play them.

Funny Thing: If Kojima turned his stories (Metal Gear, Zone of the Enders, etc) into a different medium he'd be a world rounded and famous artist/author, I guarantee. He'd be seen more by the entire world than just us gamers.

Soup Can (Also Andy Warhol) get's it's pass because it freaking invented pop-art, and because of the so called message.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campbell%27s_Soup_Cans#Message

In this instance I suppose you could say, "I don't get it." The video game argument, however, I DO get... I just don't think it qualifies because:

It's interactive.

It can be altered by the viewer

It is usually created for the purpose of money.

So it is art because it was done by Andy Warhol?

No. I probably was not clear so I clarified above. (Oniya saw what I meant fairly well, though.)

On my viewpoint...

not everything is art. and it is increasingly difficult to tell what *is* art in an increasingly media saturated world.

not all paintings are art, nor sculptures, nor books, nor movies, and neither should all games be considered art.
there are some things that just exist as a good experience because it is escapist.
a bunch of RA Salvatore's books, pulp comics, some action flicks, most games.

Agreed.

I think it becomes difficult to tell what is art or worthwhile is because we have developed a ways to literally store *everything*
for practical *eternity*.  Case and point, this here internet.

Arguable... people have the ability to reach the classics, things that are new and even stuff from their peers and typically only focus on their own thing. It's less the internet and currently a mind-set held by the younger demographic.

Im sure there was tons of material from the egyptians and romans and others throughout history, but because they didnt have
a reliable storage medium, only the most pertinent things (or well stored things) made it to our present day.

I wouldnt put it past them to have had as much garbage information as we do, they just threw it away because they couldnt store it.
and it rotted away because they couldnt store it.

hopefully im making sense. (its late)

The gems will survive history, indeed. The crap will perish.

It is why everything Team Ico touches gets the "art" flag thrown at it (and it's still the only game I can think of that I'd qualify as art as I've not played Flower and Okami's art style is the only thing artistic about it). It's also why you don't hear about all the very horrible video games that exist on 8 and 16-bit platforms. It's why the only people who know about Kane & Lynch are the poor saps that had the misfortune of playing their games and the folks that went "lawl" at said poor saps. Good games are good games. Good writing is good writing. Good movies are good movies. Good music is good music. And crap is crap is crap...

The primary problem, though, is still that video games are created as a product to be sold and are not used as an artistic medium at all. Again, this goes for 90% of everything created since the 1980's, especially movies and music. (Mind you of that 10%, only about 1% of it is good and of the other 90% only half of that is tolerable by most.) A lot of that 90% is "arty," though... but that's not the same.


Art is judged by three things: artists intention, the pieces message and the artists skill.

Video games fail the first two 9.9999~ times out of 10.

Art is also a passive viewer experience, which sends one message (admitting that can be interpreted by others in many ways). Art should also not directly punish (or reward) you for experiencing it outside of the conclusion being punishment or reward enough.

Side: I can think of a TON of games that qualify even under Ebert's line of what art is but they are all independent games and/or flash. With a few PSN/XBL exceptions and already mentioned Team Ico stuff. (Gravity Bone and K.O.L.M. being two very personal favorites.) But that doesn't mean games, in their form and spot light, have any business being seen as art.

[TheGlyphstone]

If 'intended to be sold for money' disqualifies something as art, wouldn't that also rule out people like Piccasso, Van Gogh, and Michaelangelo? They didn't paint for charity, after all. Shakespeare is regarded as 'great literature', despite almost all of his surviving material being the equivalent of pop culture plays aimed at the lowest common denominator.

As for 'validation' - who says we do? I think the problem here is that you view 'gamers' as a separate subculture or culture, rather than the literal 'people who play games'. Games being considered a valid artistic medium like film or literature or canvas would only benefit everyone; a wider supply of options for 'gamers', and a wider pool of people who would expose themselves to games.

[Will]

Dudel, you still didn't really address anything I said.  All I can gather from your response is that you don't like Final Fantasy or postmodern art.

Could you possibly tell me why interacting with art suddenly makes it something else?  As I said, you can't do anything that isn't coded into the game to begin with, so you aren't 'breaking the experience' or any such thing.  You're still having the intended experience.

[DudelRok]

If 'intended to be sold for money' disqualifies something as art, wouldn't that also rule out people like Piccasso, Van Gogh, and Michaelangelo? They didn't paint for charity, after all. Shakespeare is regarded as 'great literature', despite almost all of his surviving material being the equivalent of pop culture plays aimed at the lowest common denominator.

These things were not created as a product. Most of those you listed died poor and hungry. What happens to it after the fact, after big business gets it's hands in and sucks at the teet, is not the art's fault.

If, however, the source and point of these creations were to "make a bucK" we are talking an entire different beast. Think "The Blockbuster Movie" and "The Single" as the equal to what video games basically are. It's about selling consoles and game copies, nothing else. It is not, nor has it ever been, "about the experience." Art is "about the experience."

As for 'validation' - who says we do? I think the problem here is that you view 'gamers' as a separate subculture or culture, rather than the literal 'people who play games'. Games being considered a valid artistic medium like film or literature or canvas would only benefit everyone; a wider supply of options for 'gamers', and a wider pool of people who would expose themselves to games.

The behavior of gamers (as a whole) clearly states that the validation is, indeed, needed. Even game reporting/news asks this very question: Why does everyone raise such a stink? Gamers flock to people who agree and yell at those who don't. Someone else within the thread made mention of this, I don't recall who off the top of my head.

When film was created, film makers didn't shout at the top of their lungs that they where artists and had an art form. Musicians, too. They let it happen naturally and continued with their art regardless of naysayers.

That point is, the community (as a whole) is childish and juvenile. They demand be treated like art and call cave paintings scribbles. If a group of people act like children, you then treat them like children.

Game marketing doesn't help the issue, either.

http://youtu.be/nKkPFDEiC6Q

But this is a divergence from the topic and mostly my opinion on my little community as a whole.

Dudel, you still didn't really address anything I said.  All I can gather from your response is that you don't like Final Fantasy or postmodern art.

Oh, no, I like those things just fine... doesn't make them art. I like me some Lady Gaga, too, but to call her an artist is to shit on Beethoven.

Could you possibly tell me why interacting with art suddenly makes it something else?  As I said, you can't do anything that isn't coded into the game to begin with, so you aren't 'breaking the experience' or any such thing.  You're still having the intended experience.

Pardon me, I did answer your question with a question. (Er... questions.)

I offered up example of games which do not offer you up an intended experience, Drakengard offers up several with with both "official" and "unofficial" endings (a few of which only exist to be "lulzy"). No ending at all, not point at all (Minecraft) or shear market share on name (Final Fantasy).

The FPS is an example of "Tits and Blood is always art." If you agree, well, then I only have question your tastes and the argument is fairly pointless.

Then again, this touches on the "When is nudity art and when is it porn?" But, this too is answered with my previous criteria.

Art is judged by three things: artists intention, the pieces message and the artists skill.

If the intention is to only show tits (or get views 'cause of tits etc), there isn't a message to be conveyed (it's just a girl with a penis in her) and the photo is crap... porn. It'd very difficult for you to find anyone to disagree with that. If they take photos of naked girls cause they know it sells, porn.

This is also not counting game overs, kill screens, corrupted save files and all the other hoop jumping that requires one to play/enjoy their game (PC gaming excluded). And there are things like "the full experience" winch happens, mostly, in RPGs. Hidden items, extra content... stuff most people will never see. Can you call it art if people aren't getting the full (or same) experience? SotC, again, only has that one beautiful story... which is why it gets counted by most in the art department.

Another thing that is problematic is that art is a culture, a culture which gaming and gamers directly go against. You have to look at the examples given to see what art is. SotC is considered on the art level by most, so examine it and see what it is and isn't vs everything else then tell me why you can honestly think video games count as art to any degree. SotC is knocking on the door to the art club and almost looks the part, sure, but the rest of it is frat boys throwing a kegger across the street.


But, again, my primary issue is that video games are a product and nothing else. It's also my issue with modern music, movies, literature and art.

[TheGlyphstone]

These things were not created as a product. Most of those you listed died poor and hungry. What happens to it after the fact, after big business gets it's hands in and sucks at the teet, is not the art's fault.

Shakespeare's plays weren't a product? Dude, he basically wrote the South Park of his era - his plays were performed for the low and middle-class crowds of London, so he wrote them to draw the maximum number of people to see it. That meant crude jokes and puns, lots of violence, and a fair amount of political/social commentary. A playwright's success was determined by the crowds his plays could attract, and Shakespeare was very, very good at that.

Even the 'classical' artists I listed still did it for money; they didn't mass-market their creations, but everything they made was done on commission or for a patron. They still produced for a paycheck, it's just that their paychecks were always handed out by one or a very small group of people.

[Will]

Tits and blood aren't art because you think it's crass?  Lady Gaga isn't art because you think she's not good enough?

What makes you believe that your taste is the universal criterion for what makes art?

[DudelRok]

Shakespeare's plays weren't a product? Dude, he basically wrote the South Park of his era - his plays were performed for the low and middle-class crowds of London, so he wrote them to draw the maximum number of people to see it. That meant crude jokes and puns, lots of violence, and a fair amount of political/social commentary. A playwright's success was determined by the crowds his plays could attract, and Shakespeare was very, very good at that.

Even the 'classical' artists I listed still did it for money; they didn't mass-market their creations, but everything they made was done on commission or for a patron. They still produced for a paycheck, it's just that their paychecks were always handed out by one or a very small group of people.

You missed: "created as"

Shakespeare's plays where not created to be mass produced and sold to the highest bidder. That's product.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_%28business%29

And, no, Shakespeare didn't do it "for cash." He profited from it, yes, but he didn't do it for money. He did it because he wanted to, he wrote as he pleased and most of his work didn't see the light of day until past his death. Video games are done for the money. Shakespeare did it because he's an asshole and liked poking fun at people.

Anything else requires an economic lesson which I am, quite frankly, not going to do.

Tits and blood aren't art because you think it's crass?  Lady Gaga isn't art because you think she's not good enough?

What makes you believe that your taste is the universal criterion for what makes art?

You missed the word "always." Or, rather, you read it incorrectly.

Blood and tits tend to be crass in most situations. It's how they are used that matters. Intent and message are two factors, here. My tastes are not universal, but I am offering up the general consensus of opinion. You would be, again, hard pressed to find many people who disagree with my points of view on this subject. Tits and blood only make things "good" if you are a 14 year old male. Not to say I don't like tits and blood (Zombie Grindhouse being a favorite theme of mine), but it isn't art. They are called exploitation films for a reason.

Lady Gaga isn't an artist because she produces product. She's also not an artist because she's a sideshow. And I mean her act, her dancing, etc... Brittaney Spears and all them are as equally sideshows. "Pay a ticket to see the monkey dance," Kind of thing. But, like many other people, I like to watch the monkey dance. :D

[Shjade]

3) Segregation does, indeed, say something about it's status as art.

Anything separated very specifically from everything else is either superior to the majority or inferior to the majority. That's basic sociology and psychology. In western culture, at least, Anime is very much considered an inferior form of art but cartoons and animations are already on the bridge as it is. Again, the definition of art could be the problem.

The rest of this breaks down to consumerism. Anime is something fed to people, it isn't made to be artistic or even sourced as art. It's created as a means to make money, which is inherently against common art concepts.

If it's a product is it not art.

Pasta is separated very specifically from lettuce. Is pasta better or worse than lettuce? No, but it is very different and not all audiences interested in the one are interested in the other.

Your assumption is flawed. Quality is not the only quantifier for categorization.

As to the latter part, I'd like you to show me how profit invalidates a creation's art status. Your declaration that it is the case is not convincing on its own.

Thirdly, a game having multiple endings as opposed to only one doesn't really matter; it's interactive either way. Having multiple endings is no different than the way a painting will elicit multiple emotional and intellectual responses depending on how you view it on any given day, or the reaction you have to a song depending on when and where you hear it. Clair d'lune (I'm sure I fucked up that spelling) is one of my favorite pieces to hear on piano partly because I have a new, if only slightly different from previous, reaction to it every time I hear it: always a bit haunting, always a bit mournful, but always bringing up different memories to mull over. Likewise, the player can change a song simply by how it's performed - a little softer, a little louder, tiny tweaks here or there can have a curious amount of influence on the piece overall. Does that make it not art?

Your rules about what makes something not art just seem awfully arbitrary and based on your preferences and point of view rather than some concrete ruleset for what is and is not art, which is what you sound like you'd have us believe.

[Will]

I don't think I would be, as you say, hard pressed to find many people who disagree with the points you're making, Dudel.  This thread is fantastic evidence of that.  So, saying that you're putting forth the opinions of the majority is a tough claim to support.

In my opinion, the fact that we find tits and blood crass says more about our screwed up sensibilities as a culture than about our ideas of art.  I don't think it has much bearing at all on the situation, to be honest.

I really have to agree that the qualifications you're setting down for what makes art seem incredibly arbitrary.  Your arguments are full of false dichotomies - among other things - such as the idea that something can't be art if it makes any money.  For example, you say that the various components of a video game are art, even though the finished product is not.  I assume you mean the soundtrack, the character art, the story, etc, etc.  But someone got paid to do each of those things.  Probably lots of someones.  They feed, shelter, and clothe themselves based on the money they make off of that art they produced.  Does that mean they don't love what they do, and put their heart into it?  If an artist does a commission, does that suddenly make it not art?  That's insane.

[Oniya]

In my opinion, the fact that we find tits and blood crass says more about our screwed up sensibilities as a culture than about our ideas of art.  I don't think it has much bearing at all on the situation, to be honest.

Actually, I just spent a rather enjoyable half hour or so surfing through various fine art galleries with lots of nekkid boobies (rather partial to the PreRaphs, but there were plenty of examples in other schools).  I was looking for one that also involved blood, but failed at that - the paintings with blood seemed to all involve men.

[Wolfy]

Actually, I just spent a rather enjoyable half hour or so surfing through various fine art galleries with lots of nekkid boobies (rather partial to the PreRaphs, but there were plenty of examples in other schools).  I was looking for one that also involved blood, but failed at that - the paintings with blood seemed to all involve men.

Well of course...culture and society dictate that Men are the wolves, while women are the sheep. :/

It's a dumb thing, I know, but eh, what can ya do.

[Oniya]

Well, I did find a study for Dali's 'Honey is Sweeter than Blood' that involved a naked female torso and a pool of blood, but the image didn't show up in the finished piece.

[DudelRok]

Pasta is separated very specifically from lettuce. Is pasta better or worse than lettuce? No, but it is very different and not all audiences interested in the one are interested in the other.

Pasta is not a vegetable.

Lettuce is not a grain.

Your assumption is flawed. Quality is not the only quantifier for categorization.

It is not the only quantifier at all, I agree.

As to the latter part, I'd like you to show me how profit invalidates a creation's art status. Your declaration that it is the case is not convincing on its own.

We're missing the point on this one.

CREATION FOR PROFIT =/= Art

Art exists because it's art, not because the artist wanted to make money from it. Andy Warhol made his pop art because he wanted to. He got famous, sure, but that's not why he did his work.

Thirdly, a game having multiple endings as opposed to only one doesn't really matter; it's interactive either way. Having multiple endings is no different than the way a painting will elicit multiple emotional and intellectual responses depending on how you view it on any given day, or the reaction you have to a song depending on when and where you hear it.

Problem: The second example is the exact same piece of work viewed from a different angle. the former is not the exact same piece of work, and it's typically viewed from the same angle.

Clair d'lune (I'm sure I fucked up that spelling) is one of my favorite pieces to hear on piano partly because I have a new, if only slightly different from previous, reaction to it every time I hear it: always a bit haunting, always a bit mournful, but always bringing up different memories to mull over.

Having a different reaction to the same piece of art is not the same as getting the "good ending" vs "the bad ending." You can react to a game that's identical the last time you played in multiple different ways, that's how emotions work and can be applied to anything, including an oil stain on concrete. And that makes things "artistic" in your personal view but that doesn't quantify the oil stain as art, suddenly.

Likewise, the player can change a song simply by how it's performed - a little softer, a little louder, tiny tweaks here or there can have a curious amount of influence on the piece overall. Does that make it not art?

Now we are an artist giving our own rendition of another's art. This is different. That would be the equal of hacking and altering code, something which others told me was not okay. :p

Applied to literature: Fan-fiction

Your rules about what makes something not art just seem awfully arbitrary and based on your preferences and point of view rather than some concrete ruleset for what is and is not art, which is what you sound like you'd have us believe.

You'll find, if you ask anyone who works at a museum, has a job in art, is part of the community period they wont find this rule-set arbitrary or biased. And how am I biased? I play games and love them! I mean, I've even given examples of games that push the boundary of what art is, just like the rest of everyone who's played a game in the last 20 years.

I don't think I would be, as you say, hard pressed to find many people who disagree with the points you're making, Dudel.  This thread is fantastic evidence of that.  So, saying that you're putting forth the opinions of the majority is a tough claim to support.

Uh... you're aware that the thread is biased and is a very minor selection, yes? Go ask real people. People who play games AND do other stuff. People who don't play games, and don't go to a gallery. Though this is equal to Ebert's poll and proves nothing either way on the actual issue.

In the real world, no one cares about video games. In the real world, video games are for children. (Not that I agree with those mentalities, mind you). In the real world, video games, webisodes and all other kinds of things are as far away from art as you can get. I don't disagree with that one, though.

In my opinion, the fact that we find tits and blood crass says more about our screwed up sensibilities as a culture than about our ideas of art.  I don't think it has much bearing at all on the situation, to be honest.

The manner it's done is the problem. Remember the "message" part of my criteria? In most cases "Tits and blood" are for shock value and exploitation, that's it. There isn't a message other than "OMG Tits" and "OMG Blood" most of the time. I like Zombie Grindhouse type stuff, but I wouldn't call it art... remember?

I really have to agree that the qualifications you're setting down for what makes art seem incredibly arbitrary.  Your arguments are full of false dichotomies - among other things - such as the idea that something can't be art if it makes any money.  For example, you say that the various components of a video game are art, even though the finished product is not.  I assume you mean the soundtrack, the character art, the story, etc, etc.  But someone got paid to do each of those things.  Probably lots of someones.  They feed, shelter, and clothe themselves based on the money they make off of that art they produced.  Does that mean they don't love what they do, and put their heart into it?  If an artist does a commission, does that suddenly make it not art?  That's insane.

I'm going to put it this way: A commodity is not art, it's a commodity. A commodity has no soul. A commodity has no purpose other than to feed pockets. A commodity is what KILLS art and drags away what art is supposed to be. Any artist will tell you that. Any artist who hears people singing into voicetone correct will roll their eyes. Any artist who sees a weak Photoshop c/p will call art thief. Such things are deemed not art by even the smallest of art communities.

Making money off your talent is FANTASTIC. But abusing your talents for the soul purpose of cashing in is ugly and takes away a drastic feeling of what art has always been. Those designers, those musicians, those character artists make TONS of designs that never even touch the game... why? Because their deigns WONT SELL! In fact, when a creative idea DOESN'T sell, all further ideas that might have sprang from it are killed. Art doesn't need a publisher. Art just is. A video game's soul purpose 9/10 is "Make money." Not express an idea, not tell a story. Money should be secondary in art and it's something that must be primary in video games because their process is so involved.

Actually, I just spent a rather enjoyable half hour or so surfing through various fine art galleries with lots of nekkid boobies (rather partial to the PreRaphs, but there were plenty of examples in other schools).  I was looking for one that also involved blood, but failed at that - the paintings with blood seemed to all involve men.

Yeah that's not "modern media" either. :p The message in those photos or paintings wasn't "Hey look, boobies!" I'm sure.

I was, and still am, referring to "modern media." Which includes "The Blockbuster" and "The Single." It also includes video games. Safe, easy to consume, mass produced, money making not-art.

[Shjade]

Pasta is not a vegetable. Lettuce is not a grain.

CREATION FOR PROFIT =/= Art

Pasta is a food. Lettuce is a food. They are different kinds of food.

Art is the umbrella. Anime is one of the styles underneath it.

Restating your premise that art created for profit cannot be art is not showing me the truth of that statement. Again: your declaration that it is so is not persuasive on its own.

[DudelRok]

Pasta is a food. Lettuce is a food. They are different kinds of food.

Art is the umbrella. Anime is one of the styles underneath it.

No, artistic talent is the umbrella. I've already stated: "Even bad art is art" doesn't count. "Bad art" is not hitting the ball, it's missing the ball. Quality is not the only thing which counts, but it is one of the things that counts. It does get blurry with "bad on purpose" kind of stuff, though. But the other points help with that.

Stop latching onto only one single thing I say. :p All you heard, and keep hearing is, "Anime is bad." Which it isn't and it's not what I'm saying.

Restating your premise that art created for profit cannot be art is not showing me the truth of that statement. Again: your declaration that it is so is not persuasive on its own.

-

I'm going to put it this way: A commodity is not art, it's a commodity. A commodity has no soul. A commodity has no purpose other than to feed pockets. A commodity is what KILLS art and drags away what art is supposed to be. Any artist will tell you that. Any artist who hears people singing into voicetone correct will roll their eyes. Any artist who sees a weak Photoshop c/p will call art thief. Such things are deemed not art by even the smallest of art communities.

And I can't explain any further without explaining a crap load of economics I can't be arsed to bother with.

If your intent is the almighty dollar, you missed art's point by 5 billion miles. If you want money, go into business, don't cheapen your graceful talents. Video game creators ultimately want money. Which is understandable considering how expensive the medium is.

You also have to remember that video games where created with the intent as toys, and have not changed that much from that mentality either. The entire "game" part of "video game" is also an issue. Are board games art, now, too?

Though, ultimately, my issue is that I've repeated multiple times. Video games are a product, not an art form. If you don't know product from anything else, I can't help you.

[Oniya]

You also have to remember that video games where created with the intent as toys, and have not changed that much from that mentality either. The entire "game" part of "video game" is also an issue. Are board games art, now, too?

Maybe?

[Wolfy]

I'm sure painting utensils were considered toys as well until an artist came along. :/

[Shjade]

No, artistic talent is the umbrella. I've already stated: "Even bad art is art" doesn't count. "Bad art" is not hitting the ball, it's missing the ball. Quality is not the only thing which counts, but it is one of the things that counts. It does get blurry with "bad on purpose" kind of stuff, though. But the other points help with that.

Stop latching onto only one single thing I say. :p All you heard, and keep hearing is, "Anime is bad." Which it isn't and it's not what I'm saying.

I like how you say "'anime is bad' isn't what I'm saying" right under your qualifier that the separated material is separated because it's bad. If it seems like the only thing I'm hearing, maybe it's because you're repeating it.

Art is, itself, a commodity, therefore a commodity can be art. I see no reason why a person with artistic talent who decides to use that talent to make money should have their work invalidated as art: if it is equally evocative emotionally and/or intellectually as a piece made because of peace, love and being groovy, how is it not art?

[Noelle]

At last, a topic I can use my degree to discuss! You'll have to excuse me on this, I can already foresee my response running long, but hopefully with this being Elliquiy U, I can be forgiven for my passion on the subject :)

Dudel, I am primarily going to address your posts.

CREATION FOR PROFIT =/= Art

Art exists because it's art, not because the artist wanted to make money from it. Andy Warhol made his pop art because he wanted to. He got famous, sure, but that's not why he did his work.

This is where I would make the buzzer noise and you'd lose the new car behind door number three. This is the career equivalent of saying "fixing cars for profit != mechanic". It doesn't make sense and simply doesn't hold true in the art world. Passion for your work and desire for profit are not mutually exclusive concepts and this is actually a very dangerous mindset to have, as it can conversely lead people to devalue art. I've had enough people ask me for free art (even businesses), and tell me I should give it to them because "I like to draw anyway". That is one of the most insulting things you can tell an artist, just FYI.

Anyway, I am an artist -- what I mean by this isn't just that I enjoy illustration on the side, but I literally make my living doing art. I just sunk a large quantity of money into getting a degree that shows I'm qualified to make art at a professional level and that I'm serious about my craft. I want to make money with my art. Artists are not a special breed of human being that has no care for obtaining large amounts of currency. On the contrary, money is widely considered the best way to support an artist, gives their work tangible value, not to mention pays their bills. Being an artist isn't just something I do for fun, it's my career. Graphic design and typography are amazingly complicated arts, but yet you see it everywhere, especially in commercial places. You can't escape graphic design -- advertisements, brochures, posters, business cards, nutrition labels, everything right down to books you read and the spacing in the letters, the way fonts are actually made from scratch, the meticulous kerning between letters -- this is commercial art and it takes a lot of skill to make it. I know this because I've had to work my ass off to get my foot in the door as a graphic design artist, which is coincidentally THE most popular job for artists right now because it is also the most commercially successful. Yes, I do it for profit. No, I probably wouldn't do it if there were another artistic job that I could get into that paid better, but if anyone tried to argue with me that what I do isn't art, I have to be honest, I'd probably shoot them down with laser vision from where I'm standing.

Andy Warhol isn't the best example you want on your side, either. You know what he did before he got famous? He was a commercial illustrator, and a widely successful one, at that. Once he started diving into pop art, he got merciless criticism for selling out and making art that was blatantly commercial, capitalist, and mass-appeal in nature. Kitsch art is all about taking things that are pre-loaded with certain emotion and selling it back to the public because you know it has mass appeal. Jeff Koons made giant metal balloon animals because who can't identify with balloon animals? We're all familiar with them, it reminds many people of their childhood, has positive emotions attached, and it's hard to hate. Mickey Mouse is huge in kitsch art. Jeff Koons cut a giant bush into a statue of a puppy because seriously, only terrorists hate puppies. The guy bronzed a statue of Michael Jackson and his monkey.

If, however, the source and point of these creations were to "make a bucK" we are talking an entire different beast. Think "The Blockbuster Movie" and "The Single" as the equal to what video games basically are. It's about selling consoles and game copies, nothing else. It is not, nor has it ever been, "about the experience." Art is "about the experience."

Not exactly!

Actually, art as an experience is something you can thank the postmodernists for. Before Marcel Duchamp in the early 20th century, art was merely a product of an artist's two hands and was viewed in a relatively sterile box from a typical viewpoint. Anything an artist could not produce with his own two hands was not considered. There was no interaction between artist and art, there was no initiative to get into the art's space and be engaged with it, to look closer, to maybe even become a part of the piece. It wasn't until Marcel Duchamp mounted a urinal with a pseudonym on it to a wall that we began to collectively challenge what art is, who can create it, and what the audience's role in the art is. That's where the theory of art for art's sake began. Postmodernists made a pronounced effort to make art more accessible to the common man and to make art a more active part of life instead of the other way around.

If you'd like personal proof, go read my interview with EH&P this month (shameless plug!) -- I don't make art to give others an experience. I don't put meaning into my art because I find it pretentious...at least for me. I don't make art to express deep, hidden emotions. I don't make it to make political statements or to preach my beliefs. I make art that I find aesthetically interesting and that's literally it. I see things that inspire me, but I am not motivated to make a spectacle of what I do. If someone gets some kind of personal meaning out of it after the fact, that's really great and I'd like to hear about it, but it's not why I do what I do. I understand that this isn't the same approach all artists use, but it is my process.

Also, if you'd like a disgusting example of artist hacks who are only in it to make a buck, give ol' Thomas Kinkaid some Google love. He is almost universally reviled in the art world, but has HUGE commercial success...mass amounts of people eat his stale artwork out of the palm of his hand and they even tried to make a literal, real-life gated community based on the houses in his bargain bin Wal-Mart prints. (Can you tell how I feel about him?) As much as I hate to say it, he is, indeed, an artist.

When film was created, film makers didn't shout at the top of their lungs that they where artists and had an art form. Musicians, too. They let it happen naturally and continued with their art regardless of naysayers.

I'm not so sure about musicians, but I'm almost positive that film-makers had to fight to be considered art and didn't actually gain acceptance until -- guess who! -- postmodernists began to expand out into performance art and the like. Photography, to this day, still fights for legitimacy in certain spaces because the contents of a photograph are not of the artist's actual making. People claim that photography requires no skill, and especially in the age of easily accessible digital cameras and Instagram. There's no way they just sat back passively -- photographers had a hell of a time getting their feet in with traditional artists partly because they made things like traditional paintings somewhat obsolete. Why paint realism when you can simply take a photograph? What skill does a photograph even require? The photograph was also devalued as too commercial because you could make an infinite number of prints from the negative and so the concept of an original was more or less destroyed (another postmodern subject).

Oh, no, I like those things just fine... doesn't make them art. I like me some Lady Gaga, too, but to call her an artist is to shit on Beethoven.

You're using your own preferences as a defining factor as to whether someone is an artist or not. I think Lady Gaga is an artist, how would you possibly go about proving me wrong about this? Art is subjective. It literally only takes one person to find something artistic to make it art, even if it's despicable, skill-less, or otherwise deplorable. I hate Picasso with an unrivaled passion. I think his stuff looks terrible. I hate most of Henri Matisse's work, I think his paper cutouts are the most mindless, horrendous-looking pieces of steaming crap I've ever seen. I still consider them artists.

AND THE GRAND FINALE:

I'm going to put it this way: A commodity is not art, it's a commodity. A commodity has no soul. A commodity has no purpose other than to feed pockets. A commodity is what KILLS art and drags away what art is supposed to be. Any artist will tell you that. Any artist who hears people singing into voicetone correct will roll their eyes. Any artist who sees a weak Photoshop c/p will call art thief. Such things are deemed not art by even the smallest of art communities.

I hope from my response thusfar, you're starting to see maybe what's wrong with issuing a statement like this. It is unwise to make statements like "any artist will tell you ______" -- especially if you are not an artist yourself. Forgive my indiscretion if you do make art (I don't know if you do or not), but if so, shame on you even more! :) As an artist, I'm telling you that this blatantly isn't true.

I think most anime art is very poorly done and yet it retains a massive niche market of people who adore it. Take a look around DeviantArt.com -- self-portraits of moody teenage girls are a dime a dozen, and I'd love to play a drinking game to find all the pictures that have some combination of hearts, music notes, and close-ups of words on book pages. One photographer is especially well-known and well-loved and all he/she does is draw faces on inanimate objects like food and take a picture, run a few Photoshop filters, and posts it. These things did not start out as commodities, but the audience gobbled them up, so the artists started producing more like them. Who can blame them? Many artists -- the majority I might dare to say -- care to some extent what their audience thinks of their work. Many artists want to be successful. They want money. If their audience loves what their doing, why wouldn't they continue to do it and why wouldn't others seek to emulate them to get in on some of it too?

The real issue I have with this statement, however, is your assertion of what art should be. That is an entirely subjective statement for an entirely subjective topic. There is no "supposed to be" in art. It's not supposed to be anything, and again, you can thank postmodernists for making it possible. Pre-postmodern art was considered what you could make with your own two hands...By contrast, now there are artists who have pissed in a bottle with the crucifix in it, collected their own bodily fluids in jars, vomited on canvases, masturbated under some floorboards, made rape tunnels, pulled scrolls out of their vaginas, simply wrote instructions on how to make their art and made other people assemble it, filmed themselves having sex, painted a canvas blue and hung it on a wall, put a mustache on the Mona Lisa...the list goes on and on. The fact that you dislike postmodernism is okay -- I hate it too -- but without a proper understanding of art history, it's hard to understand why it is and what greater purpose it's served for art as you know it today.

To bring this back around, even if video games had no artistic elements to them (they do), anything is art if you think it's art. If it sounds like a pretty crazy idea, it's because it is, but it's no less true. Art has already had this conversation long before any of us were born and ironically enough, by trying to elevate its own status in society, art destroyed any definition it had, which makes any attempt at trying to give it boundaries a lesson in futility. The only difference between a vacuum cleaner and a piece of art worth millions of dollars is a glass case.

[Oniya]

Just to clarify, I was the one who brought up Andy Warhol, specifically as a counter to the initial 'You can't call this art with a straight face' comment.  Obviously, people do consider Warhol an artist, but it doesn't make that picture any less a banana (or Magritte's famous piece a pipe - no matter what he says about it.)

[Noelle]

But it wasn't a pipe at all! It was the image of a pipe. It's a tongue-in-cheek way of talking about reality, or what we consider it. A picture of a chair is not a chair, it's a picture, and yet we treat it as a symbol of a chair. There's a certain suspension of disbelief like when you become engaged in a book where, for a time, you imagine the contents of a painting to be real...The text is there to remind you that it's not. Ahh, the glories of modern art!

There are other artists more worthy of indignation than Magritte or Warhol, but that's the thing...they're artists all the same.

I've read a bit more of Dudel's arguments and since the issue seems to be with mass production, quantity, and reproduction, I suggest you take some time and read about modern art instead of dismissing it as garbage. Modern art already had that dialogue without you, especially when photography began to emerge and pushed for acceptance as an art form, but met resistance because it destroyed the idea of what's 'original'. Read about appropriation -- and of artists taking photos of paintings and calling that art. Kitsch/pop art both deal with mass-produced, capitalist art. Sol LeWitt wrote instructions for art that could be created over and over again. Hell, I have the capacity through digital art to make a billion copies of one picture, if I so choose. Art as a commodity is not a new concept.

[Jude]

Adding a bit of art to elaborate on Noelle's point:

[Oniya]

But it wasn't a pipe at all! It was the image of a pipe. It's a tongue-in-cheek way of talking about reality, or what we consider it. A picture of a chair is not a chair, it's a picture, and yet we treat it as a symbol of a chair. There's a certain suspension of disbelief like when you become engaged in a book where, for a time, you imagine the contents of a painting to be real...The text is there to remind you that it's not. Ahh, the glories of modern art!

There are other artists more worthy of indignation than Magritte or Warhol, but that's the thing...they're artists all the same.

I've read a bit more of Dudel's arguments and since the issue seems to be with mass production, quantity, and reproduction, I suggest you take some time and read about modern art instead of dismissing it as garbage. Modern art already had that dialogue without you, especially when photography began to emerge and pushed for acceptance as an art form, but met resistance because it destroyed the idea of what's 'original'. Read about appropriation -- and of artists taking photos of paintings and calling that art. Kitsch/pop art both deal with mass-produced, capitalist art. Sol LeWitt wrote instructions for art that could be created over and over again. Hell, I have the capacity through digital art to make a billion copies of one picture, if I so choose. Art as a commodity is not a new concept.

Assuming that you're talking to me, you're reading indignation where there isn't any.  Probably a bit of whimsy, but no indignation (actually, I'm rather fond of surrealists as well as PreRaphaelites).  MC Escher, one of my absolute favorites, and one that is reproduced heavily, was commissioned (read: hired for money) to produce wall murals in certain buildings.  I'm sure that his sons still get royalties, since his work is still under copyright.

[TheGlyphstone]

MC Escher is the bomb.

[Noelle]

Assuming that you're talking to me, you're reading indignation where there isn't any.  Probably a bit of whimsy, but no indignation (actually, I'm rather fond of surrealists as well as PreRaphaelites).  MC Escher, one of my absolute favorites, and one that is reproduced heavily, was commissioned (read: hired for money) to produce wall murals in certain buildings.  I'm sure that his sons still get royalties, since his work is still under copyright.

Nah, I think about half of that was aimed at you, the other half was me rambling on and on and on since I so rarely get to discuss this with other people ;___;

[Oniya]

Heh.  I can completely understand that.  We seem to be on the same side of the idea that artists can make money, and most of 'em probably want to.

[Zakharra]

Heh.  I can completely understand that.  We seem to be on the same side of the idea that artists can make money, and most of 'em probably want to.

I think of it this way. Which would you rather be? A rich artist or a poor starving one?

[Shjade]

Can we compromise and be rich starving artists?

[Oniya]

Is that along the lines of 'you can never be too rich or too thin?'

Seriously, though.  The great painters and sculptors of the Renaissance had wealthy patrons.  There aren't too many solo donors on that level any more.  Things have evolved so that the donor is now 'the public'.

[Noelle]

The Pope had some pretty deep pockets and a massive set in his trousers to bother commissioning Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel :q

[rick957]

To bring this back around, even if video games had no artistic elements to them (they do), anything is art if you think it's art. If it sounds like a pretty crazy idea, it's because it is, but it's no less true. ...

Question for Noelle or for anyone else who holds this view --

People do certain things with certain works of art, things they would not do with other works of art, or with things that are not art.  How are people to determine which things to do those things with, that is, which things to treat as art?  If, for example, certain artists are being awarded grants by the government based on an assessment of the merit of their work, how should the government decide who gets the money?

For example, what's to keep a bunch of plumbers or mechanics or engineers from snatching up all the NEA grants to fund their "art"?  Similarly, what's to keep a bunch of terrible artists from doing the same and leaving better artists without grants?

These aren't facetious questions or argument for argument's sake.  It seems to me that there are practical problems with the definition of art given above.  I'm curious how those practical problems can be surmounted without making at least a provisional attempt at defining art vs. non-art, and -- trickier still -- defining good art vs. less-good art.  My guess is that the definition above is useless when it comes to most practical applications.  It's a fine definition unless and until one actually needs a definition, but it's not very helpful in any of those circumstances.  Agree?  Disagree?

[TheGlyphstone]

Two problems I see with that - first, that being a plumber and being an artist are mutually exclusive, or an engineer and an artist, etc. That should be fairly obvious, though.

Second, and the thornier one you pointed out - who gets to decide what is good art and what isn't? It can't be based on previous work, because then no new artist would ever be able to enter the field. If it's determined by the people dispensing the grant, it becomes a political issue as only artists who match their tastes and sensibilities become eligible in truth. There's a lot of problems that make defining 'good art' very problematic.

[Oniya]

According to the National Endowments for the Arts, grants are typically given to organizations, not individuals.  So, these hypothetical plumbers and engineers would have to first get involved with a 501(c) non-profit organization.

[Noelle]

Question for Noelle or for anyone else who holds this view --

People do certain things with certain works of art, things they would not do with other works of art, or with things that are not art.  How are people to determine which things to do those things with, that is, which things to treat as art?  If, for example, certain artists are being awarded grants by the government based on an assessment of the merit of their work, how should the government decide who gets the money?

For example, what's to keep a bunch of plumbers or mechanics or engineers from snatching up all the NEA grants to fund their "art"?  Similarly, what's to keep a bunch of terrible artists from doing the same and leaving better artists without grants?

These aren't facetious questions or argument for argument's sake.  It seems to me that there are practical problems with the definition of art given above.  I'm curious how those practical problems can be surmounted without making at least a provisional attempt at defining art vs. non-art, and -- trickier still -- defining good art vs. less-good art.  My guess is that the definition above is useless when it comes to most practical applications.  It's a fine definition unless and until one actually needs a definition, but it's not very helpful in any of those circumstances.  Agree?  Disagree?

This is a good -- and relevant question. Mostly, there is no universal answer, at least none that I can think of. Since the postmodern era, art has become largely about the intent for it to be art. There's a clever little saying in the art world -- Modern art = "I could've done that" + "Yeah, but you didn't". There were plenty of movements that tried to define what art "is" as well as "high vs. low" art forms. This is where a pretentious sense of sophistication comes in -- only a certain, small group of people ever decides what high art is, and those are the people with enough money, power, influence, or all of the above to decide what gets put on display. It comes down to personal taste, or as Banksy has so eloquently put it, "The Art we look at is made by only a select few. A small group create, promote, purchase, exhibit and decide the success of Art. Only a few hundred people in the world have any real say. When you go to an Art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires..."

Granted, I don't doubt that many of these people have some kind of grounding in art/art history enough to make decent decisions, but as I said earlier...I hate Matisse and Picasso, I think Matisse's paper cuttings in particular are boring clutter and I wouldn't put them in any museum of mine, but someone found importance in them, and maybe that's what it comes down to, not to mention its overall cultural impact, certainly its vision, and its intent. If an engineer or a plumber could demonstrate that their art is primarily art and not primarily plumbing or engineering or some other discipline, I wouldn't have an issue seeing a grant go to them, but then they would be artists and not plumbers or engineers!

Anybody can find what they do to be art in some form, after all, kindergarteners don't feel too discouraged by the existence of Monet to play with fingerpaints, but I'd wager that most critics are more concerned with the level of skill, development, message, and execution. The hardest part is that 'art' is such a hugely encompassing category, about on par with saying 'science' -- there are hundreds of categories and sub-categories within...visual arts, performance art, writing, music, acting...I see things like grants ultimately as being a product of a limited -- but educated scope of opinions, but those opinions only have bearing on that grant and not actually defining what you do as art or not. If you see grants and other monetary compensations or public notoriety as a sign of validation that what you're doing is art, I suppose it matters, but for the rest of us, we plod on.

[Jude]

Before everything was considered art the debate was about what is or isn't art.  Now that everything is considered art, the debate is about what is or isn't good art.  Essentially nothing has changed, and Rick's question is the same question that persisted before, only now we can admit that art itself is too subject to define and we are engaging in something that is self-admittedly subjective (determining what good art is).

Remember, just because Video Games are art doesn't mean that they're good art.  But then again there's LA Noire, which is basically an awesome Hollywood-quality film, so that's a difficult generalization to make :D

[Chocolate Sin]

When I think of video games as art, I'm reminded of the legions of plays which incorporate audience participation into their performance. Does the audience's ability to interact with the characters of the play make it somehow not art? It doesn't seem as though that would be sufficient. Similarly, video games can be thought of as interactive theatre of a sort, which can allow for a great deal of (Minecraft) or very little (MGS4) audience participation. And it seems that not only does encouraging audience participation not disqualify video games, it makes them a hell of a lot of fun to interact with because it allows people to make their own experience, much as one might in a freestyle rap battle (which is also art).

[rick957]

Buh -- Now waitaminute, Jude.  Who's this "we" you're talking about?  :)  Personally I have no problem with the idea of art having an objective definition, and I think good art has all kinds of identifiable features that differentiate it from shitty art.  Although I also think that the definition of art that Noelle mentioned -- roughly speaking, that it's all in the eye of the beholder, all subjective, essentially indefinable -- from what I can tell, that seems to be the prevailing popular definition, at least in academia, which is where people are most likely to fret over things like defining art or defining good art vs. bad art.

Noelle -- your response seemed very well-considered and reasonable, but I still have a logical complaint with your view, as I understand it, which goes something like this:  in practical circumstances, people do differentiate between art vs. non-art, and good art vs. bad art.  They do so anytime they decide whether to watch a movie or play basketball instead.  They do so anytime they decide which movie to watch, or which book to read.  The NEA does so when they decide which artists qualify as artists (sorry, um ... which artist organizations qualify -- thank you Oniya) (were you being snarky?  sounded a bit snarky to me!  ;)  ), or which artists are more deserving of grants than other, less promising or less gifted artists. 

If you study what it is that people like or don't like about art or a piece of art -- say, the works of Picasso -- you can identify a set of features that characterize good art, and a different set of features that characterize bad art; and you can identify a set of features that differentiate art from non-art.  Taken together, those features comprise a practical, working definition, one that is used as an objective reference point for making real-world decisions about what to do with art.

Claiming that art can only be defined subjectively by each individual is to give it a non-definition, a definition that is not useful in most situations in which one needs a definition, and those situations are the only relevant circumstances in which the definition of art matters. 

I'm playing devil's advocate a bit here, overstating my case -- there is value in recognizing the importance of the audience's response as a means of determining what is art or what is good art.  There's also value in recognizing the incredibly wide array of things to which people respond in a way that resembles their response to art.

I've been mulling over my definition of art while perusing this thread, but for the most part, I don't have a neat, nailed-down definition, but I do have many particular characteristics that I associate with art as opposed to non-art, and good as opposed to shitty art.  Also, so far, the most compelling statement I've seen in this thread that points toward what I consider a valid definition of art is this one, from Jude -- a statement which, perhaps ironically, is probably in pretty good keeping with the definition of art Noelle cited, which I disagreed with:

I definitely have more attachment to video games than I have to other works of art.  ...
To me, video games are art, because that's how I respond to them.

There's something to that, I think.

[NotoriusBEN]

So then how do we decide who gets an art grant and who doesnt? Seems like a crapshoot to me, unless we wire everyone together to get a group consensus of what is or is not art. ?.?

Even then, if everyone were together in such a think box, everything would be considered art by a portion of the consensus, but then, how much of a percentage would be needed to allow a grant and be fair?

And as I consider this, it would lead to artists trying to cater to the masses to have a better chance of being accepted than by radical artists that could care less about group consensus, but would still need the money...

Its a lot of ifs and buts, and Im not going to defend any of my statements, just something that is on my mind.... stupid subjectivity...

[Noelle]

Noelle -- your response seemed very well-considered and reasonable, but I still have a logical complaint with your view, as I understand it, which goes something like this:  in practical circumstances, people do differentiate between art vs. non-art, and good art vs. bad art.  They do so anytime they decide whether to watch a movie or play basketball instead.  They do so anytime they decide which movie to watch, or which book to read.  The NEA does so when they decide which artists qualify as artists (sorry, um ... which artist organizations qualify -- thank you Oniya) (were you being snarky?  sounded a bit snarky to me!  ;)  ), or which artists are more deserving of grants than other, less promising or less gifted artists. 

Of course they do, and of course the response isn't entirely logical. In fact, in many aspects, defining art is infuriatingly counterintuitive because it tends to be that people will certainly claim they "know" art when they see it -- and that's perfectly valid to them and it works, but it is not universal. You know a cat when you see it -- no matter what language you call it, that thing is still a cat no matter how hard you want to deny its biology. Art, on the other hand, is a fluid, slippery thing. Certainly a person knows art when they see it because by its very definition, one person can make it art.

But that's easy enough to say when it's art that's relatively tame.

It becomes more challenging when you start digging into territory that is not art as we come to know it...Not as sterile, nonoffensive pictures on the wall or lifeless sculptures more suited for decoration, but rather as something that can make you uncomfortable, angry, shocked, horrified, or even conversely inspired to action. Joseph Beuys made art that was blatantly intended to be social; by influencing others to take social action, his art was not only a performance art, but every action, every thing that his students did from there on out was also his art, as well -- he set it in motion, like dominoes, and his message, teachings, and ultimately his artistry is reflected in their work, in a way that he continues to live on. He inspired a mass planting of trees around Germany that continues with a new group even today. It was his main belief that anyone -- literally anyone could be an artist and that art was conversely meant to be accessible to anyone. His art was often just his chalkboard alone after one lesson, as he was a teacher as well as an artist.

This makes it awfully ambiguous, wouldn't you say? This is a clear example of someone using something like planting trees as a way to provoke thought and make a tangible change in his environment. His artistry isn't necessarily in the outcome, but the process, which is a dramatic shift from art before the mid-20th century or so, which was more focused on the end result. Art is not just a measurable result, but an action, as well, or art as a verb.

If you study what it is that people like or don't like about art or a piece of art -- say, the works of Picasso -- you can identify a set of features that characterize good art, and a different set of features that characterize bad art; and you can identify a set of features that differentiate art from non-art.  Taken together, those features comprise a practical, working definition, one that is used as an objective reference point for making real-world decisions about what to do with art.

Claiming that art can only be defined subjectively by each individual is to give it a non-definition, a definition that is not useful in most situations in which one needs a definition, and those situations are the only relevant circumstances in which the definition of art matters. 

But why do we need an objective definition, and is it practical for art itself? Clement Greenberg tried his damndest to pin down a list of medium-specific rules and force a standard of art. Paintings could not be anything but perfectly flat -- if your paint built up on the canvas, it technically became sculpture, and crossing mediums made art "impure". He tried to enforce a strict set of standards to "purify art", and some artists changed their course to fit with his criticisms, but ultimately his formalism fizzled out and, humorously enough, provoked a long line of movements thereafter that were directly reactionary to his stiff, uptight ideas and purposely shifted away from his attempts at pinning them down.

We live in a very fortunate era in that art has liberated itself to even allow us to have this conversation to begin with.

Truthfully, I went into all of my modern art classes with a set standard of expectations that weighed very unfairly against it. I hated it, I rejected everything about modern art. It was infuriating, incomprehensible, and pointless. I'm not sure what happened exactly, but I came out of the classes with an appreciation of the genius of modern art, even if I still hate the products. It's not always just about the eye-roll-worthy canvases painted a single color or the weird woman standing on a stage letting people cut clothing off of her (what's up, Yoko). Vacuum cleaners under glass is really just a knock on capitalism -- Jeff Koons didn't ask anyone to pay millions, and, in fact, one might even say he used it to point out the absurdity of art to begin with...and if we can agree that art is quite absurd, it's fair to say that art in of itself is an illogical, nonsensical thing...which is also precisely what Popes past have complained of, because postmodernism has seemingly destroyed any sense of meaning in objectivity.

[Wyrd]

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Pasta is not a vegetable.

Lettuce is not a grain.

It is not the only quantifier at all, I agree.

We're missing the point on this one.

CREATION FOR PROFIT =/= Art

Art exists because it's art, not because the artist wanted to make money from it. Andy Warhol made his pop art because he wanted to. He got famous, sure, but that's not why he did his work.

Problem: The second example is the exact same piece of work viewed from a different angle. the former is not the exact same piece of work, and it's typically viewed from the same angle.

Having a different reaction to the same piece of art is not the same as getting the "good ending" vs "the bad ending." You can react to a game that's identical the last time you played in multiple different ways, that's how emotions work and can be applied to anything, including an oil stain on concrete. And that makes things "artistic" in your personal view but that doesn't quantify the oil stain as art, suddenly.

Now we are an artist giving our own rendition of another's art. This is different. That would be the equal of hacking and altering code, something which others told me was not okay. :p

Applied to literature: Fan-fiction

You'll find, if you ask anyone who works at a museum, has a job in art, is part of the community period they wont find this rule-set arbitrary or biased. And how am I biased? I play games and love them! I mean, I've even given examples of games that push the boundary of what art is, just like the rest of everyone who's played a game in the last 20 years.

Uh... you're aware that the thread is biased and is a very minor selection, yes? Go ask real people. People who play games AND do other stuff. People who don't play games, and don't go to a gallery. Though this is equal to Ebert's poll and proves nothing either way on the actual issue.

In the real world, no one cares about video games. In the real world, video games are for children. (Not that I agree with those mentalities, mind you). In the real world, video games, webisodes and all other kinds of things are as far away from art as you can get. I don't disagree with that one, though.

The manner it's done is the problem. Remember the "message" part of my criteria? In most cases "Tits and blood" are for shock value and exploitation, that's it. There isn't a message other than "OMG Tits" and "OMG Blood" most of the time. I like Zombie Grindhouse type stuff, but I wouldn't call it art... remember?

I'm going to put it this way: A commodity is not art, it's a commodity. A commodity has no soul. A commodity has no purpose other than to feed pockets. A commodity is what KILLS art and drags away what art is supposed to be. Any artist will tell you that. Any artist who hears people singing into voicetone correct will roll their eyes. Any artist who sees a weak Photoshop c/p will call art thief. Such things are deemed not art by even the smallest of art communities.

Making money off your talent is FANTASTIC. But abusing your talents for the soul purpose of cashing in is ugly and takes away a drastic feeling of what art has always been. Those designers, those musicians, those character artists make TONS of designs that never even touch the game... why? Because their deigns WONT SELL! In fact, when a creative idea DOESN'T sell, all further ideas that might have sprang from it are killed. Art doesn't need a publisher. Art just is. A video game's soul purpose 9/10 is "Make money." Not express an idea, not tell a story. Money should be secondary in art and it's something that must be primary in video games because their process is so involved.

Yeah that's not "modern media" either. :p The message in those photos or paintings wasn't "Hey look, boobies!" I'm sure.

I was, and still am, referring to "modern media." Which includes "The Blockbuster" and "The Single." It also includes video games. Safe, easy to consume, mass produced, money making not-art.

lol!